‘We sell yam seedlings to farmers that produce big tubers’

Do you produce yam seedlings? We have an improved yam seedling called Makka kusa, (a Hausa way of describing something highly profitable) one of the new varieties now available. This variety is good and has high yield, because if you plant it you can have a five-kilo tuber. It produces big tubers. What Romarey does is […]

Do you produce yam seedlings?
 We have an improved yam seedling called Makka kusa, (a Hausa way of describing something highly profitable) one of the new varieties now available. This variety is good and has high yield, because if you plant it you can have a five-kilo tuber. It produces big tubers. What Romarey does is going into multiplication of yam seedlings through mini-set technique. Mini-set technique means you have average yam size that you can be able to cut into smaller sizes like 20 to 25 grammes and you treat with chemical. You will raise it and that smaller gramme will produce smaller seedlings which you will plant the following year. Through that you can have something like a nursery that you can be able to produce smaller ones and produce the yam seedlings which will be used for plantation. It is the small one that we use for seedling production. We need to have means of producing seeds because you cannot plant the warehouse yam.
Do you develop improved yam seedlings in Romarey?
We have TD89/02660, that is one of the breeder seeds that was given to us from the Research Institute, (Root Crop Research Institute, Kuru, Jos). We are multiplying that and we are still at the stage of mini-set production. And some were brought from outside the country. We also have another TD89.02.461. These are varieties we are working on now. The one that we are producing its seedlings and selling to farmers is Makka kusa. We produce that seedling from our own field.
What are the characteristics of your yam seeds?
The size of the yam is the major feature of the seeds and quality of the starch. The main feature of this variety is the size of the yam and it will increase the production level. The farmer and buyers are all benefiting.
Are these varieties drought-resistant seedlings?
Yams are tuber crops. They require plenty of water. Like in Nigeria, the yam is mostly grown where it rains plenty. Yam is a crop that requires atmosphere where the condition is favourable for it to grow well. In Nigeria, yam is mostly produced in the south. Yam is a tropical crop and Nigeria is one of the largest producers of yam and West Africa alone produces more than half of total yam produced worldwide.
What are your challenges?
The source of the breeder seeds is important. We are not producing breeder seed. We go to the research institutes and get them. We made linkages with research institutes so that we can get what is good and produce seedlings that are good. Anything good you plant, that is the thing you will get. Seed is something you cannot hide, what you plant is what you will harvest. When you plant a bad one, you will harvest bad crop. If you plant the variety that is of low quality, naturally you come out with low quality crop. The relationship between us and the research institute is very important. Another challenge is the farmers themselves, some farmers are difficult to convince, some people will prefer to be planting their seed, the one their forefathers had been planting simply because he doesn’t want to spend his money, thinking that taking his money to buy seed is too costly. But he has forgotten that the new one will give him better yield and he will make more money. It is now that we begin to create a new initiative because it needs a lot of campaign, we start having things like farmer field day to break those challenges and barriers. By the time you reach that level that farmers start asking where we can get the seeds, then you know that there is a breakthrough. A farmer is always skeptical. He prefers to handle what his forefathers have been handled. Only the farmers that want to get information and improve their status will go looking look for information. Adulteration of the seed is a major challenge, if you do not keep it well and protect it well. If you have mixture of seeds, there will be a problem. What you sow is what you get.