The Director-General of the National Agricultural Seed Council (NASC), Dr Phillip Ojo has said that the full implementation of the Plant Variety Protection (PVP) law would ensure farmers get superior yielding seed varieties.
Dr Ojo said the country will begin to witness efficient land use and reduced food cost as a result of the increased productivity from cultivated hectares across the country.
Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari recently signed the PVP Bill into law recently. The Bill was passed by the National Assembly in March this year.
Dr Ojo while addressing journalists at the Council’s headquarters in Sheda, Federal Capital Territory, said the Council had already commenced necessary funds things to the implementation of the PVP law.
“We will begin to see on our farmer’s field superior yielding, stress-tolerant, disease-resistant, climate-smart and input efficient varieties which will be introduced by innovative breeders both from the public and the private sector in few years to come.
“In addition to the above, we will begin to witness efficient land use and reduced food cost as a result of the increased productivity from cultivated hectares across the country.”
All the above transformations will not happen without a push.
“The NASC under my able leadership is always ready to push and we have already started doing what is necessary to ensure that we do not only have the PVP Law but we implement it for the expected dividends to be delivered to the farmers and the entire Nigerians.”
He said NASC has already commenced actions to set up a functional PVP office that will be capable to receive and process applications for the granting of a PVP Law in Nigeria from anywhere in the world.
Dr Ojo said efforts were being made to develop supporting regulations that will help implement the Act and will continue to collaborate with partners both locally and internationally to ensure that we complete the process very soon of becoming a full member of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV).
“This process is what every other country with a serious desire to transform its agricultural sector is currently undergoing. Nigeria and Ghana are closely following each other in the effort to become the next new member of UPOV to join Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia and Tanzania who are already members of UPOV.
“It is important to mention that The African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI) operates a PVP system that covers the territory of its seventeen member states namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, the Niger, Senegal, and Togo.
He said even as Nigerians celebrate the new PVP law today marking an end to its journey of the introduction of the law, the Council is starting a new one which is the journey towards full implementation of the law.
“This new journey is a very daunting one and I wish to use this opportunity to solicit afresh the support of all our partners and collaborators to ensure we gain significantly as a nation from the benefits of this new law.
“We will very soon unveil the new PVP law to the general public, gazette and distribute copies of the law for knowledge sharing and understanding, commence capacity development on the topic of PVP and develop strong content and a strong media campaign to create awareness and demystify erroneous myths about the PVP to ensure clear understanding and buy-in of all,” he added.
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