‘UK yam investors’ coming to train exporters’ on storage is embarrassing’
Nigerians have started picking holes on the planned visit of some United Kingdom (UK) investors in yam and agriculture to come and train Nigerian exporters on how best to store yams meant for export.
Some experts who spoke to our correspondent said on the matter queried if there are no more agro experts that will impact same and better yam processing knowledge on our farmers and exporters?
To many of them, bringing in UK experts to come and teach Nigerians how to package yam, is an embarrassment on the collective intelligence of all Nigerian professionals’ in the sector.
It would be recalled that sets of Nigerian yams packaged and exported to both UK and US got rotten on arrival, thus causing unprecedented loss which the ministry had refused to disclose to Nigerians so far.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, who opened up on the ‘strange’ plan of inviting UK experts they are coming to train exporters of agricultural produce on the international standard for exporting their produce to forestall rejection.
Ogbeh, who decried the rejection of agricultural produce at the international market as one too many, said the investors would be coming into the country to train exporters on storage, packaging and labelling of their produce in line with international standard.
In his further submission, aggrieved Ogbeh averred that “If Nigeria is able to produce agricultural produce according to international standard, there is nothing stopping it from increasing our export to the U.K., as the country cannot keep waiting for oil and gas”.
However, the minister refused to agree that the cause of the damages is linked to delays by the shipping firms who lacked cold rooms and bureaucracies perpetrated by government maritime agencies at the ports including the quarantine services under his ministry.
