The Director-General, National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) Dr. Philip Olusegun Ojo has revealed that the seed sector can generate N2.2227 trillion in three years if the available potentials are properly harnessed. JOHN OBA reports.
2018 seed expo
The maiden edition of the Seed Connect Africa Conference and Expo 2018, held yesterday in Abuja, with the Director-General of the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), Dr Phillip Olusegun Ojo saying it would require 10,355 metric tons of Early Generation Seeds (EGS) to produce 918, 743 metric tons of Certified Seeds which will in turn produce 103, 079, 253 metric tons of food from 46, 250, 733 hectares for the next three years.
This, according to him will in turn add N2.2227 trillion to the economy and employ 18,500,293 farm families along agricultural value chains.
National seed bank
He also stated that National Seed Bank is being established at the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) to preserve genetic diversity of the store seeds.
“This will give NASC opportunity to collect and store all released varieties of different crops in the Seed Bank. Also, ambient temperature room has been installed to preserve the seeds for a very long time and serves as a fall back in case of any disaster or emergency.
Increased private sector participation
Narrating the achievement of the Council within the last few years, Ojo said efforts of the Council has yielded a lot of positive results, notably the increased private sector participation in the industry between 2012 to 2016.
“To this end, the number of accredited seed entrepreneurs in Nigeria rose from 36 in 2010 to 157 in 2016 making Nigeria the leading seed industry in West and Central Africa and over 200 applications at various stages of approval /accreditation.
“The opening of these new businesses has created over 3.5million seasonal jobs across the seed value chain in Nigeria,” he said.
Efforts needed
Ojo also said the seed sector development in Nigeria, like everywhere else is complex, saying it requires huge efforts by all stakeholder governments, private sector, development partners and other
“However, these efforts need to be properly directed and coordinated to be effective. NASC’ overall responsibility is to drive effective partnerships within the country and outside to bring about the desired seed industry of our vision
“Functional and efficient seed delivery systems is critical to sustainable production intensification and productivity increase. We need the support of all to achieve this,” he said
The Council also launched quality control farmers helplines call centre with 07000073337, automated tag printing machine which will be deployed to forestall counterfeiting while cassava seed tracker will be upgraded as National seed tracker to cover all crops.
Minister’s take
Launching the innovations, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, stated that the federal government was scrapping the Jonathan-led administration’s Growth Enhancement Scheme, (GES), and will be replaced with Agricultural Inputs and Mechanisation Services, (AIMS), for effective service delivery to farmers across the country.
Ogbeh said the essence of AIM was to cut huge cost incurred involved in GES, which the Jonathan administration left a debt of N67 billion owed agro-dealers, and that has been a huge burden on the shoulders of the government, although agro-dealers under GES are being paid their debt.
Distributors to be trained
According to him, while explaining about AIM, which will soon be launched, will at the beginning have three trained distributors of farm inputs in each of the 774 local government areas, where farmers would access farm inputs including fertilizers, hybrid seeds and others.
Ogbeh added that with AIM fake seeds dealers would be easily traced and dealt with as he acknowledged that the negative effects of fake seeds have frustrated many investors in the sector.
He said: “We are going to create a programme called Agricultural Inputs and Mechanisation Services, AIMS, we will name distributors in the local government areas.
“The good seed companies we know will use those distributors to sell those seeds to farmers depending on the crops they are growing, if it is rice, maize, sorghum or millet including soya beans or beans.
The farmer should not lose money
“If the seeds fail on the farm the farmer will come back to the distributor and also complain to us then the Ministry will take the distributor up on the matter. By that way we will know who is what and who is doing what. The farmer does not lose money.
“Lots of young people women, professionals are going into agric and we don’t want people to go spend and lose their money and go away regretting, and that is the problem we have with agric now, and I have had that bitter experience after planting seed nothing grows. We hope that Nigerians will cooperate.
“The distributors will be trained, they will have the phone numbers of those producing the seeds, addresses, and we too will know who they are and what they are distributing and where so that and there will be no question of buying stuff and running away.”
According to the minister, adverts will be placed on newspapers and people will apply as distributors, and directors of agriculture at the states, even local government chairmen will know who is where, and there will be no question of running away. He said they will be supported by the Bank of Agriculture to enable them lend, hire machines out, give seeds and give general support, then government will train extension workers to teach farmers on how to plant their seeds.
Local seed firms to be protected
In his remarks, the Governor of Kebbi state, Abubakar Bagudu, said the government should do more to protect local seed companies with favourable trade policies, and also task local seed companies to partner with bigger and foreign seed companies for a win-win situation.
“Seed companies should partner with bigger and foreign seed companies for a win-win situation”, Bagudu stated.
The conference with the theme, ‘The Nigerian Seed Industry: Evaluating the Seed Sector and Developing a Sustainable Framework to Bolster the Growth of the Seed Industry’ had over 300 participants from Ghana, Niger Republic, Cote D’Ivoire, Switzerland, and others, with over 26 companies showcasing their seeds.
