Stakeholders in agriculture standardisation and grading system have begun a validation exercise on the draft policy framework on standard grading system to ensure the sector complies with standards globally.
Led by Nigeria AgriBusiness Group, (NABG), the stakeholders, at a National Validation Workshop organised by NABG, in partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Nigeria National Accreditation System and HarvestPlus, among others, said until Nigeria got its grading processes right, it would continue to lose money at the international markets as produce would at giveaway amounts.
Director General, NABG, Jafar Umar, said it was saddening that Nigerian commodities failed to compete favourably with other countries’ commodities in the global market; hence, the importance of the draft policy to put the nation on track for the attainment of excellent grading and standardisation.
He said: “As most of you may be aware, Nigerian commodities struggle to perform effectively in the international market because a lot of our commodities are not standardised and graded, so they end up being rejected in these markets.
“Even within the domestic market, there is a mixture of standardised products and products that are not standardised, the consumer is forced to pick everything off the shelves as they are, so we are introducing and supporting the development of this policy to ensure commodities being produced in Nigeria are graded and standardised so that the farmers, who produced these commodities receives fair value.”
Senior Programme Officer, Agriculture at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, (BMGF), Dr Audu Grema, explained that the meeting aimed to bring stakeholders to understand the policy for collective buy-in and for everyone to also understand what the policy was all about.
He said: “At the end of the validation workshop, we expect greater access to the standards of ratings, greater partnership with exporters and importers to at standards and ratings as applicable to Nigeria and greater k knowledge and awareness around adulteration and poor standards that can offend the system that had been set up.”
Director-General of Nigeria National Accreditation System and Project Consultant for the validation exercise, Celestine Okanya, said that commodity grading and standardisation had been a challenge for Nigeria because local commodity dealers that wished to access the international market could only get appropriate reward for their efforts if they were able to sell at the international market prices, but “you cannot achieve international market prices if you don’t have the price tied to a grade.”
