70% Of Nigerian Food Rejected Abroad: Non-Compliance With Advisory Guidelines Just One Reason

More than 70% of Nigerian food that is exported abroad gets rejected due to reasons like non-compliance with advisory guidelines, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC)'s Director General Moji Christianah Adeyeye said Tuesday.

The director general said during a press conference in Abuja that there were several reasons for countries like the United Kingdom to reject Nigerian food products. She also blamed exporters' unwillingness to comply with the basic sanitary measures, which also got the products rejected.

"The challenges bedeviling the export process of NAFDAC regulated products especially, assuring safety and quality status of food exports in Nigeria has been traced to non-compliance with advisory guidelines established by NAFDAC to encourage participatory exports," she said, Punch reported.

Adeyeye pointed out that almost all exported food products were processed without statutory testing by NAFDAC. Due to this, items exported without NAFDAC quality control and safety tests get rejected in the international market.

The director general further explained that "non-utilization of hitherto free laboratory testing by NAFDAC for export samples coupled with the connivance of unscrupulous agents."

"Exclusion of NAFDAC's requirements for its regulated products in the mandatory pre-shipment inspection in the National Export Supervision Scheme as administered by the FGN-appointed pre-shipment Inspection Agents; unwillingness of exporters to comply with minimal sanitary and phytosanitary measures required for exports to countries with stringent market access," Adeyeye told media.

She also blamed the poor packaging, disregard for importation requirements of trading partner countries, unwillingness to invest in pre-export activities, and disinformation on the roles of NAFDAC in the pre-shipment inspection and verification exercise of container stuffing for the rejection.

However, to address this challenge, the agency has scheduled a meeting with the UK Food Standard Agency to make sure that Nigerian food products don't get rejected in the international market.

NAFDAC director-general also warned that no one, who considers themselves a patriot, should "export any NAFDAC regulated product without it passing through and being certified of its safety and quality status including full compliance with the destination country government requirements."

She continued, "This is also very important to avert colossal economic loss resulting from the rejection of non-compliant exports by the trading partners."

Earlier this year, a report mentioned that a study by non-governmental organization Heinrich Boll Foundation claimed in a report that 40% of the pesticides used in Nigeria had been banned in Europe.