• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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BusinessDay

Low quality seeds hurt Nigeria’s cotton production

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Nigerian cotton farmers have identified poor seed as the major challenge facing the cultivation of crop efforts and reducing their yield per hectare.

Access to adequate, secured and timely supply of quality cotton seeds is a major hurdle on the nation’s quest to return to its heydays when cotton was a major export cash crop.

Despite efforts of successive governments to give farmers access to improved seeds and seedlings, farmers are still unable to get access to good and quality seeds.

“A lot of farmers are abandoning their farms because they do not have enough seeds to plant. Majority of the cotton seeds in the market are of low quality,” Anibe Achimugu, president, National Cotton Association of Nigeria (NACOTAN) told BusinessDay in a telephone interview.

“There is also no adequate access to finance for cotton farmers and when most of the funds come, it normally gets to the farmers late and the planting of cotton is at a particular season,” Achimugu said.

Cotton production in the country is fast on the decline as most farmers are abandoning farming cotton and moving to other crops as the production is no longer attractive.

Cotton which used to be one of Nigeria’s major cash crops in the 80’s was not even among the top 15 agricultural commodities exported in 2016, data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows.

“A lot of farmers are no longer growing cotton because of low patronage and lack of inputs. The inputs we get from the government usually come very late. When you delay in planting cotton, it affects the productivity,” said Abubakar Shiyaki, a cotton farmer in Niger state.

“When we buy our seeds ourselves, we only buy low quality seeds. As a result of all these challenges, a lot of farmers growing cotton are now growing other crops because they cannot break-even with cotton,” Shiyaki said.

This is the case of many cotton farmers across the country. The number of seed companies in the country increased from five in 2011 to about 80 seeds companies’ today yet, most of the hybrid seeds in the country are not viable and are of low quality.

“The issue of seeds in the country is that farmers are not informed and they don’t know where to get these quality seeds from. Extension service agents that are supposed to educate and inform farmers hardly visit their farmlands,” said Afioluwa Mogaji, chief executive officer, X-RAY Farms.

According to stakeholders, the closure of most textile companies in the country led to the low patronage of cotton from farmers which have made cotton farming less attractive for them.

Nigeria’s cotton production is put at 51,000 metric tonnes on 253,000 hectares with average yield of 202kg per hectare, while global cotton consumption is put at 24 million metric tonnes, according to the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) 2016 data.

Salmanu Abdullahi, chairman, Ginners Association of Nigeria, said “the total collapse of cotton production was as a result of government neglect of agriculture. We however believe that things would be different now that there is renewed commitment to the sector.

“Government needs to also address the issue of seeds, so that farmers can improve their yields,” said Abdullahi.

Stakeholders have blamed the failure to increase cotton output on ineffective government structures that do not allow effective and efficient translation of technology between research institutes and cotton farmers.

Ibrahim Umar Abubakar, director, Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR) Zaria said, “the failure of extension service delivery in the country has contributed to the failure of cotton farmers. Farmers need to be trained on good handling practice, modern farming techniques and technology.

 

Josephine Okojie