seed |
*Stakeholders Cry over
scarcity of breeders, condemn seed importation.
Scientists
and other stakeholders have identified early generation seeds as serious
challenge to agricultural development in Nigeria, just as scarcity of breeders
in research institutes was spotted with condemnation to seed importation.
These are
the observations at the recently
concluded stakeholder meeting organized by the National Agricultural Seed
Council (NASC) towards achieving economic muscle through commercial agriculture
using improved technologies of early maturing improved seeds.
On the
occasion the Minister of Agriculture and
Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh’s address during the opening ceremony of the
event highlighted the need to address the challenges of making available quality
early generation seeds towards achieving the goals of the Green Alternative
Agenda pointed “ the Federal Government needs make available quality early
generation seeds in the seed value chain, while also taking stock of how best
to ramp up production and create the necessary institutional structures and
linkages to ensure a well -Coordinated seed production system of various crops
in the National Seed Systems”
He added “this becomes very
important and critical if we must achieve the goal of the Green Alternative
Agenda of this administration to attain self- sufficiency in our local staples. Our target is
achieving self-sufficiency and become net exporter of such priority crops as
rice in 2018, tomato paste and Wheat in 2019 and increase local production of
maize,soyabean, poultry and livestock in the years after”
The DG NASC Dr. Philip Ojo said that NASC is to build a market driven seed industry for the production and distribution of high quality seed to the availability, accessible and affordability to all farmers in the country and beyond saying 70% of seeds used in West Africa is from Nigeria.
Dr. Ojo
noted that the challenges of sustainable early generation seeds in Nigeria was
as a result of lack of incentive for breeders with respect to an enabling
environment, adequate funding for research and lack of enforcement of
intellectual property rights for researchers, adding that this has led to the
decline in the quality, availability and market for the seed system in Nigeria.
He Added that the”liberalization policy on
foundation seed production adopted since 2011 has not yielded the expected
result as the vacuum created by the withdrawal of NASC from playing the pivotal role of triggering breeder seed
production by NARIs for foundation seed production by NASC and distribution/sales
to seed companies”
Scientist
present at the workshop from the various research institutes also used the
medium to cry out on challenges facing production of early generation seed due
to the scarcity of breeders in the research institute, which has deterred the
increase and continuous production of quality early generational seeds.
The Executive Director, Institute of
Agricultural Research (IAR), Professor. Abubakar during his presentation said
that the numbers of breeders in research institutes was quite below requirement;
it has critically affected the production of quality seeds, which has
translated into poor early generation seeds, particularly breeders’ seed saying
the center for excellence should be resuscitated with a need for a
well-equipped laboratory, storage cold room and irrigation expansion.
Prof Abubakar
also identified while mentioning other challenges faced to buy the institute,
said that land is not a problem, adding that there is a need for a
well-equipped laboratory, storage-cold room, irrigation expansion, while
restating that breeding is a major problem, most importantly molecular
breeding, because that is where genetic of seed can be picked.
The
representative of the Lake Chad Research Institute said that early generation
seed is a challenge for the wheat sector to meet up with 3.7million tons to 4.7
million tons consumption requirement saying FG must develop an investment plan
for seed production centre in order to meet up with demand.
Maji Alhassan Tswako the team leader from Rice Africa said
that government should properly look into the funding research stating that”
the research institutes are not commercial institutes and without funds the
research institutes can do nothing” He further condemned the importation of
seed into the country as he disclosed that Dangote is currently planning on
importing seeds from Brazil and Senegal.
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