Farmers cry out for Quality Seeds

*To boost productivity

By EDDY OCHIGBO

Although stakeholders in the Agriculture sector, supported by international development partners have, through sustained advocacy, succeeded in ensuring that smallholder farmers are given a sense of belonging in the country by convincing government to subsidize critical inputs such as fertilizer leading to appreciable increase in productivity, there still exists many stumbling blocks militating against the expected optimal revival of the sector.

Leading members of the National Advocacy Group on Quality Seeds in the country who dropped the hint at a one day Farmers Dialogue on Evidence Generation in the ancient city of Kano identified affordability, accessibility and availability of agricultural inputs as the major setbacks.

“Over the years, farmers have been worried about access to quality inputs as an essential element in crop production. Through consistent advocacy, appreciable progress is being made to rally key stakeholders to support the drive towards enhancing access to quality inputs by smallholder”.

“The National Advocacy Group on Quality Seeds however, have after several steps of appraisal of the agricultural sector identified the availability, accessibility and affordability of seeds as well as inability of farmers to differentiate between seeds and grains as major setbacks”, the group stated.

The one-day event put together by Partnership to Engage Reform and Learn (PERL-ECP) focused critically on evidence gathering on how farmers can access quality seeds, including achieving other key factors of affordability and availability.

Participants called for regular engagements with the National Agricultural Seed Council, the regulatory body of seed companies in Nigeria. To this end, inroads have been into states like Jigawa, and Kano where farmers associations, groups, smallholders farmers have been engaged. One of the partners in the Advocacy group, Coalition of Associations for Leadership, Peace, Empowerment and Development (CALPED) committed to also gather more data from farmers by stepping down the activity in Kaduna in order to obtain firsthand information on the timely access to quality seeds at both dry and raining seasons.

The farmers who were grouped into six syndicates with facilitators from the advocacy group at state and national, called on relevant institutions at state and federal levels to support farmers in the area of timely access to affordable quality seeds

The engagement provided concrete evidence gathered from smallholder farmers on what is working, the challenges and opportunities in the seeds sector.