FG, Stakeholders meet over sniper beans, to develop pesticide policy

FOLLOWING the recent video which went viral on social media about a retailer using Sniper pesticide to preserve beans, the federal government and other relevant stakeholders in the agricultural sector has begun working on developing a national pesticide policy to address the use of harmful chemical on grains.

At the meeting with Heads of Agencies and relevant stakeholders, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, called on relevant stakeholders, to join hands with the federal government to find a lasting solution to the problem.

Chief Ogbeh said the meeting was to brainstorm on the way forward on the wrong usage of chemicals on Agric produce.

He said the government was going to constitute as Agency which said would assist in putting to an end the usage of poisonous chemicals on agricultural products.

“The agency will consist, a minimum of three distributors of agric inputs agents in every local government, so we can advice them and teach them what not to sell, and what to sell or the risk of marketing certain products people sell either knowingly or unknowingly that is harmful to the community.

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“Once there are in place, all marketers and producers of the chemical will be told clearly what not to market.

“Let’s find an urgent solution to this, the quickest thing to do is to begin to spread the information, because we need to do more aggressive work because food must not become our poison,” he said.

Speaking earlier, the Coordinating Director, Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS), Dr Vincent Isigbe, who called for the cooperation of relevant agencies in the sector to address the issue of insecticide on grains generally, said the decision on national pesticide policy became necessary following the information that has already gone viral on reported use of sniper chemical by retailers to preserve.

He said: “The issue of sniper beans is something we need to address quickly, but the challenge is that everyone is needed, because people who are storing, selling, and buying this beans is involved.

“The NAQS has done a lot of adverts and stakeholders meeting but we have not done enough in passing the message to the masses, that’s why I’m enjoining other critical stakeholders to join us to a lot of mass mobilization to the farmers and sellers.

“We need to work together is not just NAQS alone, we are just at the export desk and whatever is available at the national market affects the export market. We are working to ensure that whatever is produced at the local market, is also safe good for the export market,” he added.