ARSO Strategises to Boost Agriculture in Africa

The African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO) yesterday announced plans to deploy standards and strategies to boost agriculture in Africa, noting that the move was to ensure that African countries adhere and comply with global best standards to impact positively on their economies.

Member of the ARSO Council and Acting Director General, Standards Organisation of Nigeria ( SON), Dr. Paul Angya, said standardisation of produce would boost Africa’s end products competitiveness at the global market.

He disclosed this at the ongoing 22nd ARSO General Assembly, 54th Council Meeting and Made in Nigeria Expo in Arusha, Tanzania.

Angya noted that the African standards body intends to help African countries revolutionise its agricultural sector and also adopt new technologies to boost productivity.

He added that the development would help Africa to move away from reliance on food imports, to securing food supplies through rapid and sustainable increase in food production.

Angya reiterated that Africa’s year of quality infrastructure would be used to chart new priorities and strategies for agriculture, maintaining that with the new standardisation efforts, the input supply and product processing sectors would become more consolidated, concentrated and integrated.

He noted that contributions of the organisation in harmonising standards for fertilizers and agrochemicals for agricultural sector the aimed to boost international trade, pointing out that there is a great improvement in African countries aligning with international standards to improve their market access and boost regional trade.

He said standards had become a tool in the fight for competitiveness and for creating barriers for regional trade while emphasising the need for African standards to be a benchmark against international standards.

According to him, Africa’s regional cooperation and deeper integration of services and standards will increase trade among Africa’s countries, saying this is a given priority in ARSO.

He noted that plans were also ongoing to ensure that membership of the body was increased to foster involvement of many regions in the intra- African trade.

Also speaking at the event, the Minister for Trade, Industry and Investment of the United Republic of Tanzania, Mr. Charles Mwijage, tasked ARSO to fast track the harmonisation process, saying it was long over due and urged ARSO to develop concrete proposals in harmonising standards, adding that standards remained a key component of competitiveness.

ASRO Secretary General, Dr. Hermogene Nsengimana , noted that capacity building, women empowerment, value addition to agriculture produce and link to the African Union continental free trade areas were needed for Africa to have its global market share.

Nsengimana urged members to effectively explore other international standardisation partners to fast track industrialisation.