By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
The Federal Minister of Agriculture & Rural Development on Wednesday disclosed that the federal government has approved the Revised 2022 National Agricultural Seed Policy just as he confirmed that Nigeria is still maintaining her trading partnership with Russia and Ukraine despite the war between the two European nations.
Briefing State House Correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the Minister Dr. Muhammad Abubakar said his ministry presented a memo to Council on the Revised 2022 National Agricultural Seed Policy.
Said he: “Gentlemen of the press, my ministry presented a memo today on our revised 2022 National Agricultural Seed Policy.
“Before now we have been operating on the 2010 Policy, which was revised in 2015. And we just also revised that again to the 2022.
“Why the revision?
For seeds, what you plant is what you reap.
“With the current continuous development in technology, seeds are always been upgraded standardize four to five with several vitamins. There’s also the issue of genetically modified organisms or seeds, if you will.
“So, this revision, seek to confirm with global best practice in yield.
Our farmers must have access to best quality seeds that have been fortified, seed that can produce the yield that will be worth their while, seeds that can produce again, the produce that come can compete in the world market. This is the basis for this particular policy”.
Explaining further he said: “the implementing agency is the National Agricultural Seed Council of Nigeria.
“The same agency works with the department within the Ministry, also work with other agencies and MDAs that are also involved in some ways with agriculture, work with civil society organization, international agencies.
“Nigeria every year holds summit that we call Seed Connect. This is an international summit that discusses and focus on improvement development in seeds from around the globe. So seeds is really very important, very critical, as you all know, the agric sector from a great part of the GDP of this country and all that we focus on smallholder farmers.
“Someone will wonder how do they get good quality seed? We make to make sure they are priority. We distribute good quality seeds to them free. We make sure that any seed that is coming into the country also is subjected to the decentralization.
“We have a system that is called Codex, and we’ll make sure all seeds that will be taken to the market have these Codex, they have gone through our screening. And this is the purpose of this policy, to make better seeds and to achieve food security.
“Unless we have good yielding seeds we will not be able to achieve the full security you want and Nigeria with 200 million people plus and counting we need to make sure we’re on top of our game in terms of the quality of seeds of any kind of produce in this country.
Meanwhile, the Minister has revealed that Nigeria is still importing agricultural products and allied materials from Russia and Ukraine, pointing out that the country is importing grains from Ukraine whole Russia supply Nigeria potash, which is used to blend fertilizers.
