NAFDAC Embarks on Post-Conflict Recovery of Agribusinesses
The National Agency for Foods, Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has said it will champion the post-COVID and post-insurgency recovery of agro-allied businesses in North-East Nigeria.
The Director-General, NAFDAC, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, disclosed this in a statement released and signed by the Agency’s Resident Media Consultant, Sayo Akintola.
According to Adeyeye, the agro-allied industry was one of the worst-hit by the insurgency and economic downturn of the COVID era. To this end, she noted that it was important to apply a multi-pronged approach to champion the sub-regions recovery.
She explained that the agricultural sector which accounts for about 90 per cent of the economic life of the people was brought to zero in states like Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe, especially in Borno where the heat of the Boko Haram insurgency was mostly felt.
Adeyeye stressed the need for investments in the sector, saying the investments of the Borno state government in the sector will enable the introduction of new Micro Small and Medium Enterprises.
She said the MSMEs will be involved in the processing, packaging, and preservation of agricultural products; all of which are under NAFDAC’s mandate.
“More people are massively going into agriculture, and the tendency for people to process agro-based products will increase. And if you are processing an agricultural product, it means most of the products will end up being packaged.
“Once one is processing and packaging, that enterprise has fallen within the mandate of NAFDAC. The mandate of NAFDAC is critical to adding value to whatever value addition they want to do in the agro-based sector,” she said.
On Agro products processing and packaging, the Agency said it is encouraging “the idea of shared facilities or contract manufacturing concept.”
“On the issue of having the packaging or production facility, NAFDAC is now promoting the idea of shared facilities or contract manufacturing concept.
“The shared facility is done by encouraging the formation of cooperatives, and such cooperatives can have a single processing facility – may be owned by 15 persons or business entities and each one of them can use it and have a shared cost,” Adeyeye added.
source agronigeria
