Nigeria Federal Government licences 158 new seed companies

Date:09-11-2018

Last Wednesday, Nigeria Federal Government granted licences to 158 new seed companies to commence production of quality seeds to boost agricultural activities in the country and West Africa.


Farmers with their millet harvest in Yobe state

This was disclosed by the Director General, National Agricultural Seed Council, NASC, Dr Philip Ojo, during a media conference at Sheda, Abuja.

Ojo said the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, gave the approval for the seed entrepreneurs of different categories to address the problems of accessibility and quality assurance.

According to him the approval became necessary in order to allow more players in the seed industry to produce and distribute quality seeds to farmers based on their demands within the country and other African countries.

He further stated that out of the 158 new seed entrepreneurs 10 were foreign companies while the rest 148 were Nigerian companies.

Although he said the deficit in seed availability upon demand by farmers still exists but with the new approval for the companies the deficit will be bridged to a large extent.

He said: “The Governing Board of NASC under the chairmanship of the Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Chief Audu Ogbeh, has ratified and approved the licensing of 158 new seed entrepreneurs of different categories to add to the existing 156 already operating.

“I want to assure you that this is borne out of the determination to allow many qualified entrepreneurs to explore the bidding liberalized landscape of the seed industry.

“I wish to inform you and allay your fears that most of these newly licensed companies are not green horns in the business but are mostly out-growers, with long years of experience, and have acquired necessary facilities in relevant categories they have been classified into after due assessment by the NASC. With these new entrants, the board has approved 16 new small scale companies, 133 producer and seller entrepreneurs and 9 seed dealers.

“We all know that presently the seed supply-demand gap is still wide and there are more calls from our neighbouring countries that look up to us for their seed supply. This underscores that the industry is not yet saturated as some may think.

“The question may arise in the minds of watchers of the industry, but I want to assure you that this is borne out of the determination to allow many qualified entrepreneurs to explore the budding liberalised landscape of the seed industry.

“We all know that presently the seed supply-demand gap is still wide and there are more calls from our neighbouring countries that look up to us for their seed supply. This underscores the point that the industry is not yet saturated as some may think.

The NASC boss further stated that Nigeria now has 314 seed entrepreneurs, which were four large scale, seven medium scale, 39 small scale, 223 produce sellers and 20 seed dealers, while 21 seed entrepreneurs were approved inactive during the recertification exercise.

He also clarified that NASC was not interested in number of seed entrepreneurs but the quality seeds churned out to farmers as the council did a periodic evaluation exercise of all initial 156 companies in a bid to evaluate and assess their infrastructure, personnel capacity and capability, production capacity and operational efficiency to ascertain if they still meet up their status or rating.

According to him the result of the exercise led to the upgrading of six companies who had improved their infrastructure, quality assurance systems, and personnel while 75 were downgraded.

The downgrade which mostly can be traced to the lull in the seed industry owing to backlogs of debts owed to the companies, but does not mean a weakness in the industry but it is strategic to checkmate the activities and promote desire for quality and healthy competition among entrepreneurs.