(Continued from last week
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NSPRI driers, answer to Nigeria’s major food storage problem
By Sade Oguntola
ARE those technologies accessible and affordable?
They are accessible and affordable. They are very easy to adopt too. One thing that is common with our farmers is the fact that after they have spent so much money producing , when it comes to post-harvest, they lose their patience. They just want to dispose off the commodity and get the money no matter how small it is. They should just endure a little bit more and sell off a few during the production season, process the remaining or store part of it for a few more months to increase their income. If they can do that, then you would not be seeing food getting wasted.
If everybody can preserve or add value to what they cannot sell fresh, then you have it throughout the year till the next production season.
Are these technologies extended to artisans to learn about?
This institute has trained artisans in the production of our multipurpose driers and we are willing to train many more of them. This year for instance, the National Agriculture Extension Liaison Institute has packaged some workshops together with NSPRI and we are going to train more, all in the fight against food insecurity. We want Nigeria to be secure in food. Anyone able to get this drier, very simple, no removing parts, no replacement of anything once you have it and can use it for many things including mangoes, pineapple etc.
We also have technologies for processing into juices, tomato juices, dried tomatoes etc. Anybody that can acquire the drier will removed poverty from his life. There is the multipurpose drier which cost about N100,000, and the hybrid drier which uses kerosine and solar energy is more efficient and with a higher capacity. This cost N300,000. So if you acquire that, you will produce a lot of these commodities and stop the wastage and that removes poverty in the life of anybody. It increases employment, increase income both to the farmer and the processor and in the long run, we are food secured. With it, we can have our fruits and vegetables all year round.
At the state and federal government levels, we can store in inert gas atmosphere silos. A few months ago, we released the cowpea stored this way in our office in Ibadan. That can be adopted by governments at all levels to keep all our grains - rice, wheat, and other commodities the minister is focusing on. They can be stored in those silos.
Is it an expensive technology?
It is more expensive than the small driers I earlier talked about. But it is the initial capital that is high but in the long run, it is cheaper when you consider how much you are using to store a tonne of commodity in a year. Any entrepreneur, especially our merchants that trade in these grains can afford it and use it to store their grains for years. It is not a question of storing from one production season to another, it can stored for as many seasons as so desired.
Is it better than the silos in our grain reserves?
The grain reserve silos are the conventional silos imported to Nigeria and they use pesticides in them. This technology of storing in inert atmosphere which NSPRI developed in conjunction with the Italian government does not use any form of pesticide whatsoever but only an inert gas which is Nitrogen. So it is better for safety reasons because you do not need pesticides and it maintains the quality of the stored product and so on.
In the really sense of it Nigeria should not find itself in any form of food crisis if what we producing now is well preserved.
Are farmers coming up to ask on these storage technologies?
They are. We have various commodity association of farmers like cassava processors coming for proposal to train them . For instance, many in the kolanut association never knew that kolanut can be dried and exported. Those driers we have can dry kolanut very well so that it meets export standards. There is a big market for it because of its caffeiene content.
The Federal government has a presidential initiative on export of products to UK and EU. NSPRI is the chairperson technical committee to advise on it. We are working on it. The conditioning centre to store yam is underconstruction in Nasarawa State. The ones that will serve for fruits and vegetables will be constructed in Oyo state, that for pineapples will be constructed in Akwa Ibom state. Those for sesame seeds and mangoes will be in Yobe state. As soon as Nasarawa is finished, we are moving to Oyo state because Oyo state government has given a land for it. Farmers will also be involved, there is going to be lots of capacity building. There will be model farms and monitor their production to make sure that all these pests do not come in from the production stage to store. We are also going to monitor them that they store to specifications for export.
Issue of food toxins, and farmers using pesticides in a wrong way
The reports has been on beans, yam flour and mangoes, all cases of using the wrong pesticide. When you apply pesticide to food in store, then there is a problem. Many of our traders cannot differentiate between pesticides to be used on the field and those to be used food in storage.
Pesticides to be used on food should not be persistent, within three months of storage their effect should wear off so that those things killing the insect are no longer effective. The institute is also trying to use biotechnology to use local herbs to preserve food rather than using chemicals. We have that which involves using pepper fruit and some inert dust to preserve grain .
Are farmers on the know of this?
We are still perfecting the tech nology before we push this out and they are not anything new. Our ancient fathers have been using ashes to store their commodities. But these are more effective than ashes because it is the abrasive nature of those dusts that kill the insects, so we are looking at other herbs like neem. Neem is also very effective both for yams and grains.
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