….Agric Ministry commends gesture

….it’s big relief to us – farmers

By Gabriel Ewepu, Abuja

IN the bid to boost agribusiness, the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, has supported Nigerian mango farmers with 1000 surveillance material and phytosanitary equipment to conquer fruit flies.

The materials and equipment were handed over to the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Ernest Umakhihe who was represented by one of the directors, Dr Deola-Tayo Lordbanjou along with the Nigerian National Fruit Fly Management Committee.

Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Agriculture, ECOWAS, Massandjé Toure-Liste, represented by , in a speech said the economic implications are grave due to fruit flies in West Africa, hence the support to combat the menace.

Toure-Liste said: “Facing the very huge loss in the economy due to fruit flies on mangoes and vegetables in our region with all the ECOWAS member States since 2014 to put place a regional support to combat, prevent and control fruit flies in the ECOWAS member States.

“At the beginning of the programme our focus was on exporting countries meaning that countries that export mangoes to European Union, we focused on those countries, and because of the request and advocacy made by other ECOWAS member States.

“We got an extension of funding of the Programme for over 23 million Euros, co-financing by the European Union and French Agency for Development to ECOWAS and all its member States.

“We have been able to reduce by 57 per cent the interception of mangoes at the borders of the European Union. This is really significant.

“We have also been able to improve 40 per cent of exportation from ECOWAS member States to European Union which is generating a lot income for mango growers.

“This milestone cannot be achieved without the serious involvement of the National Committees of those countries exporting mangoes.

“Coming to the issue of Nigeria, they Nigeria is not per say an exporting country of mangoes. But if fruit flies are devastating mangoes the citizens would not have mangoes to use, and this is the reason why we extended the Programme to Nigeria and support the establishment of the National Committee, and we are happy to be here today to hand over some equipment to the National Committee with perspective to support mango growers in the field.

“The specific support to the National Committee is in more or less two key areas; National Support System, Coordination and strengthening to provide and produce efficient techniques with low environmental impact.

“And secondly, loss of vegetables due to infestation of phytopic insects, in particular, fruit flies there some controls by strengthening the structure of the sector at the national level, and to operate and monitoring an early warning system.

“Of course, we are informed and convinced that the project has provided surveillance materials for monitoring and control for about 10,000 hectares of mango in several States in Nigeria, which are Benue, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Oyo, Plateau and Adamawa States.”

He added that the lab equipment is also to assist the Ministry so they will be equipped to quarantine appropriately.

However, she also lamented millions of people in ECOWAS subregion are faced with food insecurity traceable to terrorism and others.

Meanwhile, she assured that more funds will be allocated to the Nigerian National Fruit Fly Management Committee.

“It is important because our success in Nigeria will impact significantly in the subregion. Nigeria alone represents 50 per cent of the population of ECOWAS and more than 60 per cent of the economy in ECOWAS.

“It means that we in ECOWAS, particularly, the agricultural sector, when we have impact in Nigeria we have 50 per cent of it in all ECOWAS member States”, she stated.

She also called for sustained support by the Nigerian National Committee for ECOWAS.

“The National Chairman, National Committee Fruit Fly, Nigeria is working perfectly. We want to hear from you and already we have a working commitment with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

“Nigeria cannot fail, and it Nigeria fails we have failed 5p per cent of our Programme”, he added.

Opening address by Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Ernest Umakhihe, represented by the Head of Horticulture, Dr Deola-Tayo Lordbanjou, expressed delight over intervention by ECOWAS in the fight against fruit flies in the country.

“The country is extremely happy with the intervention of ECOWAS in combatting the menace of fruit flies in Nigeria.

“At our Ministry level horticultural crops are extremely important to us, especially in domestic consumption and the need to push mangoes for export, and we curb this issue of fruit flies we may not be able to achieve that.”

However, he acknowledged that in the last two years greater effort has gone into combat of fruit flies in Nigeria, and pointed what the committee has achieved in the last two years, and added that he wants to see the Committee’ meeting as regularly as possible.

He also made it known that the Ministry has seriously supporter the activities of National Horticultural Research Institute with even a 100 per cent release of budgetary allocation, which is happening for the first time.

He said: “Apart from this National Fruit Fly job NIHORT is also doing well in research, production, disease and pest control, and of course, marketing of mango at that level.

“We are delighted that ECOWAS will still pump in more money into National Fruit Fly Control Programme in Nigeria.

“We are delighted to receive this donation of the equipment, and we will collaborate with the Committee to distribute them to research institutes and also the farmers who need them.

“And it is our believe that maybe after this extension you may not hear about fruit flies infestation in Nigeria again.”

However, he charged the Committee anything goes wrong the Committee will be asked, hence should work hard to achieve the objectives including status report on the present status of fruit flies in Nigeria.

The National Project Coordinator, SYRIMAO Project, Nigeria, Fruit Fly Management, Dr Vincent Umeh, explained that, “Actually, the Programme has been there for almost five years. At a point the first phase stopped, and after the COVID-19 pandemic we resumed another phase, and the aim is to help farmers the ideal way to control fruit flies and not the way they were doing it before.

“The ECOWAS support the project both financially and material wise. The materials donated and presented is to trap fruit flies. We have up to a thousand traps here.

“We have some farms or orchards that are used for demonstration scattered on producing areas of the country, so those traps deployed here because the thing is continuous even off-season.”

On using the traps by farmers, he said, “We train and retrain, and there is training of trainer which we have been doing and that is what has been going on.”

The Vice President, Mango Producers Association of Nigeria and National Chairman of , Igayo Ali, said, “It will help us go a long way because we have suffered the impact of the fruit flies over 10 years.

“The local farmers have been complaining to the Agricultural Development Programme, ADPs, because these flies destroy mango fruits from 80 per cent to 90 per cent completely.

“These flies get to the mango fruits suck and incubate in the fruits and fluid pour out. When somebody bites the mango fruit he sees maggots inside, which is dangerous to human health when consumed including animals because they also reject such infested fruits.”

On the losses caused by the fruit flies and incurred by farmers, he said, “Even some farmers have cut down their mango trees.

“It is a dream to us as the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is coming in to intervene, and everything we do with the support of ECOWAS because they serve as father and mother to the National Committee but as of now that ECOWAS has come to our rescue we say there is hope for our farmers.”

He said the association is putting everything in order to identify all mango farmers across the country, and disclosed that the national body has over 50,000 mango farmers.

“We will be in all the nooks and crannies of the country to identify and register mango farmers”, he added.

However, he (Ali) earlier appealed to ECOWAS to expand the gesture in order to accommodate more mango farmers.