COVID-19: Give seeds to farmers, NASC tells Governors

• NBDA promises yam seeds to 5m farmers

The Director General, National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) Dr. Philip Ojo has called on the states’ Governors to support farmers with improved seeds towards checkmating food hunger in the country.



Dr. Ojo said this while contributing to a question on virtual conference organised at the instance of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), National Biotechnology Development Agency (NBDA) and Open Forum for Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB), Nigeria Chapter last Wednesday.

Ojo said that the effort of the Federal Government (FG) should be well complimented by the governors of the 36 states of the federation by giving farmers improved seeds as palliative to checkmate looming hunger in the country saying this would motive farmers not to abandon farming.

NASC boss insisted that in our quest for food security to mitigate covid-19 challenges, Nigerian farmers must have access to quality seeds, adding that cutting edge technologies are being deplored by his agency to checkmate the impact of covid -19 effect on seeds system and availability.

He pointed that the council through its seeds alert technology was now capable to scientifically track adulterated seeds in the system just as clients are able to access our services right from the comfort of their homes through the centralized platform that linked all the stakeholders in the sub seeds sector together for information.

Dr. Ojo said that all nations of the world are faced with uncertainty occasioned by covid 19 pandemic, but posited optimism that FG was on top of the situation as the FMARD has distributed improved seeds of cocoa, rice, sorghum, millet and groundnut to farmers across the nation as palliative to embark on food production, pointing that his council would not relent in ensuring that producers and other operators are well supported through the use of innovations with resilience to pandemic disease.

The NABDA Director General (DG) Prof. Alex Akpa also allayed the fear of looming hunger in the country saying that five million farmers would be supported with new yam seeds to mitigate scarcity for increased production across the country as against one million last year beneficiaries.
Prof. Akpa pointed that the two high bred varieties of Bt cotton were already in the hands of farmers which can give up to 4.2 per hectare, saying this would be able to increase oil vegetable productivity for consumption, apart from the cotton production at the ginneries.

He added that 2,500 farmers were empowered last year with these improved bt cotton seeds, and stated the same support would be extended to cowpea farmers this year in order to increase productivity for consumption.

NABDA boss reiterated that his Agency would not relent in ensuring the use of biological engineering innovations to checkmate impact of covid 19 and other pest diseases that could be threat to food security.

 He stressed that hydroponics technologies of farming must be encouraged to grow vegetables, onions and tomatoes in an integrated manner with fish farming so the water from the ponds can be recycled to grow these perishable crops.

The Nigeria OFAB national coordinator, Dr. Rose Gidado in her opening remark pointed that the conference was meant to address those limitations confronting high productivity in both crops and livestock farming saying that eco system must not be interrupted as biotechnology innovations played a lead road.

Dr. Gidado mentioned among others low productivity, poor seeds system, limited mechanization, poor soil management, climate change vagaries and un-conducive policies as impediment that new biotechnology innovations must be able to checkmate to ensure food security.