The European Union (EU) has given Nigeria June 16, 2016 deadline to put a management system in place to reduce pesticide-contaminated food products the country exports to the region or face continued rejection of its exports.
Meanwhile, the National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) is worried that these food products rejected at the international market because of their high pesticide residue are actually what Nigerians consume at home.
NAFDAC director-general, Dr Paul Orhii said this could explain the increased level of cancers, kidney failures and different other diseases in the country.
Orhii made these known Monday when the new Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), Col Hameed Ali (rtd.) visited him in Abuja adding that NAFDAC seeks collaboration in safeguarding the health of the nation.
He said: “We have taken on the job to make sure that we are going to deploy mobile laboratories that will go from farms and markets to identify at what point these contaminants get into the food products and once we identify it we will conduct public awareness campaign and workshops for the people growing these foods.
“We also want to put a system in place so that before these products leave our shores to the international markets, the NCS can inquire and test these products to curb the incidence of rejects in the markets.”
According to NAFDAC, the rejection of Nigeria’s food items on the international market especially Europe, United States and Japan because of concerns on the quality of some of the products is crippling the economy of Nigeria.
“This is most especially when it comes to agricultural products like sesame seeds and beans which sometimes contain some contaminants like aflatoxins-pesticides residue.
“When we came in, Nigerian cocoa beans were being rejected at the international market because of pesticides residue; but we held workshops with cocoa growers in Akure and since then, our cocoa exports have improved,” Orhii added.
He said that NAFDAC’s collaboration with NCS has come a long way right from the inception of the agency and pledged his commitment at making such collaboration grow even stronger.
“We are very happy that you talked about using technology to make our work easier and we will continue to improve in that regard.
“We are also aware of the radical reforms going on in Nigerian Customs under your command and we fully support it and assure you that we are poised to partner with NCS to keep Nigeria off smuggled counterfeit and substandard regulated products,” Orhii said.
-Leadership