The National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) has disclosed that Nigeria produced over 100,000 metric tonnes of seeds in 2020 for local use and West African countries.
This was disclosed by the director-general, NASC, Dr Phillip Ojo, at the unveiling of the Plant Variety Protection (PVP) ACT 2021 and Plans for Implementation on Thursday in Lagos.
According to him, the seeds were produced by 300 seed companies and the number would double or triple with the new PVP law in the country.
Dr Ojo disclosed that Nigeria produces 50 per cent of seeds used in West Africa, adding that a lot of other West African countries depend on Nigeria to meet their seed demand.
He said: “We need the support of everyone and, therefore, will continue to collaborate with partners both locally and internationally to ensure that we complete all the remaining milestones for full implementation of an efficient PVP system in Nigeria.
“One important remaining milestone to deliver is the deposition of our instrument of accession to the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV).
“This is the only requirement left to be met by the country in our quest to become a full member of UPOV. I wish to call on all our partners and stakeholders again to join us on this advocacy journey to get this process completed.
“This process is what every other country with a serious desire to transform its agricultural sector is currently undergoing.
“Nigeria and Ghana are closely following each other in the effort to become the next new member of UPOV to join Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia and Tanzania and other African countries who are already members of UPOV.”
Ojo said it was important to mention that the African Intellectual Property Organisation (OAPI) operates a PVP system that covers the territory of its 17 member states, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic.
He listed others as Chad, the Comoros, the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, the Niger, Senegal and Togo.
“As we celebrate the new PVP law, an end to the first phase of this journey, we are starting another phase, which is the journey toward full implementation of the law,” he said.
“As we all know, before now, Nigeria was one of the few countries in Africa that did not have a plant variety protection system.
“In other words, Nigeria did not have an Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) system (either a patent, effective sui generis system or combination systems) for plant varieties.
“Today, this is no longer the case. I thank President Muhammadu Buhari for granting assent to this very important legislation.
“I want to also thank the members and staff of the National Assembly, who worked tirelessly and closely with us toward achieving this very important milestone.
“This missing law is now in place and requires few steps for us to begin to see the impactful transformation it will bring to the seeds sector in particular and generally on the nation’s agriculture space.
“We will begin to see on our farmers’ fields, superior yielding, stress-tolerant, disease-resistant, climate-smart and input efficient varieties,” he said.
Ojo noted that the group would be converging again on Abuja on August 12 to meet stress-tolerant from the northern climate-smart country for the same purpose.
The CEO of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), Mr Laoye iniyeola, commended the federal government and the National Assembly for signing the PVP Act 2021 into law.
He said the act was signed into law following deliberations, advocacy visits, closed-door meetings, expert reviews, traditional and digital campaigns in the last few months with diverse stakeholders and the citizenry.
“As we convene to celebrate this great achievement with the NASC and discuss implementation plans, we must act with a sense of urgency to strengthen partnerships for resilient seeds regulations through catalytic investments into the seeds sec implementation plans level insecurity for sustainable and inclusive seeds systems and agricultural transformation in Nigeria.
“There is no doubt that the implementation of PVP Act will high-level better position Nigeria to feed her growing population and equally attract foreign investments into the seed sub-sector,” he said.