The Federal Ministry of Agriculture has said that government is considering the idea of placing a ban on the importation of foreign tomato pastes into the country.

Minister of agriculture, Audu Ogbeh, disclosed this when the House of Representatives Committee on Agricultural Production and Services, visited  the ministry.

Ogbeh stated that a report by the National Agency for Food and Administration and Control, NAFDAC, showed that foreign tomato pastes imported into Nigeria are not good for the body.

“The Chinese are the ones messing us up on tomato paste,” the minister said.

“Each time Dangote tries to produce, they lower their prices.

“There’s a report by NAFDAC on the quality of foreign tomato pastes. The report is very bad.

“We think we have every reason in that report to ban foreign tomato pastes into the country.

“If you don’t ban it on health ground, you have to ban it on any other ground,” he said.

Ogbeh also disclosed that the federal government was buying and storing food as a way of taking precautions to avoid food shortage.

Recall that the government had raised alarm over the rate at which farmers engage in the export of grains, saying it could trigger a severe food shortage.

“It’s time to fill our silos,” Ogbe said.

“The export is huge now, but if you stop it, farmers will get very angry.

“When you go round, they tell you they get so rich now. But if you stop it and the prices fall, you discourage farmers.

“We’re in the market now buying and storing.”

The House of Reps committee was led on the oversight visit by its chairman Mohammed Monguno.