The Daily IIJ

The Minister of Fisheries, Water Resources and National Assembly Affairs, Lamin Kabba Bajo has admitted that policy makers occupy a pivotal position in the process of improving and maintaining access to fisheries products in international markets.
He said technicians cannot proceed far enough to register success without the support of key decision makers in government. The existence of sound policy commitment in support of the control of the health and safety of fishery products is important but cannot be put in place without understanding the fundamental requirements for meeting standards.
“It is therefore important that policy makers in government understand the issues around sanitary and phytosanitary requirements for compliance with international standards,” he charged, while adding that commitment to ensuring compliance is very important but health and safety requirements of fishery products.
According to him, it is therefore a step in the right direction to involve decision makers in the process of improving compliance with requirements.
The fisheries sectors and fishery products in particular play important roles in the maintenance of society and the economies of our respective countries by providing important sources of valuable protein, gainful employment and foreign exchange earnings through trade, he said.
He pointed out that there are greater prospects of increasing gains from fishery products by increasing returns through improved management of the supply and value chains and addition of value to products.
However, he said such is face with challenges to ensuring quality and safety of products as sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures, saying health controls have becomes increasingly stringent all over the world.
He said there is need for a concerted approach to dealing with the issues of food quality and safety, ensuring food safety and protection of consumers for which fishery products are no exception.
He also noted that a primary objective of the fish trade world would be to assure and maintain supply and access to export markets, particularly in the European Union (EU) as an important trading partner in fishery products from our region.
Such will also require the need to maintain access to those markets by ensuring control along the fish supply chain from the sea to the table.
Improving trade performance is fundamental in today’s trade in fishery products. Ensuring quality and safety of food products is not only important in the international trade but also in our domestic products as the issue of safety of the consumers cuts across borders.
But Mr. Bajo believes that the only way to maintain market access of fishery products as food is by guaranteeing that products meet quality and safety standards at all times.
This he said a policy of increased national or regional participation is important but cannot be implemented without improved awareness and involvement of players at all levels to enable competent authorities to guarantee effective control of safety and quality in products.
With an expanding world economy, he said the liberalization of the food trade and growing consumer demand, access of products markets will continue to depend on capacity to meet regulatory requirements of importing countries. Creating and sustaining demand for fishery products in the world markets therefore relies on building trust and confidence of importers and consumers in the integrity of products and their production system.
“The interventions by the FAO-STDF project in capacity building, involving the competent authorities and fish processing industries in the beneficiary countries have produced desirable impact as can be attested to by industries and the competent authorities who have benefited from the capacity building activities of the project, he said.
When he took his turn, the FAO Country Representative, Dr. Babagana Ahmadu noted that 75 percent of the global fish production is used for direct human consumption and the consumption of the fresh fish is growing at the expense of other forms of fish products.
“Fresh fish is now the most important fishery product (nearly half of the markets), followed by frozen, canned and cured fish and “with over one third of the world fish production now being traded internationally, quality and safety assurance has become a major issue,” he said.
According to him, there is evidence that fishery products are being diverted from the more lucrative export markets because of lack of compliance with their requirements and that poorly functioning institutional support for exports constrains growth.