Stakeholders at the just concluded 2022 edition of the Seed Connect Africa conference held in Abuja have called for the development, protection and deployment of climate smart seed varieties.
This, they said, can be done through massive promotional programmes.
This is just as they recommended the immediate establishment of Seed Agriculture Hub in universities and strengthening of existing ones to address the vagaries of seed concerns including research, extension, development and trade and also to preserve intellectualism.
Participants at the annual gathering of national and international seed experts in its communique urged the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) to intensified effort on its seed bank initiative as well as scaled up its activities to cover the zonal offices.
The experts also called for a framework to ensure that Nigerian seed industry is duly introduced to the global seed trade and at the same time take advantage of the AfCFTA agreement.
They noted that since the seed sector is diverse, the continent should be fully represented in the global seed industry, trade and entrepreneurship fora, while agricultural discussions should be based on data that can stimulate investment.
Declaring the conference open, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Mahmood Abubakar, said Africa’s agricultural output may increase from $280 billion per year to as much as $1 trillion by the year 2030.
“This envisions and will require growth across the agrifood value chain triggering demand for upstream products, including new demand for fertilizers, seeds, and pesticides. In addition, the increased output can spur downstream development, including logistics, trade, and more.
“Assuring our farmers have access to high-quality seeds is crucial to their empowerment. Smallholders contribute up to 80 percent of our nation’s food supply. Increasing our farmers’ capabilities by ensuring that they are better informed on the need to use better quality seeds and going further to ensure that this good quality seeds are available at their doorstep and affordable rates would increase Nigeria’s agricultural output and, consequently, help solve poverty, security, and malnutrition crisis.
“We need to do more than increase yield at the Farmer level but also try to reduce post-harvest losses, improve market access, and increase product margins,” he said.
Also, NASC Director General, Dr. Olusegun Philip Ojo, said the conference is fast gaining global attention and has become one of the biggest gatherings of seed industry stakeholders in Africa.
He said some of the recommendations from the 2021 edition have led to the development of the NASC Electronic Survey Tool (NEST); a data capturing, and analytical tool hosted on Google play store that can be accessed from any android device which is deployed for data generation, analysis, and knowledge sharing.
He therefore revealed that SEEDCONNECT is seeking a new level of freedom and change in order to mitigate the impact of these challenges and build a resilience seed system in Africa.
