Investigation: Government’s inaction, failed interventions perpetuate Nigeria’s post-harvest losses (III)

By Oladeinde Olawoyin, Ronald Adamolekun, Abdulkareem Mojeed, Ntiedo Ekott This is the third part in our series on post-harvest losses in Nigeria. Read the first part here and the second part here. “You will see for yourself when you get there,” Veronica Igbana, the director of Agricultural Extension and Risk Management, Benue State Bureau of Agricultural Development and Management, said after a conversation with PREMIUM TIMES in the presence of her colleagues in her Makurdi office in February. Earlier on, her colleague Timothy Atser remarked, “If you just go to my local government, you will begin to cry. You will see farmers harvesting their oranges and pouring them away because they want new ones to grow because no one is to buy and people will come and price it at N1000 per bag.” Nigeria’s orange production touched 4.2 million tonnes in 2022, the same year it spent $5.1 million importing citrus fruits. Benue State produces more oranges than any other state in the country. Along ...