Yam seeds: Agric Council approves proposal, organization sets for commercialization

 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.”