NAN-AE-3
Training
By Chidinma Agu
Lagos, April 3, 2017 (NAN) Mr Femi Odusanya, a Vegetable Consultant at Mile 12 Market, Lagos, on Monday urged government agencies and other organisations to organise value chain training for traders in the market.
Odusanya, who gave the advice in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, stressed that practical efforts should be made to train the traders on how to preserve their commodities.
According to him, there is gross wastage of agricultural produce at the market on a daily basis.
“The government agencies and organisations that have something to do with agriculture have not lived up to their expectations.
“We daily hear of training on agriculture value chain, yet, nobody deemed it fit to involve the market, which takes delivery of almost half of what is produced in the country, in the training.
“We are surviving today and doing the little we can because of the interventions of international partners, and we are grateful to them.
“There are over 5,000 traders in Mile 12 Market and they need to be trained in this agriculture value chain, so as aid efforts to minimise produce losses in the market,” he said.
Odusanya, however, said that the market associations had been recognising enterprising youths and empowering them to set up their own shops.
He also said that those who had a penchant for farming had been assisted to establish farms within and outside Lagos.
“But we can only do little as associations; in our efforts to delve into produce preservation and how to do it, we need assistance from government agencies and organisations.
“Thanks to the efforts of international partners like United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), we have been able to reduce post-harvest losses by 10 per cent but we can further reduce this,” he said.
Odusanya, who noted that a lot of money was being used to import tomato paste, stressed that what needed to be done was to empower some traders and train them on how to make tomato paste.
He underscored the need for the government to initiate small-scale and large-scale tomato paste manufacturing ventures across the country. (NAN)
ACA/FLP/OOK
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Edited by Folorunso Poroye and Dayo Komolafe