Ganduje solicits for commodities certification center
Kano State Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje has appealed to the Federal Government to locate a Commodities Certification Centre in Kano to assist farmers in the state promote quality of their produce.
Ganduje made the call at the flagging-off of the nationwide advocacy on Agricultural Quality Control and Standardization, across the six geo-political of the zones, tagged “Zero Reject Initiative” at the Government House in Kano.
He noted that the mainstay of the state’s economy was agriculture and its population was the largest in the country, hence the need for its farmers to adhere to international best practices in terms of agro outputs, to enhance food production and fast track economic development.
“It is only when our farm produce are quality assured that they will become marketable. The more we grow and export good produce, the better for us as farmers and the better for the national economy,” he said.
He said, “Kano has been selected to be the focal state for the launch of this initiative, which is aimed at improving agricultural produce to the standards for export because agricultural products have been rejected several times by other countries due to so many factors including lack of traceability of farm produce and contamination among others.”
The Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, who was represented by a director in the Ministry, Dr. Aminu Babandi stated that selection of Kano for the flag off of the initiative was as a result of the
position of the state in the scheme, pointing out that the advocacy was targeted at farmers and other stakeholders along the food chain.
Chief Ogbeh disclosed that the Federal government “will establish commodities certification centers across the zones to aid certification, standardization and traceability.”
“The ban on dry beans from Nigeria by EU, geared our attention to what is an eye opener that we have actually been consuming poison unknowingly. It is good to mainstream food safety into agricultural production if we want to really diversify our economy using agriculture as veritable tool,” he stated.