The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the National Agricultural Seed Council (NASC), have launched a Seed Quality Self-compliance Reporting Module.
The launch of the App, an innovation which enables cassava seed entrepreneurs report on quality of seed produced, held in IITA Office in Kubwa, Abuja.
Lava Kumar, Head, Germplasm Health Unit and Virologist, IITA said the launch was in partnership with the Catholic Relief Services, under the “Building an Economically Sustainable Integrated Cassava Seed Systems in Nigeria (BASICS) project.
Kumar said the project was aimed at establishing sustainable and profitable customer seed enterprises in Nigeria.
According to him, it was also to integrate cassava seed value chain, in order to deliver high quality seed of improved cassava varieties.
Kumar said the agency had identified some cassava seed entrepreneurs, and would train 30 of them that would pilot the scheme.
He said they would be trained on workings at the ground level, having been involved in cassava seed production in the last five years.
“Piloting is the first step in understanding how things work; we take feedback from the farmers and the regulators, make adjustments and implement the findings fully,” Kumar said.
The Director General of NASC, Dr Phil Ojo, said Nigeria, with its growing population of more than 120 million people, needed heavy investments in innovations that would help boost agriculture.
Also speaking, the Director of Seed Certification, NASC, Dr Khalid Ishak, said the council would work with stakeholders to ensure quality seeds got to all farmers.
On his part, Mr Musa Dunga, of the Catholic Relief Services, said that the step down would be conducted on the field to adopt the module.
The BASICS Project Manager (Consultant) Prof. Lateef Sanni, said some old cassava seeds were definitely not yielding good seed, and a lot of people were demanding for quality seeds.
Sanni urged seed producers to ensure the certification process was seamless and timely by contributing to the process.
