By Daniel Essiet

Nigeria’s export of edible vegetables remains vastly unexploited, according to the International Trade Centre (ITC).

The ITC reported that edible vegetables, tuber and roots exports from Nigeria constituted only three per cent of world’s imports.

India remains the largest importer of Nigeria’s edible vegetables. It imported 47 .91 per cent of edible vegetables, tuber and roots.

United States’ imports were  13. 17 per cent last year, while United Kingdom share of vegetables imports from Nigeria stood at 4.97 percent. United Arab Emirates (UAE) imported 5.91 per cent of Nigeria’s  vegetables.

Exports to Netherlands stood at 0.09 per cent; Sri Lanka ,1. 31 per cent and Turkey 1.97 per cent.

Last year, there were no record of vegetables imports from Hong Kong, Greece, Indonesia, kenya, Cuba, France, China, Denmark, Ethiopia and Chile.

According to the Agricultural Fresh Produce Growers and Exporters Association of Nigeria (AFPGEAN), Nigeria loses between 55 per cent and 72 per cent of its cultivated fresh produce (fruits and vegetables) before it can be consumed, much less exported.

Early this year, the Italian Trade Agency (ITA),  wooed Nigerian agric produce exporters following demands of fruits and vegetables in the European market.

The ITA is a governmental agency that supports the business development, partnerships and collaborations between Italian companies and their local counterparts, which launched the first E-Lab Innova in Nigeria.The ICE Faculty Trainer, Enrico Turino, said Nigerian produce exporters have opportunities to penetrate the European market with vegetables, gingers, avocados, and others.

“There is the market asking for more fruits and vegetables because the European consumes what everything on the table, not only when it is available that is why I give example of the winter time.

“If you don’t produce the right variety of fruit or vegetable you cannot enter the market, and it is very important to get this information, in other words this source of information is important for the Nigerian producer, and also to visit supermarkets and wholesale markets, technology producers in Europe, especially Italy. Nigerian farmers should take information from the Innova Gap Certification”, he said.

Turino also urged producer exporters to get in touch with importers in Europe in order to have clear information about what they need, type and variety of produce.

“So it is a very interesting one, I only suggest to the producer to visit trade shows where they could talk with importers on what they need in terms of quantity, quality, type, variey needed in the European market.

In Africa, Egypt is the leading exporter of hibiscus with Morocco coming second and Nigeria occupying a third place. The Federation of Agricultural Commodities Association of Nigeria (FACAN) President, Dr. Victor Iyama, had in the past, called for the establishment of standard sanitary and phyto-sanitary labs in the country, as well as an increase hibiscus processing.

Last year,   Nigeria exported agricultural products worth N321.5 billion, representing a 19.16 per cent  increase when compared to N269.8 billion recorded in 2019 and a 6.27 per cent  increase compared to N302.28 billion recorded in 2018.

However, despite the increase recorded in export, imported agricultural goods surged by 78.58 per cent in 2020 compared to 2019. Nigeria imported agricultural goods worth N1.71 trillion in 2020 as against N959.5 billion in 2019.

 

The government should make efforts to boost agribusiness through some value-added projects. This was the highlights of the just-concluded National Council on Agriculture and Rural Development (NCARD) seminar in Abuja, DANIEL ESSIET reports.

FOR the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mohammad Nanono, Nigeria’s agricultural resources could contribute to its growth and development like oil, if well managed.

Speaking at the 44th Meeting of the National Council on Agriculture and Rural Development (NCARD), he reiterated that the government was working on some agric projects that would create value.

The event’s theme was ‘Nigeria’s agriculture and food security in the face of COVID-19, floods and insecurity’.

The Minister said the government had established a portal to capture the biodata of farmers to assist them.

Nanono stated: “Although we initially set out to capture the data of 2.4 million farmers across the country, the results from the exercise have encouraged the Economic Sustainability Plan Team to expand the data capture to 10 million farmers.’’

The Minister stated that the database will be “a platform for the Federal Government’s intervention, to end ghost schemes and other unscrupulous practices in the agricultural industry”.

Nanono noted: “A major hallmark of our agricultural interventions is inclusiveness. We have catered for the youth, women, and many demographic considerations in our implementation strategies. As a stop-gap intervention, we launched the Agric for Food and Jobs Programme, originally conceived as an input loan for smallholder farmers across several commodities, including maize, rice, cotton, groundnut, sorghum, cowpea, soybean, sesame, cassava and oil palm.’’

He further said: “The scheme brought into a partnership with the Central Bank of Nigeria, Commodity Association and Agricultural Platform Companies for effective facilitation. This, we believe, will not only improve production significantly but also aid in the off-taking of produce while providing input at a reduced price due to economy of scale.’’

The Minister also said seven states have set aside 19 grazing reserves for the implementation of the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP).

”Seven of these 10 states have also earmarked about 19 grazing reserves for the implementation of the NLTP, with a total land size of approximately 400,00 hectares,” he said. He said the NLTP, when fully implemented, will bring an end to the crisis.

NCARD also approved the implementation of the National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Plan (NATIP), the new policy of the Ministry under Nanono. It is a four-year blueprint designed to help Nigeria’s post-COVID-19 pandemic economic recovery.The policy will replace the Agriculture Promotion Policy (APP) launched in 2016.

Another highlight of the meeting was the approval of the mainstreaming of biofortification of agricultural produce, following a proposal submitted by the Ogun State Agriculture Commissioner, Dr  Adeola Odedina, who  reiterated the commitment of the state government to address food security.

He noted that the state was providing seeds of improved and nutritious varieties to farmers and working with relevant agencies and partners to facilitate technical and financial assistance to small holder farmers.

His team also collaborates with food processing industries and builds networks for raw material supply, thereby creating markets and building sustainability.

He said the state has been found worthy by international partners led by HarvestPlus to host the Seventh Nutritious Food Alliance – a yearly fair that brings together stakeholders from the public and private sectors, locally and internationally, from November 18 to 20 in Abeokuta.

Odedina said Ogun has identified technology use in farming, processing, and logistics, where steps were being made towards creating the industry of the future.

He said the government understands the challenge facing the agriculture industry but it is already seeing positive examples of the transition towards building a more efficient food system.

According to him, the urban population is putting pressure on the food system to adapt.

This, he noted, would require a food system that is more efficient, better able to meet consumer expectations, more profitable, and more resilient in the face of macro-economic pressures.

 

Our Reporter 

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is billed to speak at the 2021 edition of Oke Ogun Youth Agric Summit.

The summit holds on August 5, 2021 at Iseyin town hall, Iseyin in Oke Ogun area of Oyo State.

A statement by coordinator of Oke Ogun Youth Association, organisers of the summit, Bola Olalere, said Obasanjo will speak on theme of the summit: “Agribusiness and prosperity on our land.”

Read Also: Kano sets for economic summit

Obasanjo, founder of Obasanjo farms, a pioneer agribusiness venture in the country, will be sharing his wealth of experience with Oke Ogun youths leading agricultural revolution in the region.

Other speakers expected at the summit are a former Minister of Agriculture Otunba Bamidele Dada; Chairman Oyo State Security Networks aka Amotekun Brig. Gen Kunle Toogun(Rtd): Alhaji Ahmed Raji, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and farmer Kola Adeniji, Chairman, Niji Farms, African Biggest cassava grower.

Olalere explained Oke Ogun Green Revolution is an initiative of Oke-Ogun Youths Association aimed at encouraging young people to engage in profitable, sustainable and commercial agriculture by creating a platform that will generate interesting networks for them.

The bid to revolutionise millet and bring it back to the plate is being driven by enhanced seeds all over the world, DANIEL ESSIET reports.

The world’s millet market value is projected to surpass $12 billion by 2025, according to the Global Market Insights Inc, a United States-based research organisation.

Apart from this, the global millet consumption has been forecast to surge between this year and 2024. This is driven by the growing use of millet for snacks, which include flakes, cookies and chips.

Besides, the non-food use of millet has increased significantly, especially as animal feed ingredient and as raw material in breweries and starch industries. According to estimates, about 60 per cent of the millet production is for non-human consumption. However, in recent years, there is a renewed demand for millet as food for health-conscious urban consumers.

The Millet Market – 2019–2024 by ResearchAndMarkets.com projects  that  cultivation of  millet, known for high nutritive value, will increase, following changing climate patterns and rising salinity that have forced governments to take alternative measures and encourage crop diversification; and farmers are following suit.

According to the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), more than 90 million people in Africa and Asia depend on millet, and 500 million in more than 30 countries depend on sorghum as a staple food. However, in the past 50 years, these grains have been abandoned in favour of developing more popular crops such as maize, wheat, rice, and soybeans. Consequently, there is a campaign for the development and wider adoption of high-yielding varieties.

For instance, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has called for action to make millet a priority for achieving food and nutrition security, particularly in contributing to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2, 3, 12 and 13.

Following this, national and regional development plans in Africa, according to analysts, rely on millet to ensure food and nutritional security for the population. Scientists say they can survive even under extreme drought conditions. This is because millet is grown mostly on drylands, where other crops cannot be grown.

At present, there are efforts to promote iron-biofortified pearl millet to provide a convenient and cheap source of iron for people. This follows the fact that the nutritional content of the food basket is decreasing and the risk of nutrient deficiencies may be severe among children and women.

With support from HarvestPlus, scientists at ICRISAT have used conventional plant breeding techniques to develop biofortified varieties of pearl millet combining high iron content with high yield.

Iron pearl millet (IPM) varieties are aimed at providing more dietary iron to rural farming communities in arid and drought-prone regions where few other crops thrive.

ICRISAT’s Country Representative, Nigeria, Dr. Hakeem Ajeigbe, noted that the renewed focus on boosting the production of millet and highlighting its benefits, was critical to reducing over-reliance on more-commonly grown crops, boosting diverse diets and food security.

Acknowledging the role of millet in responding to nutritional, challenges, he stressed the need to increase the cultivation of climate-resilient millet for balanced and healthy diets.

Ajiegbe said farmers in 13 states received improved seeds of sorghum, pearl millet, cowpea and rice as a part of an initiative to cushion the pandemic’s impact on food systems.

The states were selected based on the importance of sorghum and millet as food crops and access of partners to needy smallholder farmers.

Particularly on pearl millet, he noted that following awareness on the existence of improved varieties, the adoption rate had increased.

His words: “Return on investment (ROI) was higher for farmers who adopted improved technologies (83 per cent) than for those who did not (43 per cent).”

He reiterated that ICRISAT had played a role in ensuring availability of quality seeds of pearl millet in Nigeria.

A lead agronomist for Flour Milling Association of Nigeria (FMAN), Tijani Abdullahi, noted that improving nutrition in the North would depend on reviving millet and other crops.

According to Abdullahi, millet remains a staple of millions of Nigerians. His words: “The key millet production areas in Nigeria are Borno, Yobe, Jigawa, Bauchi, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara.”

Making investments in increasing productivity, processing technologies and a price guarantee for millet crops, according to him, will help to make the grains and products available at affordable prices to the common man.

He added that improving security had become critical as most of the areas dominant for millet production had some security challenges, hindering farmers to produce.

Abdullahi has had an extensive work experience with farmers in Kano and Jigawa states. In the last two years, he has collaborated with the farmers for the cultivation and introduction of drought-resistant crops in the North.

He believes support for crop diversification initiative would improve food supply in the North with better varieties of millet released to farmers.

In recent years, Nigeria has been experiencing a fall in millet. The decline is not only due to the reduction of cultivated areas, but also the production challenges.

Last year, analysts estimated millet production in Nigeria to be two million metric tonnes. The production volume stood at 5.2 million metric tonnes in 2010. However, the production volume experienced a decrease by 75 per cent compared to 2010, going from 5.2 million metric tons to 1.3 million metric tonnes.

In an interview, the Executive Director, National Agricultural Research and Liaison Services (NAERLS), Zaria, Kaduna State, Prof. Emmanuel Ikani, lamented the decline in the cultivation of millet.

Ikani attributed the problem to farmers’ inability to access improved seeds for cultivation, thereby making them to plant less than one hectare each.

According to him, the Boko Haram insurgency has contributed to a decline in agricultural production, as smallholder farmers have experienced the destruction of productive assets, lost access to farm inputs, and even faced displacement.

In Borno State, a major  belt  for the  production of sorghum and millet, Ikani  noted that  sustained attacks on  the farms had made  millet cultivation difficult, despite  the Lake Chad Research Institute coming up with many improved millet seeds.

While he called on relevant stakeholders to engage farmers in the rural communities, through enlightenment and sensitisation, to return to the production of millet, Ikani noted that the future of millet production depended on restoration of peace to the Northeast region.

ICRISAT works with farmer communities and its partners, including the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), focusing on millet, among others.

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and Centre for Dryland Agriculture at the Bayero University, Kano (CDA-BUK) had partnered ICRISAT and Syngenta Foundation on Harnessing Opportunities for Productivity Enhancement for Sorghum and Millet (HOPE II) project.

The project spanning 11 countries focused on developing improved varieties and crop management practices to help smallholder farmers increase productivity under harsh, dry production environments in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

So far, Nigeria has reported 21 per cert productivity gains from a package of improved practices in pearl millet. Forty-nine cultivars were released by the project countries (25 sorghum; 13 pearl millet; and 11 finger millet).

Reportedly, 178,447 mini-packs of seed were sold to farmers through field days, seed-producing farmers and local agro-dealers.

So far, there has been a shortfall of certified millet, in the 2020 cropping season, according to a forecast from the National Seed Committees of Member States of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Permanent Interstate Committee for drought control in the Sahel (CILSS).

According to data, less than 10,000 metric tonnes of sorghum and millet-certified seeds were produced last year compared to a demand of about 100,000 mts. The data was collected from Benin, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, Chad, Guinea, Gambia, Ghana, Senegal and Cape Verde.

The spread of COVID-19 in West Africa and the Sahel affected the 2020/2021 cropping season, particularly the supply of certified seeds to producers.

Consequently, some scientists have brought expertise and technologies spanning breeding and molecular biology to develop climate-resilient elite in-breeds and hybrids.

Led by UC Davis, the consortium is funded by a four-year grant from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), under the Feed the Future initiative for food security.

Also, researchers at the Department of Global Development, Cornell University, United States (US) are working on improving fonio, a special kind of millet, to play a big role in improving food security in West Africa.

At the moment, a form of millet with small grains, fonio, is being grown in West Africa; the research project is carried out by Cornell’s Climate-Resilient Farming Systems (CRFS) programme.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has declared 2023 as the International Year of Millet, considering the crop’s nutritional qualities, resilience to climate change and its potential to alleviate poverty among farmers in drought-prone areas.

In declaring the year, the resolution called on stakeholders to provide support to “activities aimed at raising awareness of and directing policy attention to the nutritional and health benefits of millet consumption, and its suitability for cultivation under adverse and changing climatic conditions, while also directing policy attention to improving value chain efficiencies”.

There are efforts to develop new high-yielding and climate-resilient legumes and seeds for farmers across Africa. It involves strengthen breeding capacity, develop better seed varieties, and improve the seed delivery systems. The goal is to empower smallholder farmers to pursue better lives DANIEL ESSIET reports.

Income security for farmers has taken the front burner in recent years. This is because the more farmers are able to grow more crops, the greater the possibilities for rural development and increased youth employment in the years in future.

Buoyed by this, many organisations have joined the international campaign to improve the capacity-building support provided to farmers and their families. There are various capacity-building activities designed to improve the livelihoods and food security of smallholder farmers and rural producers.

With its abundant fertile soils, Africa is a major global producer of numerous tropical products, offering strong opportunities to smallholder producers.

Yet, millions of smallholder farmers cannot leverage the opportunities due to limited access seeds.

To address the urgent need to increase income and providing job opportunities for farmers, scientists have been working on developing better legumes and cereals to enable farmers achieve healthier lives. They are harnessing clean technologies to produce high-quality, legumes and cereal seeds to meet growing demand.

To achieve this, Accelerated Varietal Improvement and Seed Delivery of Legumes and Cereals in Africa (AVISA project was launched in February 2019 to work on modernising breeding and increasing incomes for smallholders in seven countries of Africa.

Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it builds on gains made by earlier initiatives funded by the Foundation – Tropical Legumes (TL), Harnessing Opportunities for Productivity Enhancement for Sorghum and Millets (HOPE) and HarvestPlus.

In partnership with National Agricultural Research Systems, AVISA includes the most important dryland cereals (sorghum and pearl millet) and legume crops (groundnut, common bean and cowpea) in Nigeria, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Mali, Uganda, Ghana and Ethiopia.

Across the CGIAR, (formerly the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) consortium, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)  are  working  on continuous stream of improved varieties designed  to enable  smallholders to achieve greater yields, higher incomes and improved livelihoods. The cereals included sorghum, pearl millet, cowpea, common bean and groundnut.

A Principal Scientist at International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and Project Coordinator of the Tropical Legumes and AVISA initiatives, Dr Chris Ojiewo,  stressed that boosting domestic production of staple foods  is a solution to strengthening national food security.

With the harsh growing conditions of sub-Saharan Africa, he continued, that food legumes were a key option to help countries achieve this.

AVISA project, he  maintained,   was  committed to ensuring farmers in Nigeria, Ethiopia,Ghana,Tanzania, Uganda, Burkina Faso and Mali, have equal access to high quality  sorghum, pearl millet, cowpea,common bean and  groundnut.

According to him, the European Union and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have committed to  driving  research and technical and organisational innovations across agricultural and food systems in developing countries to address some of the most pressing challenges posed by climate change.

To take advantage of   the Tropical Legumes (TL) project, famers in the North, have organised themselves into innovation platforms (IPs). The goal is to groom successful groundnut seed producers, with farmers adopting improved variety seeds and good agronomic practices to obtain high yields that help them improve their nutrition as well as incomes in the community.

A  groundnut breeder at the Centre for Dryland Agriculture, Bayero University of Kano (CDA/BUK), Prof Sanusi Gaya, explained, “Members of the association cherished the TL project as a development intervention which focused on enhancing smallholder farmers’ access to seeds of improved groundnut varieties.”

AVISA’s approach is the continued use of IPs to serve as a medium of activities to drive technological innovation among members and communities.

Also, Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) launched 13 Farmers’ Hubs to serve 13,000 sorghum and cowpea farmers in Kano and Jigawa states.

The organisation believes that one of the best ways to encourage economic growth is through the development of business hubs. The initiative was in response to survey findings on low farm yields attributed to difficult access to quality seeds, inputs and adulterated agro-chemicals (including adulterated fertiliser) in Northern Nigeria.

The hubs are an integral component of the operational strategy of SFSA in Nigeria to boost crop productivity while facilitating linkages with different markets.

The Country Programme Manager, SFSA-Nigeria, Isaiah Gabriel, said the initiative was part of the implementation of AVISA Project in Nigeria. Given the long distances many farmers have to travel to find quality input supply stores and markets, the hubs will also serve as sales points for farm produce, facilitate access to weather information and provide hands-on training and link AVISA partners in Nigeria to extension services of NGOs and the Agricultural Development Programmes (ADPs). The decision to construct the hubs was based on findings from many adoption and value chain studies carried out by ICRISAT and national partners in Northern Nigeria.

Gabriel said managers have been screened to ensure the effective functioning of the hubs.

He cited the Hub Manager of Bichi, who had a turnover of N5 million within two months of operation. He announced a support fund from SFSA, which is available to Hub Managers of the targeted local government areas of Kano and Jigawa states.

SFSA will continue to provide technical back-stopping and mobilise same from national and international research institutes such as the Institute for Agricultural Research (IAR), International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and ICRISAT.

 

By Daniel Essiet

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has launched S$463.9 million (A$600million) 5.5-year Kangaroo bond, marking its return to the Australian dollar bond market.

A statement said the transaction was led by Nomura and RBC Capital Markets. It is the institution’s first benchmark Kangaroo since early 2018 and its first in the mid-curve since 2015. It is also the largest AUD trade ever issued by the bank.

More than 30 investors participated in the deal, with a total order book of more than $775 million, leading to an upsize of the trade from the announced size of $250-300 million to the final size of $600 million. These included a strong cohort of Australian investors, while fund managers were the major investor type.

AfDB Treasurer Hassatou N’sele said the COVID-19 pandemic had led to a rise in global issuances of social bonds.

“Following on from the ground breaking $3.1 billion 3-year ‘Fight Covid-19’ Social Bond we issued in 2020, we’re glad to see that public domestic markets, like the Kangaroo bond market, are now seeing similar development in terms of interest from dedicated ESG investors, which provided additional momentum enabling us to print the largest trade we’ve ever done in AUD,” N’sele said.

The AfDB’s  social bonds have use of proceeds allocated to projects that alleviate or mitigate social issues such as improving access to electricity, water and sanitation, and improving livelihoods through flood-risk reduction and access to clean transportation and employment generation.

Recent KangaNews data show that the AfDB had A$1.75 billion of bonds mature between its 2015 benchmark deal and its most recent. Keith Werner, Manager of Capital Markets and Financial Operations, said 38 per cent of investors in the deal had a socially responsible investment approach and that the African Development Bank intends to issue more social bonds in Australian dollars.

“In addition to the important contribution that socially responsible investors had to the success of this trade, it’s also gratifying to see such a large portion of the investors (41%) were domestic, which is an area where we haven’t seen strong support historically. We look forward to leveraging this momentum and continue evaluating opportunities in the future in this market,” Werner said.

Agriculture is facing a lot of challenges. There is a campaign to promote the development and propagation of resilient crop varieties to increase yields. But, this will require improving the plant variety protection system, writes DANIEL ESSIET2.

 

Despite that the industry has untapped potential, there is food insecurity. Supply of products is becoming a challenge due to growing population and climate change.  There is, therefore, the need for high-quality seedlings. Several research institutions run crop breeding programmes to enhance food security, reduce poverty and improve health and nutrition.Their investments in crop improvement run into the millions of dollars and naira.

For stakeholders, innovations that can help farmers adapt to changing conditions and pest pressures have become critical.

If Nigeria is to compete on the global stage and achieve its potential, the Director-General of National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), Dr Olusegun Ojo, noted that farmers should have access to improved crops that their competitors have.

At a virtual meeting, Ojo maintained that the food production system needed to evolve to help unlock the potential of the sector.

He spoke about the potential of plant breeding in terms of  producing better yields and protecting the food supply from climate change, disease, and pests, which would hamper growers and threaten access to safe, abundant food.

He said the government was committed to strengthening plant breeders’ protection to provide motivation and incentives to increase investment in research and development for the crop sector, giving our farmers greater access to newest crop varieties.

Ojo reiterated that providing healthy and high-quality seeds for farmers and enabling local production were an important objective of the Federal Government.

In line with this, the Council is driving breeding programmes to increase the rates of genetic gain and the scale of impact through the adoption of farmer-preferred, market-demanded and climate-resilient varieties.

To achieve this, it has fostered a closer cooperation between research institutes and universities, seed companies in the private sector, as well as multilateral seed companies.

Ensuring high-quality seed production has become important and constitutes the foundation of resilient agricultural production. Ojo and other experts emphasised the need for a Plant Variety Protection (PVP) law to prevent intellectual property of seed breeders, from being stolen.

The absence of a PVP, the experts argued, would leave farmers with low-quality and adulterated seeds that are  dangerous to crop production and food security.

Whether it is developing a crop variety more resistant to disease, or a high-fibre crop that produces healthier oil, the sector has taken delivery of  innovations that offer benefits to farmers, food processors and consumers alike.

At the moment, organisations such as the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) are bringing new plant varieties to the space.

The private plant breeding sector dominated by big multinational companies, such as Bayer, Syngenta and Corteva, offer highly productive seeds to farmers. To achieve this, an immense amount of time and investment are required.

In most cases, plant breeders spend 10 to 12 years working on a new variety. The protection of their works is important for commercial success and for farmers to have access to a wider variety of seeds.

Ojo said the existence of a PVP law would encourage plant breeders to develop superior varieties that would lead to the agricultural sector transformation.

“Section 39 of the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) Act 21 of 2019 signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari states the important need for the granting of plant breeders rights to be provided for in an Act of the National Assembly on plant variety protection,” he said.

The Senate, on March 3, 2021, passed into law the PVP Bill, and it is awaiting presidential assent. The law will give the breeder exclusive control over the variety, right to use the variety, and encourages the development of better plant varieties.

While the council and other stakeholders are driving the bill, opposition said it would promote Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

But Ojo differed.

His words: “I have listened to non-state actors try so hard to unintelligently link the bill to GMO or the subversion of farmers’ rights.

“The bill has nothing to do with the advancement of GMO in Nigeria.There are laws and state agencies that have been given this responsibility and the PVP has nothing to do with that.

“Supporting the development of new plant varieties is an essential response to achieving food security and agricultural sustainability. Improved varieties are a necessary and cost-effective means of improving productivity, quality and marketability for farmers and growers.

“However, breeding new varieties of plants requires a substantial investment of skills, labour, material resources, money and time.”

Lead Partner, Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Economic Development Initiative (SEEDI), Celestine Okeke, said: “Nigeria is, no doubt, ripe for a Plant Breeders Protection Law.”

He argued that if writers had laws protecting their texts, artists had laws protecting their intellectual properties and authors had laws protecting their publications, plant breeders, who spend upwards of 12 months researching on plant varieties, should be protected by law too.

“The poverty levels in the country, coupled with growing food insecurity and rising food prices call for immediate action to remedy the dearth of research and development in the seed sector.

“The seed sector is the bedrock of the agricultural sector; without seeds, there cannot be an agricultural sector and without continuous research and development in the seed sector, there will continue to be an agricultural sector incapable of supporting our food security aspirations.”

“The bill would enable farmer’s access wide varieties of improved plants that would result from breeding programmes that would be protected by the law and grant plant breeders intellectual property right over their materials.

“This would spur them to invest more in plant breeding and it would greatly develop the sector,” he added.

Okeke noted: “The government and other African countries have been falling behind in investing in research understandably because our economy has not been as it used to be.

“If private sector will invest in plant breeding, it needs a law to protect its investment in the same manner we have law protecting authors of book, we also have a law in the entertainment industry for musicians and film producers, in that same manner we need to have the PVP law, without that, we cannot sustainably develop the sector.”

Plant breeders should invest in the creation of new varieties to meet the requirements of the modern market, which demands improved quality, disease resistance, productivity and environmental awareness. It is common knowledge that IP protection helps to ensure a return on investment and prevents counterfeiting. Plant breeders’ rights, much like other forms of IP rights, protect research and creativity.

The Business Development Manager, Eastwest Seed International, Hadiza Yaro, said the major reason for low yields in developing countries was lack of improved seeds because most of the traditional varieties have not been improved on for many centuries.

She said modern breeding had enabled farmers to have better and higher yields, and the varieties accounted for over 50 per cent of farmers’ output, in addition to other practices such as the right fertiliser, technique and better pest and disease control.

The President, Nigerian Plant Breeders Association (NPBA), Prof. Chidozie Egezi, noted that breeders needed a stable and predictable framework of protection as new plant varieties were urgently needed to respond to the challenges of climate change and limitations.

He said NPBA had many plant breeders who supported the law, adding that Nigeria is a food deficit country, importing so much and spending several millions of dollars yearly to supplement production.

“When you look at the food system of Nigeria, you consider how much we are producing locally and importing, Nigeria is a food deficit country, importing so much and spending several millions of dollars yearly to supplement our production.

“One of the few challenges in the sector is the varieties that we grow in the country.

“The law will promote and ensure we get the right kind of investment, it will also have a longer term effect on how farmers benefit from growing the right kind of variety; and it will reduce environmental stress like climate change, flooding and drought.

The Technical Adviser to the Director-General, NASC, Dr. Okelola Folarin, noted that a robust plant variety rights system would incentivise breeders to develop new varieties, thus contributing to growth  and  food security.

He added that the law would make it possible for breeders to take appropriate action against the unauthorised or unintentional outflow of their varieties overseas.

Okelola explained that the law would give Nigeria the opportunity to collect royalties from countries using our materials, citing Malaysia who took oil palm seeds from Nigeria many years ago.

He said: “We gave oil palm seedlings to Malaysia many years back and they took the oil palm and went into research and improved on it. They protected the things that had come out of those efforts and today Malaysia is one of the leading countries benefiting from oil palm.

“It will amaze you that the oil palms seedlings Edo, Akwa Ibom and Cross River states are buying are Malaysian oil palm seedlings. These are things we are supposed to be collecting royalties from. We are buying because they have added value to what they took from us. Why don’t we improve on what we have then export it? Then wherever they use it, the money will be coming back to us. It will also stop breeders from leaving Nigeria to work in other places where they know they would get better benefit.

“It took Ghana 22 years to pass the PVP law. Just recently, the parliament of Ghana passed a law and the president signed it. We have been misinformed by people against this bill for a long number of years.”

According to him, the law provides steps for the registration of a plant variety.

So far, countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, and Tanzania have joined the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV).

Recent studies have confirmed that the PVP system would increase food security; create a sustainable seed industry, which would enable farmers to access viable seeds for greater economic returns.