The National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) between
November and December may have destroyed about 80 kilogramme confiscated grains
in the year 2015 market raid that was carried out in about five locations of Kano,
Zaria, Ibadan, Gusau and Zamfara to rid the sector of adulterated and fake
seeds in the circulation thereby ensuring food security through improved
quality seeds sold to farmers.
The official burning of this fake seeds is part of the
activities to eradication adulteration according to the Deputy Director, Mr.
Agboola Adebayo who said, there is high reduction of grains in circulation
based on this year raid in comparison to the last one in 2014.
NASC has recently carried out emergency raid at some markets
in about five states of the federation where about 80kg of seeds without labels
and identification numbers that will enable traceability in case of none
performance on the field of cultivation by farmers.
Also Mr. Adebayo said that the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) of the Federal
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) through the use of
e-wallets cum NASC responsiveness to its mandate in the recent time has reduced the
high level of fake seeds in the circulation even as there was increase in the
numbers of seeds companies saying there
was high compliance to standard among
the seed dealers as selling only quality certified seeds can translate to
production performance of farmers with respect to income and job creation.
Mr. Agboola pointed that NASC would use his mandate to
constantly pursue evil perpetrators in order to ensure complete elimination of
seeds adulteration stressed the need for the signing of the amended Act of the
council for more proactiveness that would ensure best practice of creating the
most dynamic and research oriented farmers’ supportive seed development and
production.
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