Stakeholders in Nigeria’s seed industry are to conduct an evaluation of the sector as they aim to develop a sustainable framework to foster growth and competitiveness, as the country strives to improve sufficiency in food production.
The country for years had a reputation of being one of the places where farm yields are lowest in the world, a situation which appears to motivate efforts to undertake relevant evaluations, in developing strategies that will see productivity improve.
The National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), the government regulatory agency that coordinates and regulates seed activities across the country, says it is organizing a 2 day SEEDCONNECT Conference and Expo with the theme “The Nigerian Seed Industry: Evaluating the Seed Sector and Developing a Sustainable Framework to Bolster the Growth of the Seed Industry” from June 5th –June 6th 2018 in Abuja. At the conference, it is expected that seed companies, researchers, and other stakeholders will converge to proffer solutions to some of the industry’s pressing concerns.
According to Olusegun Ojo, director general, NASC, the convergence will provide an opportunity for stakeholders to review the Nigerian seed Sector with a focus on past innovations, success, failure and challenges; identify critical priority actions to be undertaken by stakeholders to leverage each other’s strengths, scope, scale and operation efficiencies of the sector, and; identify critical gaps and develop a strategic framework for scaling up delivery of high quality seed to farmers.
A statement by NASC, also reads that; the conference is a rebrand of the usual annual national seed planning event organized by NASC that brings key stakeholders to review activities of previous year and draw plans for the current year.
The gathering is expected to aid in the development of a holistic, pragmatic and sustainable road map capable of strengthening the Nigerian Seed Industry and making seeds of the highest quality available to Nigerian farmers and farmers in neighboring countries. The convergence will bring together stakeholders including donors, researchers, policy makers, development partners, academia, farmers organizations, industrial end users, women, youths and the media to mention a few.
