Renewed Hope Agenda: Quality Seeds Top Priority . Sen. Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi
One of the priorities of the Renewed Hope Agenda is described as quality seeds to farmers. Sen. Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi said this at the 7th Edition of SeedConnect Africa Conference and Expo which begins today in Abuja.
Sen. Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, who is the Hon. Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security said, “one of the Agenda’s of Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is quality seeds to farmers. He described food security as the number one priority in his agenda.
According to Sen. Abdullahi, the President wants to build a nation where no man goes to bed hungry. Describing the President quotes, ‘plant quality seeds, feeds the entire nation’, he said seeds is the foundation of agriculture, therefore, high quality seeds is essential to for our agricultural system.
“ In 2023, NASC promoted digital seeds system to assist farmers have quality seeds. Nigeria-Netherlands partnership is a welcome development for acquiring quality seeds.
He praised key stakeholders for ensuring farmers have the right seeds varieties.
Earlier in his address of welcome, Dr Ishiaku Khalid, the Ag. Director General, National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), said this year’s event has been dedicated to using and applying technology to scale Food Productivity in enhancing Africa’s food and nutrition security in the face of growing challenges of insecurity and climate change.
Adding that the impact of climate change on Africa and other parts of the world was well enumerated and deeply acknowledged at the just concluded Climate Change Conference, COP 29, held in Baku, Azerbaijan. A couple of discussions at the conference centred around the application of technology in mitigating the impact of climate change in Agriculture, improving crop genetics, and developing and growing climate-resilient crops, amongst others.
Dr Khalid maintained that SEEDCONNECT Africa, has contributed immensely to the growth and development of the Nigerian Seed Systems because of the laudable contributions made by Stakeholders over the years.
In his words:
“We have continued to record from implementing your brilliant ideas and decisions reached at this annual gathering. They are as follows: The Introduction of the Plant Variety Protection (PVP) system as a panacea to increasing investment in plant breeding is a brilliant idea from SEEDCONNECT, and this journey effectively started after the Second edition in 2019. Today, I am happy to report the following progress in this regard.
“As you may already know, we have the PVP Act No. 5 of 2021. We have successfully established the PVP Office In the NASC capable of implementing the PVP Act and deployed staff to support the operationalisation of this office, and we have continued to build their capacities to increase their knowledge base in this regard.
“We have been able to develop the PVP regulations and guidelines. This document has been processed, executed and gazetted as a working document for Nigeria. The Signing of the Instrument of Accession by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, Nigeria’s Membership of the International Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties (UPOV) is one step closer to being achieved. If done, this will ensure Nigeria benefits from international cooperation amongst UPOV member countries.” Dr Khalid said.
Also, Amb. of Netherlands, Dr Arnab Gupta, WCDI Netherlands, said Nigeria is leader in agriculture and applauds seeds companies, partners and agencies for their efforts
He said they are willing to work with Nigeria to improve seed system.