Alhaji Murtala Muhammad, the Chairman, EMBEE Farms, Kaduna, has urged the Federal and state governments to provide storage facilities to enable farmers preserve their perishable goods.

Muhammad told that the provision of storage facilities will help reduce the cost of production. He noted that farmers who produced perishable goods lost millions of naira annually due to the lack of storage facilities.

“We have big orchards where we grow mangoes and oranges which we supply to Chivita Nigeria Limited, makers of Chivita Juice in Lagos. Our major problem is the lack of storage facilities to keep these goods before and during transit. I really pity those who transport tomatoes and other perishable goods from the northern part of the country to the eastern and western parts, because they lose so much money in transit from their farms to the market,” he said.

According to him, produce such as tomatoes last for a maximum of three days after harvest before it begins to spoil. Muhammad urged the government and the private sector to collaborate and assist farmers by providing them with facilities to preserve their produce.

He said that both the government and private sector practitioners will generate revenue by providing storage facilities. The chairman also urged financial institutions responsible for disbursing agricultural loans to farmers to reduce the high interest rate and stringent conditionality for small-scale farmers to access loans.

“I am yet to understand what the banks are doing with over N200 billion meant for farmers. By now, farmers should be thinking of refunding the loan not struggling to get what is rightly theirs,” he said.

He also urged the government not to under-estimate the importance of small holder farmers, whom he said produce over 70 per cent of the foodstuff consumed by Nigerians.

” It is rather unfortunate that we spend billions of naira to import foodstuff which Nigeria can produce and even export,” he said. He stressed the need for the government to provide farmers with fertiliser throughout the year and not at the end of the farming season.

“We have several farmers who are into irrigation farming and who need fertiliser during irrigation period and during the rainy season,” Muhammad said.