Practitioners Seek Govt Approval For Organic Agric Policy
An agriculture policy that addresses issues like production, processing, inputs, marketing, quality control, certification of organic products is now before the federal government for approval and adoption.
The Vice President of the Organic Agriculture Practitioners of Nigeria (OAPN), Olugbenga Adeoluwa, who is also the country’s coordinator of the Ecological Organic Agriculture Initiative in Nigeria (EOAIN) disclosed.
He spoke at the Annual General Meeting of the association held in Abuja.
Adeoluwa said: “Nigeria is on the good track regarding organic development because one of the indicators of a country that is doing well is having a policy in place that could support or that can support organic agriculture.
“We are lucky in Nigeria, that although the country is young, as far as the development of organic, not just globally but in Africa, but late year, December precisely, the dialogue of the stakeholders on organic policy in the country that was carried out by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in conjunction with ecological agriculture initiative in Nigeria, is moving. That’s a very good step.
“As I’m aware, you know, that it’s almost at the Federal Executive Council level, and then this will help a lot because operating organic agriculture in the country without good policy in place, it’s tantamount to doing nothing, because farmers need a right and appropriate policies to be able to do good business, one in terms of a location of their farming activities, unlike the conventional farming that you can locate it anywhere, organic cannot be.
“One good example of this is organic apiculture, which is raising honey. Nigeria has a lot of opportunities; we have a lot of forest reserves, wildlife reserves that can easily make Nigeria be on the map of countries that are there when it comes to organic beekeeping.
“But you need the right policy to be put in place in order to guarantee these areas of land for organic production. The issue of quality control is also a matter of policy. Now we have a lot of influx of all things being called organic in Nigeria, whether in terms of food, products, even cosmetics, and the question is how organic are these? And that is a question.
“The organic policy when it is finally approved by the federal government would be able to make things work well because that is the way to go in proper organic systems. I’m glad that Nigeria is on the track of these policies. Quite a lot of aspects are addressed like production, processing, inputs, marketing, quality control, certification, including the appropriate stakeholders, to ensure that these work well, they are all captured in the policy.”
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