According to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Director General of the World Trade Organization, Nigeria’s exports of coupes and sesame seeds are rejected on the international market due to non-compliance with international Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, or SPS, regulations.
This was revealed in Abuja during the recent launch of seven trade support programs started by the WTO-ITC in association with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, or NEPC, by Okonjo-Iweala, the former minister of finance for Nigeria.
According to her, health and safety examinations of Nigeria’s exports of sesame and cowpeas revealed that, between 2019 and 2021, pesticide residue levels were almost twice as high as permitted.
If nothing is done to address the health and safety problems, she warns that Nigeria and Sesame could lose their positions as the world’s top producers and consumers of cowpeas and sesame, respectively.
“Nigeria is the world’s largest producer and consumer of cowpeas. Sesame is primarily an export crop, and Nigeria is the world’s fourth-leading producer, exporting to the EU, Türkiye, Japan, South Korea and other Asian markets.
“However, Nigerian cowpea and sesame exports have increasingly faced rejections in several destination markets due to non-compliance with international SPS requirements.”
“Nigeria accounts for over a third of Japan’s sesame imports – but health and safety inspections during the past few years have found instances where pesticide residue levels were nearly double the maximum residue limits permissible from 2019 to 2021”, she stated.
