Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) said it’s facilitating a robust seed sector to provide adequate quality wheat seeds accessible and affordable to Nigerian Farmers.
This was made known yesterday, during the opening session of a two days workshop in Kano on wheat revolution in Nigeria which brought together TAAT officials and other key stakeholders to brain storm on the way forward on adequate wheat production in Nigeria.
During the session, TAAT, alongside its partners, will identified challenges mitigating the wheat seed sector in the country, causes of seed mixtures along the seed value chain and the missing gaps in the seed development process.
Technical knowledge on wheat seed production, including quality seeds selection, good agronomic practices, and storage was well as knowledge on way forward for a sustainable wheat seed production in Nigeria where extensively discussed.
According to Dr Solomon Gizaw, Head TAAT Clearinghouse, Nigeria has one of the biggest food import bills; it imports more than 5 million metric tons (MT) of wheat each year to meet domestic demand while it also spend over $2 billion on food imports yearly.
Local output according to him remains remarkably low, accounting for only 5% of local demand attributing this to low levels of mechanised farming among smallholder farmers and inadequate modern agronomic practices.
Other issues mentioned are; inconsistent and insufficient supply of high-yielding seed varieties, inadequate irrigation systems, and inadequate storage facilities all linked to the low production capacity at the local level.
It is believed that the technical knowledge provided by TAAT on how best to handle wheat production by local farmers and and it’s commitment to provision of High yielding and qualitative seeds will complement Federal Government’s efforts at food sufficiency and security.
TAAT was launched in 2018 as part of the African Development Bank’s Feed Africa strategy which seeks to double the productivity of staple crops, livestock, and fisheries by making proven technologies available to more than 40 million agricultural producers by 2025.