A group of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and other stakeholders in food safety and pesticide control have again reiterated their resolve to embrace scientific approach to pesticide regulation in Nigeria in order to ensure that safe food is consumed by Nigerians.
A professor of Agriculture Processing and Storage, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Simon Irtwange, stated this on Thursday at a media briefing organised by the CSOs in Abuja.
At the event, there were representatives from the Alliance for Action on Pesticide in Nigeria (AAPN), Heinrich Boll Stiftung, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and other stakeholders who also delivered speeches.
Prof. Irtwange while speaking further, noted that as Civil Society Organisation, the main purpose of their advocacy and actions was the safety of Nigerians as regards what they consume, the health implications, their safety and not to demarket any product.
He said: “We are out to ensure that we are producing food that is not poison but delivers health benefits to Nigerians.
“We are of the opinion that before any pesticide is registered in Nigeria, it must be found to be safe in terms of applicability and what have you.
“All this effort it may interest you started in 2019 when we had the National Fertilizer Quality Control Act No 23 Laws of the Federation, domiciled in the department of farm input support services of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
“Two years later, in 2021, there was a bill for an Act to provide for the establishment of the Nigerian Pesticide Council and related matters.
“The bill had gone through all the stages, and the public hearing done with the Alliance for Action on Pesticide in Nigeria (AAPN) played an active role.
“In 2022, one of the supporters of the bill beat a retreat and opted for a bill to repeal the National Fertilizer Quality Control Act No 23 of 2019 to provide a regulatory framework.
“We identified gaps and took a look at all the efforts and came up with a document, and today we have a document Control bill 2023, with a more people centred unlike the previous ones.
“It was structured and designed to meet the yearnings and aspirations of farmers and consumers alike based on our own environmental requirements.
“It has robust stakeholders’ inputs and dealt with rivalries existing between all government agencies by bringing them together to sanitiser the space for the country and to produce safe food in a sustainable manner.
“The Pesticide Technical Committee consists of every agency that has anything to do with pesticide control in Nigeria.
Nesreal. NAFDAC, FMH, FMA & Food Security, Min. of Environment, AFAN, Federal Consumer Protection, The Nigerian Customs among others,” Irtwange said.
Also speaking, an Independent Consultant, Professor Johnson Ekpere, noted that Nigeria did not just wake up to control chemicals, the country he said was a signatory to many Chemical Charters and Conventions like the Stocholm Agreement of 2001, Rotherham Convention on Chemical and Pesticides in Co pliance with WTO requirements in 1989.
Ekpere expressed with dismay Nigeria’s inability to regulate disposals, which, according to him, aren’t health and pollution risk.
“In Nigeria, this control regulate mechanism is characterised by lack of infrastructures among other requirements.” he added.
While making a remark, the Programme Manager, Henrich Boll Stiftung, Donald Ikenna Ofoegbu, decried the fact that over 80% of farmers in Nigeria are at health risk of misapplication or inability to apply those chemicals in their farms.
Going forward, he called for proper regulation of chemicals in the country as well as banning of open buy and selling of chemicals by unlicensed
