The director-general of the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC), Dr. Philips Olusegun Ojo has said that dealers who sell bad and adulterated seeds to farmers in the country will be severely penalised.
Ojo stated this yesterday in Kano at an event designed to educate farmers and seed dealers on the quality and specification of good seeds.
The director general who spoke through the director of seed inspectorate department of the council, Mr. Agboola Adebayo, said the new NASC Act which was recently signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari empowers the council to take drastic actions against the persons who engage in sharp practices in the seed industry.
He said most farmers were ignorant quality seeds to buy for planting.
Such ignorance, he said, hampers productivity in the agricultural sector.
“So, we feel that it is our duty to actually let the farmer know the right thing to do when they go to the market to buy seed.
The target for the council as a whole is that we want to make sure that the seed market in Nigeria is sanitised. In fact, the crusade…put forward now is zero tolerance for adulteration of seeds in Nigeria.
“So we do not want to see bad and adulterated seeds again in the Nigerian market,” he added.
