Over 100,000mt of certified seeds available for 2021 cropping season

The National Agricultural Seed Council (NASC) in Nigeria says One hundred thousand and twenty-three point fifty-three metric tons (100,023.53MT) of certified seeds is in stock with seed companies in the country.

This is to ensure availability of seeds for farmers in the coming 2021 cropping season.

The Director General of the Council Dr. Philip Ojo announced this at a media briefing organised by the council to reel out achievements of the seed subsector in 2020 and seed strategy for 2021 in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.

Dr. Ojo said, despite COVID-19 in the country, the council has been able to sustain seed productivity in the country to ensure  that farmers get certified seeds to boost food production in the country.

“I am happy to announce to you therefore that even with the pandemic in the year 2020; we were able to sustain national productivity of seeds. The seeds companies under NASC Watch currently have in stock ready for planting in the coming cropping season, 100,023.53 metric tons of certified seeds of rice, maize, sorghum, soya bean, cowpea, millet, groundnut, wheat, sesame and potato”

“This seeds will be available for farmers to buy and plant instead of their own low quality seeds. Buying and planting these good seeds will ensure that farmers get better yield during this trying period” he added

Certification of seed companies

Also in 2020 following the recertification of seed companies accredited by the council, the council delisted and withdrew the operational license of one hundred and three (103) seed entrepreneurs out of the three hundred and fourteen (314) seed enterprises in Nigeria.

This action, Dr. Ojo said was necessary to strengthen the seed industry and ensure that only serious minded entrepreneurs with genuine seed industry vision and farmers interest have the mandate of the NASC and are eligible to participate in seed related activities of government projects, donors  and aid related programs.

Dr. Ojo said in the year in review, NASC equally introduced the National Seed Tracker (NST), a Web application for enhanced operational efficiency of seed company registration and real time tracking of quality assurance processes, a technology he noted was first deployed by the NASC in partnership with IITA in Nigeria and now being exported to other African countries like Tanzania and Congo DR.

On the seed authentication, Dr. Ojo called on farmers to patronise only seeds affixed with the NASC SEEDCODEX Tags which is the mark of quality for seeds in Nigeria

“The SEEDCODEX tags as you are aware is the output of the NASC electronic seed verification and authentication system that enhances the efficiency of our seed certification and quality assurance scheme which we put in place to prevent seed adulteration by unscrupulous seed merchants,” he stated.

He informed farmers that all certified seeds packed in Nigeria must carry the  authentication tags with code affixed on them for farmers to send to a dedicated number to be able to verify instantly.

Lateefah Ibrahim