Quality seed is key to high crop yield

What exactly do you do in your farm?I worked as an agriculturist for 35 years, and having seen the problems associated with agriculture generally in the country, I realized that one of the important elements of production is quality seeds. Quality and improved seed is a key, if you want to increase your crop production […]

What exactly do you do in your farm?
I worked as an agriculturist for 35 years, and having seen the problems associated with agriculture generally in the country, I realized that one of the important elements of production is quality seeds. Quality and improved seed is a key, if you want to increase your crop production level. The local one may give you only a ton per hectare. But these days there are improved seeds from which you can get 9-12 tons per hectare.  One element of production will just change the whole thing.
What kind of seeds do you produce?
At the moment, we are into the production of rice seed, maize, soya beans and the multiplication of yam and potato seeds.
Are you talking about Irish potato or sweet potato, because they are common in the Plateau?
Of cause Irish potato, it is one of the cash crops that we have there because it’s a temperate crop. It is very rare to get in all parts of Nigeria. Since that is the case, what we do is to focus on how to multiply whatever improved seed that we have so that farmers will have access to it. The initial seeds of Irish potato that we’ve brought in have already overstayed and they are degenerating. You know one thing with seed, the quality of seed will degenerate, if you keep on producing the same variety year in year out.
We are also going into groundnut where possible. We are exploring all the crops that are at the moment under the GES programme, to see if we can produce the quality seed that will improve the production of the local farmers.
Do you breed these seeds yourself or you collect them from the research institutes and mass-produce for farmers?
Most of these seeds we don’t breed them. We collect them from research institutes. Like rice, we have the faro 44, faro 47, faro 52 and faro 57 produced by Badaggi. We also go to AfricanRice which produces faro 50 and faro 51 and we collect the breeder seeds and then multiply these breeders’ seeds on our farms. You know the breeder seeds are not in mass quantity, so it is our responsibility to multiply it so that it goes into foundation seeds.
The foundation seeds is been sold to seed companies who will go and also multiply it to certified seed. It is the certified seeds that are sold to farmers for production.
Do you also produce certified seeds?
Of course, I produce foundation and certified seeds. For the present GES (Growth Enhancement Scheme) programme, I was able to supply last year, 142 metric tons of foundation seeds. For 2013/2014 I was asked to supply over 600 metric tons of foundation seeds by the ministry.
At the moment, we have supplied 400 metric tons, which is already in the store of the ministry and they are selling to the seeds companies. What we are working on now under the dry season is to make sure that the balance of the 200 metric tons is completed and supplied to the government so that I do not fail them. I believe that is how and where I make my contribution to the growth of the agricultural sector.
Nigeria has different agro ecological zones. How do you deal with these issues?
You do not just get seeds from one ecological zone and take to another. For example, maize is a crop with different durations; some go for three or four months and they’re matured while others stay longer than that. Same with rice, faro 44 for instance takes about 120 days to mature. For faro 52, it takes 130 days or more to mature. The moisture requirement varies. Some crops need more water than others. You have a variety like the Narika, which is more or less an upland rice, so you can plant that where there is less moisture.
But there’re others like faro 52, which requires a lot of water. So we ask farmers to know the sort of farms they have before we recommend a particular seed to them.
You also have to gauge the rainfall pattern. If you have a crop that has a long duration and you plant it where the rain pattern is short, definitely, it will not sustain that crop to the end. You have to go for crops that are compatible to the ecological condition in that particular environment.
At the moment, how many farms do you have producing these seeds?
I have a farm in Kuje where I produce rice and maize. We also have 200 hectares in Shendam, Plateau State, where we produce the seeds just nothing but the seeds.  We recently staged Farmers’ Field Day in the farm in Kuje and Shendam in Plateau State. Apart from that, we also have what we called ‘out growers’ where we select reputable farmers like rice or maize producers, then we liaise with them to get some foundation seeds for them to produce under our supervision and the National Seed Council staff, teaching farmers the agronomical principles to make sure they produce high quality seeds.
We have over 200 hectares under that type of arrangement. We are into production, the out growers are also into production – all in an attempt to surmount the challenges that we have.
In the area of yam, it seems this administration does not give it attention and you are into the seed production. Do you have a good numbers of farmers who come to buy the seed from you?
You see, we are just at the rudimentary stage. But farmers still send requests to us. In fact this year, some farmers from Imo state sent us a request. Our yam seed is still undergoing some multiplication process. What we have now is the “mini set” technology which we use for multiplication. Right now, farmers are making request but we have not gotten much to give them. We need to multiple more.
Plateau state has favourable climate for vegetable, are you into vegetable seeds?
What we do is to get high quality seeds and sell it to seed-buyer companies.  We have not gone into actual production. But we source for very high quality seed and then we sell to farmers.
I have so many requests from farmers for high quality seeds at the moment.