Agric Seeds Council to Digitize Seed Certification

 The National Agricultural Seed Council (NASC) says it will soon go digital with the certification of seeds to ensure that farmers get quality seeds to enhance their production.
The Director General, NASC Dr Philip Ojo, made this known to reporters recently.
According to him, the issue of adulterated seeds is a thing of concern hence the need to go digital in the certification of seeds to ascertain the supply of improved seeds to farmers.
He said that the e-certification would enable easy monitoring of seeds from the source by the council to farmers across the country.

Dr. Ojo said that, with the help of seed trackers, farmers would soon be able to detect adulterated seeds from any part of the world electronically.

“With the increased efficiency in seed production, there is need to go electronic.

“The first seed tracker was developed and piloted for cassava known as Cassava Seed Tracker (CST) and this was in collaboration with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). Ibadan.

“The CST is a web Application for real time tracking of seed production.
“This has, however, increased cassava production in the country. So, we want to apply this gesture to other crops to achieve the desired objectives,” he said.

He said a lot of players were coming into the Nigeria seed industry due to the large potentials, which had opened more doors to the larger and medium seed enterprises.

This was a starting point for the seed industry to raise awareness about certain issues in the seed industry. “After the 2018 seed connect, the quality of seed improved and a lot of infrastructural development has taken place,” he said.