The West and Central Africa Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF), through the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme ex-Pillar 4 (CAADP-XP4), is training about 30 youth and women in Nigeria on seed multiplication, processing, marketing, and management.
The Gender Assistant at CORAF, Deguene Pouye, who spoke at the training, said the National Training of Women and Youth Networks on Seed Production, Processing, and Marketing Technics, aims to improve livelihoods in West and Central Africa.
She said CORAF aims to improve livelihoods in West and Central Africa through a sustainable increase in agriculture production and productivity and the promotion of competitiveness in markets.
Pouye further stated that CORAF is engaged to play a key role in the development of agriculture in general and technological innovations specifically to contribute to the achievement of Agenda 2063 and the sustainable development goals for market improvement for people’s living conditions.
“This is the reason that CORAF, through the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme ex-Pillar 4 (CAADP-XP4), is carrying out capacity-building activities in several countries in the seed value chain.
“The main goal of the training is to build the capacity of women and youth agriculture entrepreneurs and organisations in seed multiplication, processing, marketing, and management to increase the supply of quality seed and boost entrepreneurship among women and youth in the seed sector,” she said.
Stella Thomas, the focal person for the programme explained that the Network of Nigerian Women and Youth is a network that is supposed to be able to move the seed industry forward
She further explained that they have looked at the gap and also looked at the continuity when it has to do with the seed business and realised that they need to encourage more women and youth to be involved in seed agribusiness.
“It is an initiative by CORAF, and it is being executed in about 23 countries Nigeria is among the first countries that the programme started. We are formalising the network, the whole aim is to network as women and youth, see the opportunities that are in the seed business, harness them and also move the seed business forward in Nigeria.
“This programme is for capacity building, exposing the women and youth to the opportunities that are involved. So we plan to move it to the next level; for now, we started with the already involved people and plan to campaign to get more people. For this first concept, we are training 30 people”, she added.
The Director of Seed Certification and Quality Control at the National Agriculture Seed Council (NASC), Ubandoma Mohammed, who represented the Acting Director General of the Council, said the training is very important to the Nigerian seed industry.
“The missing link which we are having is what you are trying to incorporate, where you don’t have the women and the youth, then there is a gap. The youth are the ones to sustain the agricultural efforts of this nation because the crisis we are in today has made food to be very competitive and scarce”, he said.
He said there is a need for active participation of the youth in promoting agriculture which involves technology and innovations and is driven by high-quality seed.
“I think by the end of this training, we are going to impact more technics, more knowledge so that when you go back, you will be able to use them and improve your seed quality so that our farmers can have access to good quality seeds for increased productivity,” he added.
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