NASC boss calls for virile agric sector

THE National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), has called for a virile agricultural sector and a well developed seed industry to boost food production in the country.The Director-General, Olusegun Shobowale, made the call on recently at Sheda, FCT, during the 2011 Farmers Field Day on Hybrid/Open Pollinated Maize Demonstration, Seed Increase Plot and Growout Test Plots.Shobowale noted that the adoption and use of improved seed by farmers had been 'very' low with the highest 10 per cent recorded for maize.'The major quantities of seed used by our farmers are obtained from the farmers' saved seed or seed used by our neighbouring farmers or grains purchased from local market.The effect of this development, he added, was low yield and income to farmers, thereby making farming unprofitable and non competitive.He said that the present administration had recognised the use of high quality seeds across the country as a core strategy to realising its agricultural transformation agenda and had stressed the need to create more awareness in this regard.The director-general said that the council had established demonstration plots to enable farmers adopt and use quality seeds and to show case the superiority or otherwise of hybrids over pollinated and other maize seeds.Speaking at the occasion, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Ezekiel Oyemomi, expressed the commitment of the Federal Government to pursue its Agricultural Transformation Agenda to its logical end by shifting agriculture from what it used to be to a business venture.
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