Yobe irrigation farmers decry lack of storage facilities

Vegetable farmers in Yobe have decried poor storage facilities to preserve their produce after harvest, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

A survey conducted by NAN in Damaturu on Thursday revealed that most farmers lost their harvests to poor storage facilities.

Alhaji Adamu Mai Tumatur , a farmer, said “irrigation farmers lose more vegetables than what was usually sold out”.

‘‘Tomatoes were in the recent past available everywhere but it is now exhausted due to poor storage.”

Ali Usman, a grocery seller, said prices of fresh tomatoes and pepper have suddenly gone up because of the declining supply from the farms.

“Farmers have to cut into pieces the vegetables to dry them up as the only means of storage thereby reducing the value and sold at lesser prices to avoid total loss.”

Bunu Giedam, an onion farmer in Giedam, said “the harvest of onions is now at its peak and a bag is sold for just N3, 000 with many getting rotten due to lack of storage facilities.

‘‘Very soon the price will increase because it will run out of stock few months after harvest.”

The farmers appealed for partnership with the State Government and the Federal Government to provide storage facilities to encourage farmers to boost production.

Meanwhile, Gov. Ibrahim Gaidam has urged NAFDAC to curb the use of dangerous chemicals in preserving onions.

Gaidam made the call when Ms Yetunde Ini, Acting Director-General, NAFDAC, paid him a courtesy call in Damaturu on Tuesday.


He described as worrisome the use of dangerous chemicals to preserve food, drinks and other consumables.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tomato disease outbreak: Institute appeals for research funding

The National Horticultural Research Institute, Ibadan, has appealed for funding to carry out research and create awareness on the tuta absoluta pest on tomatoes. The Institute’s Head of Vegetable Programme, Dr Olagorite Adetula, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Friday that there was an urgent need to tackle the problem to save the economy. Adetula said the institute needed money to do surveillance survey of the pest/damage, ascertain the impact of the damage and proffer solution for eradicating the pest. She appealed to the Federal Government to help the institute get pheromones to lure and trap the pests and distribute to farmers. ``Spraying insecticides is not the best, the pest has high production rate, some of them can escape while spraying it and they will be resistant to the insecticide thereby causing us more cost. ``The pheromones can be used for six to eight weeks before changing it, it is very effective, the pest has short life cycle, wit
Read more

10,000 women farmers to be engaged in ECOWAS rice project – official

Image
 Mr Richard Olafare, the President, Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nigeria (SEEDAN) says 10,000 women will be engaged in the recently inaugurated Rice Seed Up-Scaling Project. This is contained in a presentation on the project made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday. Olafare said 8,000 youths would also be engaged in the scaling project. According to him, the number of women and youths represented 50 per cent and 40 per cent respectively of the 20,000 farmers that will participate in the project. NAN reports that the project is an initiative of the West Africa Seed Programme (WASP) in support of the ECOWAS Rice Offensive Programme that was inaugurated in 2014. Among other objectives, it is targeting the production of 60,000 metric tonnes of paddy rice for Nigeria by December 2017, using 1,200 certified seeds. The project is being implemented by SEEDAN in collaboration with the West and Central Africa Council for Agricultural Re
Read more

NEGPRO project can create more jobs with inclusion of meat production— Badmus

•Tuns Farm leads food safety, quality system audit The Chairman , Tuns Farms Nigeria, Asiwaju Olatunde Badmus, has disclosed that the proposed one million jobs expected to be created through the National Egg Production Scheme (NEGPRO) can be doubled if extended to meat production. He made this known when a team from the office of the Vice President, Federal Ministries of Agriculture, Health and Education at the company’s headquarters in Osogbo, the Osun state capital recently. Olatunde Badmus, while sharing the company’s experience on chicken inclusion in the Osun state’s school meal program which the company has been handling since the introduction of the school feeding program four years ago, said they can achieve so much more in terms of job creation through meat production “As we speak, six state governors among who are Kebbi and Borno, have signalled their government’s preparedness to look into this and have invited TUNS farm to their states to discuss modalities for
Read more