NAN-AE-8
Horticulture
By Chidinma Ewunonu-Aluko
Ibadan, May 9, 2017 (NAN) Dr Sadiat Babalola, Head of Product Development Programme, National Horticultural Research Institute (NIHORT), Ibadan, says horticulture has a great economic potential which ought to be harnessed and exploited.
Babalola told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Tuesday that horticulture had provided livelihood, increased income and enhanced wellbeing for many people across the world.
She said that horticulture provided food, beautified neighbourhoods and gardens, while giving ambience by combining energy of the sun with soil, seeds, water and ingenuity.
Babalola, however, noted that in developing countries, including Nigeria, horticultural crops were sold fresh, with limited packaging and storage.
She said that in these countries, there were higher returns per unit effort and unit area from horticultural crops, when compared to some other areas of agriculture.
“In Nigeria, horticultural subsector is said to create more jobs per hectare on-farm and off-farm than most other agricultural enterprises, thereby promoting economic growth,” she said.
Besides, Babalola said that if pragmatic efforts were made to boost the production of high-quality fruits, the output of high-quality produce for industrial uses would consequently increase, thus generating employment opportunities and income.
“If participants along the value chain — at harvest, packaging and transportation levels — imbibe the use of plastic packaging materials and transportation in specifically designed vehicles, there will be a significant reduction in post-harvest losses of fruits.
“Participants in value chain should endeavour to seek knowledge and skills to engender well-educated farmers and processors and hence better system.
“Strengthening full and serious participation of organised private sector will also help in reinforcing the weak areas along the fruit value chain,” she said.
Babalola underscored the need to adopt the use of suitable processing machineries, especially at the medium scale level and at areas where raw materials were in abundance, to encourage cluster processing.
“This will create a lot of employment,’’ she added.
Babalola said that NIHORT had developed improved technological packages for fruit processing, including the production of pineapple juice in glass bottles, using locally developed technological processes.
“There is also production of dried fruit slices; we have also adopted a simplified form of fruit juice processing steps: sorting, washing, peeling, juicing, formulations, bottling, pasteurisation and packaging,” she said. (NAN)
CC/MO/OOK
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Edited by Morayo Omolade and Dayo Komolafe