Officials of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development have sealed up four illegal fertiliser blending plants operating without registration in Kano state.
The officials also confiscated a truckload of adulterated fertiliser.
The sealed plants are Albarka Agor-Allied and Chemical Fertiliser and Nagarta Agro Fertiliser, both in Zara community of Kumbotso Local Government Area, Samu Alheri plant in Jido community of Dawakin Kudu Local Government Area and one other retail shop in Getso market of Gwarzo Local Government Area of the state.
It was discovered that asides blending without due authorisation, the plants were also mixing substandard components to produce adulterated fertiliser, which they sell to farmers in the state.
Director, Fertiliser Control Officer of the Farm Inputs Support Department of the Ministry, Oke Sunday, who spoke on the development said;
“There is a new law in town called the National Fertiliser Quality Control Act. There are a lot of things specified by the law, that for any individual to do business in the fertiliser sector, he must be registered with the Farm Inputs Support Department.
“This is a market operation, we are not interested in arresting anybody, our interest is to make people to comply with the provisions of this act.
“Fertiliser is a very critical input in farm production and the federal government will not tolerate any act sabotaging efforts to ensure food security in the country.
“We have sealed the defaulting shops, and in the process, we told them their offenses and told them not to temper with the evidences until we come back again.
“We have also found huge cache of fertiliser blending raw materials, which are not supposed to be sold in the market.”
Oke also said the defaulting marketers arrested in possession of illegal blending raw materials would be arraigned upon completion of investigation.
One of the marketers caught with fertiliser blending raw materials at ’Yan-Kura market, Khalid Muhammad, confessed to selling it to individual retailers, but claimed he was not aware of the implication of selling them in the market.
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