Men from the Department of Farm Inputs Support Services, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) have sealed Amfani Fertilizer and Chemical Nigeria Company for blending and injecting into the market adulterated NPK fertiliser.

Addressing newsmen after the sealing of the plant, FMARD Deputy Director, Mr Usman Yahaya, stated that the sealing of the plant was in accordance with the law and regulation mandated on the department, and was based on reports and investigations conducted on the activities of the fertiliser company.

He explained that the department took samples of the fertiliser produced by the firm for investigation and the result revealed that the chemical required in the product is not up to one-quarter of a standard fertiliser.

He added that the sad discovery is that the adulterated fertiliser was made for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps using ordinary sand and mud to manually produce NPK as the firm has no single blending machine.

"Looking at the bags of this fertilizer you will see that it was meant for IDPs as part of the international donors' intervention. We discovered that a contract to supply fertiliser to IDPs was given to someone who later connived with this firm to produce an adulterated NPK and supply it to innocent IDPs farmers," he said.

However, the manager of the firm, Malam Abdul Umar, said the firm wasn't the one making the adulterated fertiliser, adding that they only hired out a portion to the contractor.

He further explained that after they discovered that the contractor was blending not according to standard, they stopped him.

The company was sealed pending the outcome of further investigation by the department.

Read the original article on Daily Trust.

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