The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, has appealed to Nigerians to adopt safe food processing and packaging technology so as to reduce health challenges in the country.
In a statement by Dr Olukayode Oyeleye, the Special Adviser to the Minister on Media in Abuja on Monday, Ogbeh said that most food poisoning cases were caused by deficient food processing and packaging practices.
According to the minister, issues concerning food safety and consumers’ health ought to be given more attention in Nigeria.
He said that the ministry had directed some Nigerian agricultural engineers to fabricate grinding machines that were safer than the popularly used ones.
Ogbeh expressed concern over the rising incidence of liver and kidney problems, particularly among children and youths.
He said that some of health problems might have been caused by metal chips from grinding machines that were operated with friction.
“The way we process our food is important to this ministry. I had a chat with Niji Lukas, an engineer, to produce a safe grinding machine.
“The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is interested, not just in agriculture, but also in food safety and people’s health.
“Various aspects of self-poisoning are going on in this country, and this is related to how we process and package our food.
“We have to get rid of metal poisoning, polypropylene and review how our fish is smoked.
“We might ask Niji to fabricate certain quantity of these machines and see how we can get state governments to buy in.
“Some of the machines could be manual and others motorised; we can get them into the markets and subsidise their prices, as part of efforts to popularise them,” Ogbeh said.
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