With the proposal's approval, yams:could turn out another inexhaustible source of foreign exchange for Nigeria |
The International
Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)and
Association of yam producers, processors and marketers’ proposal on yam improved
seeds for commercial production presented to the National Council on
Agriculture and Rural Development (NCARD) meeting held in Umuahia, Abia State got
a positive nod with an instruction to have it harmonised with the ministry’s
yam value chain for its integration into national policy for the economic
benefit of all stakeholders including marketers and consumers.
While
presenting the memo on behalf of the sponsors, Prof. Malachi Akoroda had argued
that many available yam seeds in circulation were only good for local
consumption, but not exportable because of their peculiarities that did not
conform to exportable product, saying the approval of the memo would avail
farmers of improved yam seeds varieties for increased productivity and national
economic empowerment of farmers.
Meanwhile, The
Seed Delivery Officer for Yam Improvement for Income and Food Security in West
Africa (YIIFSWA), Mr. Azeez Oyeyemi has said that the body has embarked on an
improved multiplication that would make quality and certified yam seeds
available for production of quality and edible yams across the country thereby
addressing scarcity challenges.
He said that
when talking of yam production “we have to consider where to get the yam seeds,
and when we are talking of seed yam, it has to be quality seed yam, which is
the major thing YIIFSWA-II is trying to face out. In YIIFSWA-II, we have
researched on a lot of methods we call High Ratio Propagation Techniques
whereby when it comes to the production of yam instead of ratio1:10 we now have
from ratio 1:200 or ratio 1:300 of clean quality yam...Basically the problem
farmers are faced with is the acquisition of quality seed yam, when it comes to
multiplication ratio, it is very slow in Nigeria, and they have decided to work
with five companies on the production of certified quality seeds in a
commercial quantity for seed farmers.”
Speaking
with Food
farm news, one of YIISWA staff, Mrs. Iwosa Odihi pointed
out that “what this project is doing is that just with 1% of the production
chain of yam, we have been able to change the system. The production value of
yam is about 13.7 billion naira annually but with just 12 million dollars we
were able to transform the system in five years.”
She described
the problem of yam seeds as ‘slow,
multiplying plant that could only give one tuber per plant within the period of
eight months’ adding that “it’s not even seed yam that is gotten out of the
farm, but big tuber, which is the table yam that people eat, making farmers to
be recycling their seeds over and over again, which has resulted into having
old seeds for yearly production as most of the seeds have stayed for ten,
twenty to thirty years, without any clue of where the seeds are coming from,
and they are compounded with viruses and pathogens, leaving quality to go down
the drain.”
She affirmed
that implementation of the proposal would enhance robust export incentives for
farmers in terms of foreign earning through export.”
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