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| The Director General of NASC on Black cap and others during a press conference |
With great
pleasure I welcome the members of the press once again to the National Agricultural
Seeds Council (NASC) headquarters. I wish to state emphatically that our relationship
as partners in progress has been yielding great dividends for the country,
especially in spreading the news of the seed industry in a balanced way.
Today, I am
excited to inform you that the seed industry is experiencing tremendous growth
while we continually dominate and extend our share of the seed landscape in the sub-region.
It is no more news to say Nigeria’s seed industry accounts for over 60 per cent
of seeds traded and used in the West African sub-region and some parts of East
and Central Africa.
However, the news is that as at today, the Governing
Board of the NASC under the chairmanship of the visionary Honorable Minister
of Agriculture and Rural Development Chief Audu Ogbeh, OFR has ratified and
approved the licensing of 158 new seed entrepreneurs
of different categories to add to the existing 156 already in operation.
Why additional entrepreneurs?
The question may arise in the minds of watchers of the industry, but I want to
assure you that this is borne out of the determination to allow many qualified
entrepreneurs to explore the budding liberalized landscape of the seed
industry. We all know that presently the seed supply-demand gap is still wide and
there are more calls from our neighboring countries that look up to us for
their seed supply. This underscores the point that the industry is not yet
saturated as some may think.
Is it just
numbers?
This pertinent question is also of importance to the Governing Board of NASC.
We are not just concerned about the numbers but the quality. Permit me to inform the members of the press
and the general public that the NASC is very critical of the quality of seed
churned out to our farmers. In view of this we conducted a re-certification
exercise (this is done periodically) of all initial 156 companies in a bid to
evaluate and assess their infrastructure, personnel capacity and capability,
production capacity and operational efficiency to ascertain if they still meet
up their status or rating.
The result of this exercise led to the upgrading of 6
companies who had improved their infrastructure, quality assurance systems, and
personnel while 75 were downgraded. The downgrade which mostly can be traced to
the lull in the seed industry owing to backlogs of debts owed to the companies
does not mean a weakness in the industry but it is strategic – to checkmate the
activities and promote desire for quality and healthy competition among
entrepreneurs.
I wish to inform
you and allay your fears that most of these newly licensed companies are not
green horns in the business but are mostly out-growers, with long years of experience,
and have acquired necessary facilities in relevant categories they have been
classified into after due assessment by the NASC. With these new entrants, the
board has approved 16 new small scale companies, 133 producer and seller entrepreneurs
and 9 seed dealers.
In all, the
country now has 314 seed entrepreneurs, made of 4 large scale, 7 medium scale,
39 small scale, 223 producer seller, and 20 seed dealers. Also,worthy of mention is the fact that during the last
re-certification exercise, 21 seed entrepreneurs were approved by the board to
be classified as inactive. This – by law – means they cannot participate
in seed-related activities until the Council reassess and re-certifies their
facilities. This, however, does not mean their licence has been revoked, hence
their inclusion in the number of companies.
As I conclude, I
want to reassure the Nigerian farmers that the NASC is poised to embark on continued sanitation
of the industry, ensuring proper regulation and monitoring to ensure that only
quality seeds are made available to farmers. To this end, we are promising more
sensitization operations, market surveillance and raids and appropriate
sanctions for defaulters. Of course,as the watchdogs and conscience of the
society,you will be carried along.
This press
conference will be incomplete if I fail to inform you of our new molecular
diagnostic facility. As part of the resolve to ensure quality and disease-free
seeds/ seedling are made available, the Council is introducing the diagnostic
testing of seed, using molecular diagnosis. This facility is new in the sub-region
and will be made available to the public at a minimal fee after all loose
standard operating procedures have been finalized.
Once again, I
wish to welcome you all as we unveil a bigger, better regulated and well-structured
Nigerian seed industry.
Thank you
Dr.
Phillip Olusegun Ojo
DG,
NASC
Date: 5th September 2018
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