In western countries, the food chain stands side-by-side with the cold-chain with scientists coming to understand that cold storage is key in food preservation. In such scenarios, there are technological investments which grow on daily basis and then backed with skilled individuals alongside strong food safety laws.
Food in these areas is respected and seen as more than what people eat, but something honourable that gives employment to individuals; grows economies; keeps the environment clean and saves lives.
With such understandings, these nations accord food special rights and with strong measures to enforce them, farmers, traders and others in the agricultural sector work so hard to improve their modes of operation, while also ensuring that the end product of their ‘hustles’ will be fresh, clean and healthy food.
The Different Scenario here
In Nigeria, one of the major goals of the food safety laws is “to modernize the Nigerian food safety regulatory framework in line with international best practices”. Another reason for the food safety laws in Nigeria, is to “minimize the incidence of risks associated with physical, chemical and biological hazards in foods and water”.
In the fruits and vegetables sector where post-harvest losses are up to 40% these laws which could have seen to the implementation of the ‘best practices’ in production, handling, packaging, transportation and storage of food are often nowhere to be found.
Illiteracy and Lack of Skills
We might find it so difficult to accept that the graduates of agricultural related courses in Nigeria are better off as civil servants, while the real farmers in the Northern and middle belt regions of the country are either in it for survival, or carrying on with a family farming business.
This simply means that most of them are in the business with experience and not education. Beyond the farmers are the others in the post-harvest chain, they also mostly do not have the required education neither are they aware that their food handling and storage techniques are already breaking laws.
But how can we blame a group of people who are just doing what they can to help the economy and also make a living for themselves? Is it fair to say that they do not care about changes, when they feel things do not have to change especially when it will cost most of them their jobs?
No Technologies
For handling of fruits and vegetables to be meet up with global best practices, there has to be a bit technological injection and this is completely absent. The question of who invests is also another issue and as pointed out earlier, people who are already making a living from their business often do not see reasons to change things, even it is in the area of improvement.
The absence of technology in handling, packaging, transportation and storage is an issue which ensures that a substantial amount of food is lost before they get to the final consumers. Aside the post-harvest loss it encourages, it is also difficult to collate agricultural data because no human or machine is dedicated to it.
There is market for spoilt food
In the market contexts, good food is anything that can be sold and the phrase ‘still good’ is often used to qualify any spoilt food that is still sellable in Nigerian markets.
The health hazard these spoilt foods pose has never been an issue as in the case tomatoes, owners of restaurants and low-income earners often stay away from fresh ones because they are always more expensive compared to the cheap broken and spoilt tomatoes.
This has been an age-long business in a country with food safety laws that is supposed to minimize the incidence of risks associated with physical, chemical and biological hazards in foods and water. These laws are just present to ensure we are not ‘lawless’, but have practically never been used for any reason.
We’re not ready for exports
Unless through local channels to neighboring countries, Nigeria is not yet ready for the exportation of fruits and vegetables owing to the fact that these ‘best practices’ are not being applied at any level of the food supply chain.
Food production business via farming, packaging, storage and logistics is a careful business in other countries and if local regulatory bodies are not doing anything, it simply means it will take a lot of time for us to be ready to involve international regulatory bodies in ascertaining the quality of our foods.
Again, we can only export when we have saved enough to go round with so much more remaining. To export fruits and vegetables for instance, it means we have to put in place all necessary machinery at all channels of the food supply chain and this investment is seen as the main reason nothing is being done in the sector.
Who Will Invest?
Switching completely from raffia baskets to plastic crates in tomato packaging nationwide is a huge investment, one that does not only need the introduction of the crates, but education for farmers, traders, transporters and in most cases consumers to make them understand how this global packaging system can save them a lot of money in averted post-harvest loses.
Cold logistics is another area as well as finding the best ways to integrate the food supply chain and the cold chain. They must be one.
There will also be a lot of education on the new food handling techniques and they will be associated with the newly introduced packaging and logistics systems. The building of research and data collation centers will also be inevitable and whose shoulder these investments would fall has remained a silent question.
With government owning the regulatory bodies and also seen as key beneficiaries from the booming economy it will bring, many would prefer they take the lead in terms of complete provision of these things or supporting interested organizations by proving them with grants. Whichever way it goes, no single side of the players in the sector can handle this alone and succeed.
But this is a necessary move if Nigeria must really step up in the agricultural sector globally.
Local Business and Dirty Markets
Before we step up to the international level, there is serious issue with our markets where food is sold on just a thin plastic layers on a very dirty floor. In most cases, they are never washed, but stacked for buyers and some of these consumers end up not washing them very well after.
Most markets are not fit places for food to be sold. They are so unkept that if authorities in food safety sector are serious with their jobs, food would not be sold there in the first place.
We understand the sale of food, especially fruits and vegetables are mainly local businesses by artisans, there should also be moves by regulatory bodies to ensure these things are done in the best appropriate way without turning it into a witch-hunt that will lead to extortion of traders.
This transition should not come with a tight fist, but with education and investment to ensure every group at all levels are carried along.
The ColdHubs Model
For years, ColdHubs limited aside using 100% solar powered cold rooms to preserve fruits and vegetables, the company has also been involved in post-harvest management educational programmes for farmers and traders across the country.
ColdHubs understands that increasing the shelf lives of fruits and vegetables from two to more than twenty days will never be enough, but knowing that the produce has to come for storage in good shape.
With storage done in returnable plastic crates and a pay-as-you-store business model, ColdHubs is revolutionizing the storage and preservation of fruits and vegetables, with an impactful vision geared towards the reduction of the 40% post-harvest loss encountered in Nigeria.
With an existing model in cold storage, handling and logistics for fruits and vegetables, ColdHubs can be a starting point for a great change in and industry where many are shying away from change.
Going forward, international organizations, government at all levels and stakeholders in the agricultural sector must come together to plot a practical way forward that will take Nigeria within the class of global players in the production fruits and vegetables.
Chinedu Hardy Nwadike is the Media and ICT Officer at ColdHubs Limited.
chinedu@coldhubs.com