Abuja – The Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Wednesday urged the Federal Government to ensure the passage of the revised Seed Act without delay.
FAO’s Country Representative in Nigeria, Ms Louise Lobisa, gave the advice at a stakeholders consultative workshop in Abuja.
Lobisa said that the passage of the revised Seed Act would help develop the private sector and the community-based seed systems and by extension guarantee food security in the country.
“We now have what we have labelled as the Seed Act. It is now with the Federal Ministry of Justice.
“We hope that when the new ministers come in they would also try to speed that up to make sure the Seed Act is attended to and become operational.
“The main problem that we sometimes face is that we go into all these processes of reviewing the legislation, the policy updating and they stay for several years without being approved and made operational.“
Lobisa said that the workshop was aimed at designing a draft strategy to strengthen private and community seed systems in the country with the intent to strengthen the national seed system.
She said: “The workshop today is to review the draft strategy on how we can support and try to develop the private sector in seed systems and also the community-based seed systems.
“Over and above that, the people that we are producing the seed for particular the farmers need to know what the benefits are and how they can work more closely with the private sector and with government institutions to create a national seed system in the country.“
She further said that FAO was interested in building the capacity of government institutions with seed certification, seed quality, upgrading skills as well as strengthening agro-based laboratories.
“We need to make sure the private sector is playing its roles in the seed system in Nigeria.
“Not only do we need to make sure that the seed is made available, but also those, who are providing the seed are in it as a business and they need to make profit and make a living out of it,’’ she said.
In his lecture titled: `Draft Strategy to Strengthen Private Sector and Community Seed Systems`, Dr Okelola Oluwole, an FAO Consultant and agriculture economist, said that the country had witnessed the collapse of many seed companies.
“We’ve witnessed collapse of many seed companies as far as 1984, but the number increased from 36 in 2011 to 164 in 2014.
“Certified seed production rose from 6,109 tons in 2012 to 149,844 tons in 2013.
“Access to credit by seed companies increased from N1.8 billion in 2012 to N6.02 billion in 2014.
“Seed distribution by companies also rose from 9,455 tons in 2011 to 59,000 tons in 2013.
“In tackling seed problems, you have to know from the roots, the potential pod yield in Nigeria. To know that the country is doing well, the farmer must attain 80 to 85 per cent of potential yield.
“If we are talking agri-business and we want to introduce this business to many of our children and graduates, we must start from here.“
NAN reports that the workshop was attended by participants from both the public and private sectors. (NAN)
