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From Magnus Eze, Abuja
The Federal Government has said that it will fund research into mechanised ways of making heaps.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, who disclosed this at a meeting with the technical committee on Nigerian Yam Export Programme in Abuja, tasked the committee to find means of designing a plough that can make yam heaps.
“We will find funds to do the research anywhere in the world. We have to mechanise heap making. Otherwise, in five years, you will not find people to do heap making.
“The prototype may be costly, but we will fund it. We have to stay ahead of the crisis that will definitely come. Let us anticipate this problem,” he stated.
A total of 72 metric tons of yam would leave the shores of Nigeria to Europe and the United States Thursday, through the Apapa Port, Lagos.
Of the 72 metric tons to be exported in three containers at 24 metric tons each, one container would be exported to the United Kingdom while two others would go to the United States.
Daily Sun gathered that Nigeria accounted for over 60 per cent of yam production in the world.
While expressing the optimism that the country would soon take a prime position in yam export, the minister asked the Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS) to reduce the inspection charges “so that we can be competitive” in the export market.
