By Aderemi Bamgbose
Prof. Foluso Adetuyi of the Olusegun Agagu University of Science and Technology (OAUSTECH) has charged the Federal Government to establish adequate modern storage and processing facilities for post harvest of agricultural produce.
Adetuyi, a professor of Food and Post Harvest Biochemistry and the university’s Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academics), gave the charge in a lecture at the institution’s eighth Inaugural Lecture in Okitipupa, Ondo State, on Thursday.
He said that the measure would help to preserve agricultural produce, especially grains, fruits and vegetables, and help fight food insecurity currently facing the country.
According to him, the lack of these facilities is responsible for wastage that also causes food insecurity.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme of the lecture was, “Managing Our Future: “Dexterity of a Biochemist in Food Security and Health”.
The don said: “Food security is when having at all times, foods and food products adequately enough to meet increasing consumption demand to mitigate fluctuation in output and prices.
“However, food production is not the problem of Nigeria, but wastage of foods, especially fruits and vegetables, because of the lack of storage and processing facilities.”
Adetuyi argued that one-third of globally produced foods for human consumption, approximately 1.3 billion tonnes, are lost or wasted every year.
This, he said, happen through the food supply chain, which includes the series of related activities used to produce, process, distribute and consume food.
He said that food losses and wastage were usually recorded during cultivation, harvesting, post harvest, distribution, retail and consumption.
“About 30 per cent to 40 per cent of food produced in Nigeria, representing USD 750 billion yearly, is wasted.
“Also, according to national estimates, Nigeria generates 32 million tonnes of wastage, including all stages of value chain per year.
“Nigeria has food production surpluses, but the inability to manage our surpluses has been our greatest challenge of food insecurity.
“Nigerian government should shift from more food production and find a way of checking food wastage by establishing enough modern storage and processing facilities for post harvest produce,” Adetuyi said.
He said that there were different storage facilities to store tubers, grains, legumes and processing facilities for different fruits and vegetables which, if processed, would be good for consumption.
“These will solve our food insecurity,” Adetuyi said.
In a remark, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Temi Ologunorisa, urged governments at all levels to pay attention to post harvest food storage and processing to salvage the country from food insecurity.
Ologunorisa said that there was need to engage academicians in more research, adding that such would bring out the best in them to raise the institution’s standard to meet international best practices.
“The guest lecturer has delivered his lecture and said it all; the country’s problem is not food production, but how to guide against food wastage,” he said.(NAN)