ASIWA expanding seeds sector frontier, set for national office in Nigeria

  

 The Alliance for Seed Industry of West Africa (ASIWA) in its quest to expand seed quality frontier recently organized a meeting in Abuja to sensitize stakeholders on how the national office of the programme will be set up in the country towards quality improved production through partnership between the private and public sectors at the value chains of farmers, processors and marketers.

ASIWA is aimed to achieve an alliance for Seed Industry in the region towards a sustainable production of improved quality seeds in the major staple crops for commercial food production just as WASP seeks to expand the availability of the products from the current 12% to 25% from 2012 to 2017) with a goal to contributing to the s improvement of agricultural productivity across the countries of west Africa. 

 In his speech, the National Project Coordinator, WAAPP/ WASP, Prof. Damian Chikwendu commended the harmonization of the seeds rules and regulations as gazetted in Nigeria with emphasis to removing all the bottle neck hindering market transfer of the seeds from one country to the other in the region saying that “all this effort may not will the desired dividend if cross border movement of seed continue to be a night mare.

      

 Permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) Ach. Sonny Echonono in his address noted the strategic position of the industry in commercial food production saying the critical position of quality seeds demand more enhancement and capacity building towards sustainable agricultural productivity being a  genetic potential of the crop plant that determines the upper limit of yield and the ultimate productivity of fertilizer, agro- chemicals and other inputs of machines and farming techniques.

Arc Sonny  said “ to achieve the goals and objectives of the National Agricultural Seed Policy of the Nigerian government which becomes very important to provide a conducive policy environment of ensuring the sustenance of a virile National Seeds System and a market-driven seed industry for the production, processing and marketing of high quality seeds that are readily available, affordable and accessible to all farmers in irrespective of their location, there is need to further strengthen the seed system and market, the seed sector must be fully supported to develop capacity and gain experience on the entire complex component for an effective and productive industry which is the fulcrum of the nation’s food security.  

 Effort must be made to identity relevant issues and bottlenecks related to the smooth growth of the sector, determine the type of interventions needed (technological, regulatory and others), to make quality seeds available to farmers through sustainable system and construct roadmap, with specific recommendations, to create a sound level, sustainable dissemination, and strategies for improved crops to resource poor farmers in Nigeria in particular and West Africa in general”

 

The Director General, National Seed Council, Dr. Ojo described ASIWA as a testimony of working partnership between the NASC and other relevant international organization saying togetherness of the leading players in the seeds industry would  help to galvanize the potential of the sub sector in the agricultural economy. 

Dr Ojo said he is confident that “ ASIWA will grow to become a solid platform for dialogue on the transformation of the Nigerian and Regional seed system through collective participation of private sector, national and regional government agencies, and development stakeholders, capturing the respective needs, goals, and resources of each other and responds with informed planning and programming to further develop our national seed sector.”

The WAAPP/WASP – Nigerian National Project Coordinator, Prof Damian Chikwendu, said that ASIWA marks an epoch in the effort to develop the seed industry in Nigeria saying “the organisation is supporting the National Research Institutes to produce adequate good quality breeder seeds, seeing to the implementation of the 2008 harmonized seed rules and regulation which is designed to facilitate seed trade in the region, supporting private seed sector to produce adequate good quality foundation and certified seeds and forming an inclusive Alliance for Seed Industry in West Africa”

The  two day workshop attracted participant from both private and public organizations including  SEEDAN, Agro- input dealers, AFAN, Processors, Financial Institution, NASC, NAQS, IAR, IAR&T, NGOs, ICRISAT, and WASP as they were  present at the presentation of the ASIWA’s concept, objective and initiative) being promoted by WAAPP/WASP. The presentations were thoroughly discussed in relation to the stage of development and challenges’ facing the Nigerian seed industry. 

 

At the conclusion of the workshop, stakeholders agreed to domesticate ASIWA national office in Nigeria with these recommendations.

-          ASIWA has to be domesticated in Nigeria in order to solidify the seed system in Nigeria and for our seed to move from its present state to a higher level.

-          Need for all stakeholders to understand the concept of ASIWA and a need for continuous awareness among stakeholders.

-          Need for continuous advocacy particularly MDAs agencies to buy into ASIWA concepts and support.

-          The steering committee need to mobilize funds for the smooth take-off and implementation of ASIWA.

-          The need to appoint competent facilitator to ensure that the objective and aspiration of ASIWA is actualised.

-          The need to bring in other relevant stakeholders into the seed industry.

-          Stakeholders agreed to have a National affiliate of ASIWA, collaborating to ensure its establishment, giving effects to this, an ad-hoc committee was constituted as shown below.