Date: 2016-11-11

The Kwara State Governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed, and the Acting Executive Director, Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute, Dr. Olufemi Oladunni, have said that post-harvest losses are adversely affecting efforts at ensuring national food security and industrialisation in Nigeria.

According to them, post-harvest losses reduce raw materials for industries, thereby inhibiting industrialisation and commercial activities. They spoke on Thursday during a sensitisation workshop on 'Managing post harvest losses for participating communities' in ARMTI's Village Alive Development Initiative programme.

The programme was for farmers in Amayo, Elerinjare, Falokun-Oja, Jimba-Oja, and Igbo-Owu in Ifelodun Local Government Area, and Fufu, Ilota, Omomere-Oja, and Apa-Ola of Ilorin South Local Government Area, all in Kwara State.

Ahmed, who was represented by the Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr. Adegoke Bamidele, said it was imperative to address post-harvest losses to encourage more investment in agriculture.

He said, "Definitely, I share the opinion that post-harvest losses are a major inhibition to agricultural growth. The Kwara State government knows that one of the ways you can help the farmers is to make sure that when they are done with their harvests, they are able to preserve them.

"The state government has been having a lot of programmes for that. We have off-takers, who will take off farmers' produce. Reducing post-harvest losses will help address recession and economic challenges."

Oladunni identified post-harvest losses as a major challenge confronting the Nigerian farmers.

He stated that the VADI programme was aimed at assisting communities to ensure they managed their harvested produce so that they could get commensurate income from their harvests.

Oladunni said, "When you increase their income, they will turn more into the economy; the economy will move up, their harvests will also be turned into processing that will employ people; the processing will also employ people who will get it to the tables of consumers. It is a major strategy to address recession more so we are an agrarian economy."