THE Zero Hunger Commodity Association has advocated for the use of organic fertiliser on fruits and vegetables, against the use of chemical fertiliser.

Dr Tunde Arosanyin, the National Coordinator, made this known in Abuja on Thursday, in a meeting organised by the association to enlighten commodity leaders on the danger of using wrong chemicals on consumable produce.

According to him, the use of wrong chemicals to preserve food items, consumable items in particular was the reason for bringing commodity leaders to educate them on alternatives for preservation of produce.

“The aim of our meeting today is to highlight the danger in the use of wrong chemicals for preservation of food items. We have been able to enlighten the commodity leaders in some options to use .

‘We want to see how we can educate our farmers and consumers also that by next year, we will pressurized the National Assembly to advocate for the use of organic fertiliser on fruits and vegetables.

“These are what we consume directly without any form of processing.
When we begin to trace some health challenges like cancer, kidney and liver failure, some will be traceable to some of this chemical element we consume.

“We are training our farmers in our little way in the best practices and we will also put pressure on government to do the needful, ” he said.

He further stated that they were other methods that farmers could use to preserve their farm produce without necessarily using toxic chemicals that have negative effect on human health.

“The current trend of using dichlorophos Is not good for human consumption. The chemicals that can be used for preservation is called primiphors methy which has low negative effect on human health.

“We have it in terms of liquid or dust. The dust form is about two per cent of concentration, which the liquid is about 10 per cent and this has been confirmed not to be dangerous to human health.

“You can use it by spraying the sack you intend to store your grains in,  put it out to dry before putting your grains inside then seal.

“You don’t spray the grains directly. This are some of the options we gave to the commodity leaders this afternoon.

“So, we expect them to go back to their various communities to replicate what they have learnt here in terms of preservations.

“Mind you, this method takes four months of storage before the grains can either be consumed or sold out to consumers.

“Another option is to get a container that air can’t penetrate. In this case, you don’t need chemicals. You make sure your grains are neat enough, fill the container to capacity and close it very tight.

“So that when there is no place for air to enter, every pest that accompany your grains from the farm will die.

“So the heat kills the pest. Once you don’t open it frequently, you can not get any pest in your produce. But when you begin to take from it, after three months, you will discover pest in it, ” he said.

He, however, advised the Federal Government to compliment their efforts by bringing the extension officers to educate farmers on the appropriate methods for storage and what could be used to preserve what we consume directly.

-NAN

BE

– Nov. 23, 2018 @ 09:35 GMT |