Nigeria: Expert seeks more investment in high quality seeds

For agriculture to thrive in Nigeria, a Professor of Seed Science and Technology, Dupe Akintobi, has called for investment in high quality seeds.

Delivering the 61st Inaugural lecture of the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB) titled: “Seed: Source of life, prosperity and pain”, Mrs Akintobi of the Department of Plant Breeding and Seed Technology, College of Plant Science and Crop Production (COLPLANT), said there was the need to ensure that seeds used for planting should be of high quality, genetically-pure and free from diseases.

Mrs Akintobi said serious-minded agribusiness entrepreneurs must factor seed as a critical input into the crop production cycle as it determines the upper limit of the entire production output.

Poor seeds, poor government policy, erosion, exploitation by seed dealers, illiteracy, poor seed storage infrastructure and fake seeds were some of the factors that affect output, Akintobi said.

“There is even a new scenario now where people sell fake seeds, but thank God for the National Seed Council of Nigeria (NASC), which has nipped this in the bud by getting the government to sign the seed bill into law in Nigeria”, she said.

On her research contributions, Mrs Akintobi spoke of how her work resulted in the replacement of paper towels with local newspapers for seed germination.

“In 2010/2011, during my sabbatical leave at NASC, one of my novel research breakthroughs in that year was the development of locally-made germination material from unused newspaper sheet that have water-absorbing capacity and a tensile strength of 50 per cent of the imported paper towels, which when sterilised and used in sheets of six, instead of the three for the imported ones, produced seed-germination results comparable, if not better, than the imported ones.

“This was compared with the various substrate materials, using different seeds to test for seed germination. Thus, a sterilised, unused newspaper sheet, which is cheaper, readily and locally-available has replaced imported paper towels, as a substratum for seed germination. I am glad to announce that by this breakthrough, NASC uses it all over Nigeria and some West African countries as well as by PBST staff and students,” she said.

Mrs Akintobi, who disclosed that she was the first to give inaugural lecture in Seed Science and Technology in COLPLANT, lamented the high cost of innovative technological input for crop production, which she said, were not affordable to most farmers.

To address the problem of seeds in Nigeria, Mrs Akintobi said there must be adequate supply of improved seeds ahead of demand; improved research funding; provision of seed equipment, which is lacking in all agricultural institutions in Nigeria; among others.

The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Felix Salako, who chaired the event, praised the lecturer, particularly for her commitment to the development of the girl-child.