The National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) has trained 75 Seeds Certification Officers on
electronic certification and authentication process of seeds.
The training will enable the officers to verify and track sources of seeds production and enhance
transparency in the Nigeria seeds industry.
Addressing the officers in Gwagwalada, Abuja on Monday, the Director General, Dr. Philip
Olusegun Ojo, said capacity building is a major thrust of any organization that wants to be
upward mobile and NASC is taking this with all seriousness.
He said NASC management recognize the need for a robust and traceable seed information data
and management as expected of its institution hence the training.
Adding that apart from making officer’s schedule easier as the electronic certification process
will provide a reliable system with enhanced traceability and transparency.
“Electronic authentication has become the new high in product verification and tracking in the
world over. The NASC supported by partners like AGRA came up with the seedcodex as a
management tool for authentication of seed genuineness by our end users in this case the
farmers.
“To date over 600,000 codex tags has been collected by seed companies through some of you,
this shows that the process has come to stay. The use of seed tracker will from 2021 become the
sole tool for seed field inspection and certification therefore you know that this training is apt at
this moment, please be assured there will be more trainings on the subject matter till we are all in
sync with process,” he said.
