Posted on February, 14, 2019 at 09:18 am
The Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) said it has trained dried beans farmers and merchants in the North East geo-political zone on export guidelines, to put an end to the rejection of Nigeria's dried beans by countries in the European Union.
The Deputy Director of Product Development at NEPC, Mr Samuel Oyeyipo, disclosed this in Gombe during a one-day capacity building workshop organised for farmers and dried beans merchants.
He said the purpose was to guide value chain operators to easily adopt the best practices in meeting European Union markets' requirements.
The deputy director said the move was an additional effort by the council at reducing the incidence of rejection of beans and other agricultural exported to Europe and other parts of the world.
"Nigeria's agricultural produce exports have been encountering challenges of rejection in the international markets primarily due to non-adherence to sanitary measures poor packaging, labelling and insufficient information on nutritional content," Oyeyipo said.
In a welcome address, Northeast Regional Coordinator of NEPC, Mr Andy Ambikputen, said the workshop was one of the efforts being made by the council since 2015 when EU markets placed Nigeria on suspension, "due to non-conformity to EU's requirement on export of agricultural products including beans.
"NEPC considers it an issue of national priority to organise the workshop for farmers and dried beans producers in Northeast, to sensitise the value chain operators especially farmers and merchants on the best practice to meet the EU requirement and even for the safety of our populace," Ambikputen explained.
He added that the council was making efforts to achieve the zero targets for acceptance of beans at the global markets and implement the appropriate risk management measures and food safety guarantee for compliance with the EU requirements.
Source: Daily Trust