There are indications that the 3 delisted seed companies from the Federal Government’ Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) of certified seeds distribution may have been having course to thank God as our sources revealed that affected people have resorted to aggressive marketing of their products to end users who are farmers just as payment are immediately made without any delay as compared to GES where many are still expecting the last year payment.
The three companies deleted in 2014 by the minister’s directive due to delivery of sub standard seeds to farmers in their allotted locations may have toed the line of aggressive marketing of their certified seed to farmers which according to our findings has made them to be popular among rural farmers, who are major end users.
A source in the ministry who prefers anonymity told us that what the three companies are doing is exactly where the government is taking the sector where seeds companies will created market mechanism for themselves to get to farmers thereby commending the courage and effort of the three companies which he regarded as being courageous ones saying” the three of them have started keying into government’s thinking of allowing the private sector doing the seeds business of buying and selling while government should concentrate on friendly policy creation”
Food Farm News confirmed that some of the farmers who could not benefit from the GES and those who benefited, but the quantity they got were not enough had to resort to these companies who are aggressively taking their products to the door steps of the farmers.
It will be noted that the purpose of the Growth Enhancement Scheme was to ensure that farmers are using improved technology of certified seeds to plant and also to make producers of certified seeds to build marketing structure in terms of agro-dealers that will take these inputs to the farmers, thereby creating more jobs at this value chain and making Agro-shops be at every villages where farming activities is going on.
Some of the officials of these companies who spoke in anonymity said that although they are not initially happy for being delisted from the GES, saying they see their participation as a National calling, but added that whatever has transpired was not intentional, stressed the need for Agro-dealers’ supply nearer to ecological areas of farming activities as this would also checkmate the losing of the seeds potency to long distance stress cum delay in off taking.
One of the staffs of the affected companies argued that” ‘’many reasons presented against us may not totally be our fault as I am sure the minister was not properly briefed of what went wrong. The action has motivated us into aggressive marketing which turns out to be a blessing since we are only delisted from participating in the GES but not in our normal operation as a registered companies and that is why we are thanking God because we also have stock to supply to farmers at demand unlike before when we will give our products to GES without payment while bank interest rate will be running on our expenses. And the efficacy of our products to farmers is already making us to be popular among the end users across the states. But I really commend the Minister of Agriculture of his doggedness in fixing agriculture as a business in Nigeria and this is already working in the seed sector”.
In a similar development the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Programme (WAAPP) has said that about 6 tons of rice seeds (0.8 tons of Faro 52 breeder seed, 3.1 tons of Faro 52 and 2.1 tons of Faro 57 foundational seeds which was produced in 2013 have got germination reduction rate of 40 to 70% which according to 2014 bulletin was due to late takeoff by NASC thereby advising the need to take urgent attention to prevent further damage to the seeds.
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