AN agro-processor, Mrs Obiajuru Luya, Managing Director of Farmhouse 360 Ventures, says the major challenge to developing the processing sub-sector in agriculture is knowledge gap in skills, research and access to information.

Luya told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos that the issues could be best addressed with thorough research which would tackle the shortfalls in the standards of locally processed foods.

She called on the Federal Government and research institutes to look deeply into the versatility of Nigeria’s agricultural value chains from farm-to-fork and then make the information available to processors.

“The major issue is the skills and knowledge gap in the sector and the best way to tackle it is for government to engage research institutes on the various added value chains.

“There is absolute need to look into the versatile uses of our local value chains, best practices from farm to table and then create avenues for people to access such information nationwide.

“We need 360 degrees approach to agribusiness if farming communities are able to produce standard commodities and do a little forward integration to prevent spoilage.

“It becomes easier for a processor to convert those commodities into standard finished goods with global acceptability,’’ she said.

Luya also called on the Federal Government to strengthen the public and private sector partnerships for agriculture extension workers.

She said: “The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development should seek public and private sector partnerships for extension services that will reach the grassroots.

“No right thinking person will reject a better way of doing things, especially where it will increase the yield and marketability,’’ she said.

Luya noted that agro processing was still limited due to mass export of raw materials and importation of finished products.

She said that the slow growth recorded in agro processing was due to dearth of infrastructure such as electricity, water and roads. (NAN)

– Jul. 17, 2018 @ 12:39 GMT |