by iKml1 | Jun 26, 2024
Executive Summary
Seed is one of the most crucial elements in the livelihoods of agricultural communities. The potential benefits from the use of good quality seed by farmers can be enormous, and the availability to farmers of quality seed of a wide-range of varieties and crops can increase productivity, reduce risks from pest, drought and disease pressure, and increase incomes. Production increases through the use of adapted varieties in a given area could create employment opportunities related to processing, marketing, and other activities generated through quality seed production.
The repeal of the National Agricultural Seeds Act Cap. N5 LFN 2004 and enactment of the National Agricultural Seeds Council Act will create a vibrant thriving seed sector and promote a competitive seed sector which is pivotal to ensuring timely availability of appropriate, high quality seeds at affordable prices to smallholder farmers in Nigeria.
The passage of the bill by Parliament and assent by the President provides a unique opportunity and momentum for the Federal Government of Nigeria to rapidly put the regulatory framework of the seeds subsector into action through the matching of the diversity of seed systems whilst promoting entrepreneurship and professionalism in seed value chains, and thereby enhancing the performance of seed sector administration and the agricultural sector of Nigeria as a whole. The National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) will be the principal institution responsible for the administration and implementation of National Seed Policy for Federal Government of Nigeria including the regulation of the market towards competitiveness and quality control to protect the farm population and the environment.
As principal coordinator, it will play the lead support role, maintain public-service infrastructural and service support required to maintain efficient seed supply, enhance farmer demand for improved seeds, and create a favourable enabling environment for investment in the seed subsector. It will also be tasked with the facilitation of the production and distribution of sufficient quantities of high-quality seed of improved varieties of all relevant crops to farmers in order to ensure production of the required food, feed and fibre (National Seed Policy 2015).
This bill when signed into law, will also support the building of a thriving seed system in Nigeria which will not only include an effective distribution network, promotion of the adoption of improved crop varieties by smallholder farmers, seed quality certification and assurance, increase household income, national food security and the sector aligned to the ECOWAS seed regulation framework and responding to the Malabo Commitments and CAADP result framework.
This policy brief posits that a strong regulatory policy framework and legislation should be put in place to facilitate the access to agricultural inputs (seeds) which will serve as catalyst or is pivot to transform agriculture in Nigeria. It will also contribute directly to one of five key executive priorities, as indicated in the National Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) of the Federal Government of Nigeria; which include input supply; seeds, water, land, fertilizer and agro-chemicals.
These were identified as one of the strategies for achieving food self-sufficiency; but of all the yield-enhancing inputs in crop production, seeds give the most dramatic and most cost- effective return on investment. Improved seeds have provided 50% of the productivity gains in agriculture.
by iKml1 | Jun 26, 2024
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Introduction
Scientific evidences are conclusive that the earth is warming and climates are changing with serious and potentially damaging consequences. Climate change is aggravating the environmental issues such as deforestation and land degradation, freshwater shortage, food security and air and water pollution. Projected increases in extreme climatic events as well as more changes in the weather patterns may further threaten the means of livelihoods in the face of inaction.
In Nigeria, the agriculture and food security, water resources, public health, and settlements sectors are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Most vulnerable regions are coastal regions and erosion and desertification-prone areas in the southeastern and northern parts of the country respectively. While everyone is vulnerable, the most vulnerable groups are farmers, fisherfolks, the elderly, women, children and poor people living in urban areas.
Responding to climate change falls into two broad classes of action, mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation refers to measures that may either reduce the increase in greenhouse emissions (abatement) or increase terrestrial storage of carbon (sequestration). Adaptation refers to all the responses that may be used to reduce vulnerability.1
Nigeria has taken the challenge of climate change seriously. The First National Communication was produced in November, 2003. A stakeholders’ initiation workshop on the Second National Communication (SNC) took place in December 2009, and is being finalized and a National Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan (NASPA) has been concluded. Nigeria now has a Climate Change Department (CCD) in the Federal Ministry of Environment in Abuja, Nigeria. The CCD is created to implement the Climate Convention and protocol activities. It also coordinates the activities of the Inter-ministerial Committee on Climate Change.
Nigeria already has several policies and strategic initiatives which if properly implemented, can serve as adaptive as well as mitigative climate change measures. Many of the initiatives in these policies (e.g. oases rehabilitation in the National Action to Combat Desertification and the National Policy on Drought and Desertification) can be taken as anticipatory adaptation measures and plans, which can be fine-tuned into policy options for climate change response in the country. This comprehensive policy and response strategy will enable these policies to translate into meaningful inter-sectoral activities for sustainable environmental management.
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by iKml1 | Jun 24, 2024
EMPOWERING THE NATIONAL QUALITY COUNCIL TO BUILD TRUST FOR NIGERIA’S TRADE
BACKGROUND
Safety standards are a critical component of agricultural products exports. To this degree, they serve as either barriers or catalysts for domestic and international trade in produce. For Nigeria, safety standards have been more of a barrier than a catalyst. Without a robust infrastructure, countries and territories are crowded out of the opportunities provided by globalisation and trade policies like Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
In 2015, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) banned Nigeria’s dried Beans export as it contained between 0.3mg per kg and 4.6mg per kg of Dichlorvos pesticide. To put this in context, the 1 maximum acceptable residue limit is 0.01mg per kg. This has come at significant cost to the country, as it is reported to lose $362.5m annually in export income from the ban. According to an official of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), 30 percent of Nigerian exports were rejected due to poor branding, labelling and packaging. This shows the weight of the challenge of maintaining a healthy trust for trade through a robust national quality policy.
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by iKml1 | Jun 6, 2024
INTRODUCTION
Nigeria, like many parts of the world, is experiencing climate change. In particular, the country is becoming warmer. Various studies show that annual and seasonal timescales indicate a significant positive increase in temperatures in Nigeria. They show that mean temperatures have been consistently increasing throughout the country in the last five decades and have been rising significantly since the 1980s, with a change of 1.01°C (0.52 to 1.5°C) in the linear warming for the period 1951 – 2005. The linear warming for the same period for 30-year averages on a decadal slice further revealed positive changes in temperature by an average of 0.2°C/decade.
The mean annual variability and trend of rainfall over Nigeria in the last few decades depict the existence of a number of inter-annual fluctuations that have been responsible for dry and wet years or extreme climate events such as droughts and floods in many parts of the country and at different times.
The year More worrisome is the increasing knowledge that the country will be subject to consistent changes in rainfall and temperature conditions, particularly towards the end of the century. Recent analysis of anticipated future climatic trends for the country, as captured in the Third National Communication, indicates that for 2050 and 2070, the minimum temperature increase could range from 1.48°C to 1.78°C and the maximum temperature increase of about +3.08°C to +3.48°C compared to the baseline of 1990. A general increase in the number of days of rain and days with extreme rainfall events that may generate floods are projected over most ecological zones of the country except in the northeast Sahel zone, where the scenario analysis suggests fewer extreme events related to rainfall and flooding.
Climate change is a complex environmental problem because of its long-term uncertain time- frame, scales of occurrence, differential impacts and vulnerabilities, as well as equity and justice within the global power asymmetries. For instance, the impacts of climate change are already driving people back into poverty and undermining growth. Beyond recognizing the potential devastating effects of climate change on the socio-economic and environmental development of the country and implications for the well-being of the populace, the Government of Nigeria intends to strengthen its management of climate-related development challenges through an appropriate policy and institutional arrangements that will not only mainstream climate change into its development priorities, but also encourage the implementation of mitigation and adaptation actions at all levels of governance for climate compatible sustainable development.
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by iKml1 | Feb 23, 2024
Introduction
The important goal of every nation is to attain food security. Over the years, Nigeria has made concerted efforts and developed several agricultural development policies to achieve food security, inclusive growth, sustainable economic diversification and wealth creation. The outcomes of the policies and strategies implemented are mixed. While substantial progress has been recorded, particularly in the production of millet, sorghum, maize, cassava, rice, yam, cowpeas, oil palm and poultry, the country still imports wheat, maize, rice, sugar, fish, beef and dairy products. Also, the share of the agricultural output is dominated by crop production representing 85% while other sub-sectors such as livestock, fisheries and aquaculture and forestry accounted for only 15% (NBS, 2020).
The strategic importance of the agricultural sector to the Nigerian economy cannot be over-emphasized. Its contribution to GDP hovered between 24.45% in 2016 and 25.70% in 2020 (NBS, 2021). The potential of agriculture to rapidly help in achieving food security and economic diversification remains largely untapped. The sector is essentially subsistent with small farm holdings, inadequate cooperative groups, limited technology adoption, low application of good agricultural practices, low access to quality inputs, finance and market. Other constraints include ineffectual synergy among MDAs, poor cooperation among agricultural research and training institutions, input providers and farmers; limited extension services delivery, inadequate rural infrastructure, climate change, poor nutrition, underdeveloped rangelands and grazing reserves; insecurity of agricultural land and investments; insufficient value addition and inadequate agro- industrial processing facilities; lack of standardization of agricultural inputs and outputs as well as outbreaks of Trans-boundary Animal Diseases (TADs).
As the country was charting a new roadmap to scale up the successes of the previous policies to overcome constraints to agriculture, the COVID-19 pandemic struck at the core of its productive sectors. The pandemic disrupted global and domestic socio-economic activities with the agricultural sector severely affected through the shutdown of production facilities and the restrictions on the movements of people and goods. The Committee on World Food Security postulated that the pandemic
would directly impact global food supply and demand, and indirectly reduce production capacity and purchasing power. FAO however predicted that food scarcity is not imminent in post-COVID-19, unlike in the 2007-2008 global food crisis.
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