Minister reads riot act to agencies over use of Snipers, others in agro preservation
Following revelation via a viral video showing the use of Snipers for preservation of Beans, a staple proteinous food in Nigeria, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, has called for end and discovery of a suitable means of preservation of all edible agro products.
Addressing all the heads of agencies and departments under his ministry and other related bodies, the Minister made it clear that “Nigeria is in a real crisis as a result of the use of harmful chemicals for the preservation of agricultural produce by farmers and dealers in the sector”.
“The recent discovery where a trader who sells beans was seen using a poisonous chemical, Sniper, to preserve the commodity is deadly and unacceptable”.
According to him, “You’ve heard the whole detail, it is now Sniper. But there are other problems we have. There are food sellers in Nigeria who use calcium carbide to ripen bananas, mangoes and avocado pears and this is not good for our health.
“What we see now is the use of Sniper and they say it damages the lungs if it is put in your food. We also have weevil control in beans and people use aluminium phosphate. We have other challenges like the preservation of chicken with formaldehyde, particularly smuggled chicken from across the borders.”
Explaining more, Ogbeh averred that “We are really in a crisis, but the big problem is how do we get people to know that this is bad? We here will understand very easily. Downstream where the farmers and small buyers are, they just don’t know.
“No human being is safe in an environment like this because when they cook the beans you don’t know where it came from, you don’t know how much Sniper is in it.”
In his submission, he charged all relevant agencies to begin to “work together to educate Nigerians on why some chemicals must not be used for the preservation of agricultural produce”.
Chief Ogbeh and all the heads of departments and agencies agreed to develop a very strong strategy and committee for reaching farmers, fabricators, buyers and so on, everywhere with best practices in preserving agro products.
Business Hilights recalls that Nigerian Beans and other agro products are still under the banned list of European imports from Nigeria based on their findings that Nigeria uses dangerous chemicals to preserve the products for export.
