FG set to drive accessibility of improved seeds to farmers

The Federal Government says it is determined to drive adoption of improved seed varieties by farmers in the country, as it has unveiled plans to fast track sustainable seed delivery system in the rural communities.

Sonny Echono, permanent secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, who disclosed this during a stakeholder workshop on ‘Community Seed Production Programme’ organised by the National Agricultural Seed Council (NASC) yesterday in Abuja, noted that the most critical problem facing farmers in the rural communities was inadequate availability of high quality seeds.

Farmers are often left with no option than to obtain their seeds from previous season harvest or purchase grains from the market for use as seeds, which in most cases result in low yield and make them even poorer, he said.

Echono attributed this to lack of awareness of availability of better performing crop varieties that were high yielding, disease and drought tolerant, and also poor distribution network by seed companies and agro-dealers in rural communities that deny farmers access to good quality seeds.

He further lamented that the inability of the organised formal seed system to reach farmers in the rural communities on time with the seed they need for planting, stressing the need to put in place other seed supply systems beyond what the formal sector could provide.

Pointing out that the seed and planting materials of other crops that farmers require are often of no interest to the seed companies, he said there was need to put in place alternative seed delivery system, such as the community seed production programme.

He however noted that the Community Seed Programme (CSP) was not a replacement of the formal seed sector, but a complementary one and a seed diffusion strategy aimed at popularising the use of improved, high quality seed among rural farmers who usually rely on seed saved from their farms or exchanged from their close friends.

Earlier in his remark, Phillip Ojo, director-general, National Agricultural Seed Council, noted that the community approach to seed development in Nigeria had been operational since in the 90s, and this had been used by various development partners and projects to make improved seed available to farmers in their project areas.