By Our Reporters
Grace Edema
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control has called on agro allied operators in the country to ensure the use of appropriate and safe feeds.
NAFDAC in a statement made available to The PUNCH on Thursday said the use of safe feeds for animals would help safeguard the health of humans and animals.
The statement said Director, Veterinary Medicine and Allied and Product, NAFDAC, Dr Rametu Momodu, made the call during the Agro Merit Industrial Outreach at the Poultry Show which was held in Abeokuta on Wednesday.
She also sought more cooperation from the Poultry Association of Nigeria at the national level for effective collaboration towards the development of the industry through efficient regulatory practices.
According to her, the NAFDAC sensitisation is necessary as part of the Agency’s mandate to bridge the gap between the regulator and the regulated.
The programme brought together farmers and operators of poultry businesses to learn how to adapt innovation and regulatory measures to advance their processes.
Also, Momodu added that the sensitisation was used to train agro farmers, providing them information and the opportunity to cooperate with NAFDAC.
Momodu said, “All of these are to enlighten, educate and to tell them what we do and the reason we do them.”
“If they use animal feed products that are not certified by NAFDAC; we are not sure of the efficacy, quality and effectiveness.
“As you have seen from one of the presentations, if they use the products properly, they are going to get better birds, which are birds that are healthier and that is good for business; it is good for the farmers, and for us that are buying the birds to eat.
“Consequently, we are going to eat better quality birds. We are not going to eat diseased birds or birds that are not bred properly.”
Momodu stated that the mission of the VMAP Directorate was to protect human and animal health by ensuring that only safe and effective veterinary medicine and allied products are available for use in Nigeria.
One of the major importers and distributors of raw materials for the feed and food industry, Managing Director, Agro Merits Limited, Mr Sampson Odipe, lamented that Nigeria could not feed its people.
“Part of the problem is that the governments in Nigeria are not engaging the right people.
“To talk to them in government, you need connections here and there, but we are not interested in that,” stated Odipe.
He argued that banks in Nigeria were declaring billions in profits every year, while stakeholders in the agro sector were throwing in the towel.
“How do you reconcile that also, in the manufacturing sector, people are crying and weeping. They (governments) are supposed to invite the banks and ask them how they have been making this money, have they been supporting the manufacturing sector?”
Similarly, Odipe emphasised that getting raw materials for locally produced animal feed was a huge challenge.
He observed that the agro sector was the most lucrative, saying,
“Farmers in Europe and elsewhere laugh to the banks, but here the adverse is the case.”
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