The Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), said on Wednesday it was collaborating with other regulatory agencies to standardise agricultural produce packaged for export.
The Director-General of the organisation, Dr Joseph Odumodu, told the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos that the regulatory agencies had improved the nation’s export under the aegis of Codex.
Nigeria is a member of Codex, an international body concerned with quality and safety of food products.
“Codex is celebrating 50 years in Nigeria and there is exactly a lot for us to celebrate.
“People may not know but we have quite a number of local standards for garri, palm oil, cassava flour, palm kernel which have been internationalised.
“So the standard for these Nigerian delicacies are now accepted as codex standard internationally.
“Anybody anywhere in the world can actually access these standards and use them for business and so developing his own standard anywhere in the world.
“The other achievement I would say is the fact that there were some spices that Africa is the biggest supplier of to the world; spices like ginger, sesame seeds, shear butter and all that.
“So Nigeria, leading Africa, has been able to extract a sub-committee for spices within a codex parliament and Nigeria will actually be a co-chair in this committee.
“And it means also that for a difference, Nigeria will begin to co-host international seminars on codex for these products.
He said the needed regulatory framework had gone a long way toward making Nigeria products acceptable in the international market.
He said that Nigeria would be celebrating 50 years of Codex on Nov. 28 in Abuja to create awareness and strengthen synergy among the relevant stakeholders.
According to Odumodu, before now many importing nations’ regulations have posed a problem to Nigeria’s efforts at expanding the export in the non-oil sector.
He gave the assurance that the scenario would change for the better as the regulatory agencies had seen the need to work together.Odumodu said the synergy would be sustained in order to enhance quality of Nigeria’s produce. (NAN)
