Empower seed certification services

The Government should empower the national certification services to ensure that it gets rid of the fake seeds penetrating the local market,Job Chemutai, the executive secretary of Uganda Seed Association, has advised.

 

“We still have a very big challenge in terms of certification of our seeds due to inadequate inspectors. As a result, counterfeit seeds have penetrated the market,” Chemutai observed.

 

He, however, did not mention the seed companies implicated in the vice, but noted that due to the expanding regional food market, and the increasing demand for grain, some companies deliberately buy seeds that cannot germinate and sell them to the farmers.

 

According to the agriculture ministry, Uganda has been producing 1.8 million tonnes of grain. However, this year’s harvest is likely to drop by 1.6 million tonnes. Uganda consumes about 1.1 million metric tonnes of grain while the rest is exported to South Sudan, eastern Congo and Kenya, due to the attractive prices in these countries. Despite the increasing number of seed companies, Uganda has less than 10 inspectors trained to carry out inspections of seeds with 21 registered companies hence, affecting the agricultural sector, he said.

 

Chemutai observed that as a result, some seeds have not gone through the necessary evaluation required by the agriculture ministry.

 

In a related development, Komayombi Bulegeya, the commissioner of the crop protection department in the agriculture ministry, recently cautioned seed companies against selling fake seeds to farmers, noting that the vice was affecting production. “It is incumbent upon seed companies to regulate each other in order to protect the name of the industry and win the farmers’ confidence. 

 

The farmers may not know which particular company is responsible for the irregularities, yet it is important that farmers have confidence in the use of certified seeds as a whole,” Komayombi noted.