The Director-General of National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), Dr. Philips Olusegun Ojo, on Saturday in Kano lamented the activities of unscrupulous seed dealers who sell bad and adulterated seeds to farmers in the country, warning that such further actions will attract severe penalties.
Ojo, who spoke through the Director of Seed Inspectorate Department of the council, Mr. Agboola Adebayo, said the new NASC Act which was recently signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari has empowered the council to take drastic actions against the bad eggs in the seed industry.
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Speaking during a programme to educate farmers and seed dealers on the quality and specification of good seeds, he lamented the ignorance of farmers on quality seeds to buy for planting, which he said has adversely hampered productivity in the agricultural sector.
“So, we feel that it is our duty to actually let the farmer know the right thing to do when they go to the market to buy seed,” he said.
Ojo further noted that “the target for the council as a whole is that we want to make sure that the seed market in Nigeria is sanitised. In fact, the crusade that the DG has put forward now is zero tolerance for adulteration of seeds in Nigeria.
“So we do not want to see bad and adulterated seeds again in the Nigerian market,” he noted.
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