Stakeholders in the Africa Seed Industry have called for the harmonisation of the Seed sector in Africa, saying this will give Africa strong leverage in the seed business across the world.
The stakeholders gave the suggestions when five Director General of the Seed regulatory agencies in five African Countries were hosted in Abuja by the Nigeria Agricultural Seed Council (NASC) on a two-day study tour to the Nigeria Seed Council.
The study tour facilitated by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Nigeria had representatives from Benin, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Tanzania in attendance.
Speaking, the Acting Director General of the Nigeria Seed Council, Drr. Ishiaku Othman Khalid, said Africa has a common problem and that is food insecurity, and it is an opportunity, based on those in attendance in the conference are equivalents of the National Agricultural Seed Council, NASC, from all those countries.
“So we need to brainstorm and come out with a common position. One of the common challenges as a continent is the farm-herder clash, therefore, we need to think of developing seed systems that would be able to reduce the competition today between human beings and livestock.”
Also the Director General, Tanzania Official Seed Certification Institute (TOSCI), Dr. Patrick Ngwediagi, said the conference was to discuss issues that would finally allow the continent to harmonise its seed sector.
“We are here to discuss issues that will finally allow us to harmonize seed sectors in Africa. We want to be speaking the same language so that when we do trade, we can trade with the same understanding of quality as the aspect of seed.
“If you don’t harmonize everyone has their own quality aspects of seed in their own country or their own region and therefore when you trade with others it becomes very difficult but if you agree on quality standards, for example, procedures for seed certification then finally it will be very easy to trade and we need to trade among African countries.
