Farmers told to seek expert advice

Speaking in a chat with newsmen in Ilorin,the Kwara State capital, Okulaja noted that many farmers were fond of rushing to buy seeds for planting without consulting experts thereby ending up buying adulterated seeds all in the attempt of cutting costs.He said: “Many farmers do not buy improved seeds but instead opt for adulterated seeds […]

Speaking in a chat with newsmen in Ilorin,the Kwara State capital, Okulaja noted that many farmers were fond of rushing to buy seeds for planting without consulting experts thereby ending up buying adulterated seeds all in the attempt of cutting costs.
He said: “Many farmers do not buy improved seeds but instead opt for adulterated seeds or grains harvested from their previous year’s farming forgetting that those ones break down back to their ancestral family as time goes on through a process called segregation.
“The peak is only at the first or second year after which they decline drastically but our farmers tend to overlook that and still prefer to use that at their own risk,” he said.
Okulaja observed that some outlets that supply seeds come withimpediments such that when farmers plant them they get bad result during harvest, adding that in some cases crop failure would occur as has been witnessed in the past.
Meanwhile, the Managing Director of KWADP, Dr. Sunday Atanda, said the project had taken step to help farmers in sourcing for good seeds by reaching out to the National Cereals Research in Badegi, Niger State, saying their efforts are already yielding results.
Recently, farmers in Pada, Duro and Sogu in the Kwara North axis were given about 20 bags of improved varieties of improved seeds from Badegi.