In this interview, Ernest Aubee, the Head of Agriculture Division of the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS), speaks with COLLINS NNABUIFE on the activities of ECOWAS in Nigeria and how agriculture in Nigerian could be revamped.
What are the ECOWAS agricultural activities in Nigeria?
ECOWAS agriculture activities cover 15 member states, the main objective is to promote food and nutrition security in all the 15 member states and at the same time, constitute to the process of regional economic integration, and agriculture is central to the economy of all our member states.
We have different programmes that cover the 15 member states of ECOWAS. In Nigeria particularly, we have programmes and projects that is being implemented by ECOWAS which includes the West African Agriculture Productivity Programme (WAAPP), it is a joint initiative of ECOWAS and the World Bank which deals with agricultural technology.
We have the West Africa Seed Project, the West Africa Fertilizer Project. We have other projects like the partnership for Aflactoxion control in Africa, this programme is looking at how to reduce the harmful effects of Aflactoxion on agriculture and health.
We have a lot of projects and programmes in the region which Nigeria is also benefiting from. But apart from the programmes, ECOWAS is responsible for developing regional regulations that will help to promote agriculture and in this regard, we have developed a number of regional regulations and Nigeria is a signatory to all these regulations.
We have ECOWAS regulations on fertilizer, we have ECOWAS regulations on seeds, we have ECOWAS regulations on pesticides.
As far as ECOWAS is concerned, Nigeria is a strategic partner, if Nigeria can promote food and nutrition security, then we are assured that more than half of the population of ECOWAS will benefit because Nigeria constitute about half of the population of ECOWAS, so Nigeria is very important.
What is ECOWAS doing to assist Nigerian agricultural products to be accepted in the international markets?
In terms of export to Europe or any other countries outside Africa, there are set rules and regulations in terms of issues dealing with quality. There are sanitary and phyto-Sanitary rules which are health related rules, also, there are broader rules when it comes to food safety and when you look at it from World Health Organisation (WHO) perspective, these rules are set to protect human lives, these rules are also set to promote good health and once you are signatory, you have to adhere to it.
So with regards to the rejection of Nigerian products in the European Union market, it was a bad development in the sense that products were packaged, marketed and they were rejected, this has a lot of economic lost for both farmers and the state, it affects the integrity and reputation of our member state.
But with the support of technical partners, the Nigerian government was able and quick to address this particular issue, also, ECOWAS was involved, I think the ban has been reviewed and both parties have been able to address the issue amicably.
Nigeria has stepped up its quality control mechanism so that such development will not occur again.
Also, it is incumbent on the general public, the farming community to be aware of some of these basic requirements, because if you use chemical fertilizer in your operations, and there is an overdose, if residual content of the chemical is high, it will not be accepted in such market because there are minimum standards and they are well known and it has been agreed upon by the importing countries because you cannot just export anything which to a large extent trying to protect their population.
So it is also incumbent on us as developing countries, we too should also protect our own domestic population.
Is there any ECOWAS regulations on the standard of food items imported into the sub-region?
We have developed a number of regulations on food safety and quality in the region. We have also developed Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary regulations as well as developed regional regulations on pesticides and fertilizers.
These regulations are to protect the entire West African region and the population, because if the European countries are protecting their population from the harmful effects of chemical, pesticides and fertilizers, it is imperative for us, as Africans to protect our population.
So we have these regulations, through advocacy, we appeal to member states to respect and implement these regulations. For instance, as far as the ECOWAS is concerned, you cannot just import any kind of fertilizer, there are laid down rules and regulations which institutions in the member states should observe and implement.
All these regulations have been passed at the highest level of government that means it has been passed by the Head of States, so it is now left for our individual institutions not just in Nigeria, but in the other member states to make sure that they implement the rules.
Do these ECOWAS regulations cover the smuggling of poultry products into Nigeria?
As I said, we have the regulations that cover the issue of food safety, without being sentimental, what is good for consumption in Europe should also be good for us, but what happens most of the time is that we don’t tend to implement our national laws, regional regulations and agreements the way we should. There is weak linkage or weakness in the implementation because of various reasons.
Smuggling means that some certain things are not right, it means that the state will lose income or what is being smuggled is not of right standard.
In terms of credit facilities, what is ECOWAS doing to assist Nigerian farmers?
As a regional body, we don’t work directly with farmers that are not the system in place; we have to work with the government. As a regional body, what we do is that we partner with government, then the government will decide where to to locate interventions.
Any form of support we give has to be channeled through the government because it is governments that constitute the member states.
Although in our new vision, it has been stated that ECOWAS will be moving from ECOWAS of states to ECOWAS of people that is the vision that we are thinking about.
In terms of financing, we support our development partners to invest in agriculture in the states. We have been encouraging the government to invest and we have been working with the World Bank, EU, and other government like Israel, Germany and France to invest in the member states so that we can achieve the objectives of food and nutrition security faster because agriculture needs investment and we can see investment increasing in some of our member states.
What do you think Nigerian government needs to do right in the agricultural sector?
The government currently has got a policy that is the Agriculture Promotion Policy, which in my view is a good policy because it has been able to consolidate on some of the achievements of the Agricultural Transformation Agenda of the previous government which shows a sign of continuity.
Also, in that policy, the government is investing in the revival of the agriculture extension services to bring back extension workers to help the farmers out in the field to boost their production.
There should be continued financial investment into the agricultural sector at all levels, especially in capital related areas such as the irrigation system, processing plants, storage facilities, then connect the farms to the market so that whatever farmers produces can reach the market on time and in good state.
So we need to invest in agriculture infrastructure, not just in Nigeria, but as a continent, we must have good roads, encourage SMEs, small processors in the villages.
The government should also continuously build the capacity of farmers and encourage the young people to take up agriculture which will also create jobs and wealth if right investment is done in the Sector.
Source: Nigerian Tribune
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