By George M.O. Williams
The Executive Director of the Sierra Leone Seed Certification Agency, Dr. Robert Chakanda, has said that the importation of seeds cost the Government of Sierra Leone billions of Leones, thus the agency is focused to achieve zero seed importation.
He made this statement on Thursday during the regular press government briefing held at the Ministry of Information and Communication in Freetown.
He added that, even with the huge amount government is spending, there is no sustainability within the seeds system. Therefore, he said it is important for government to setup a structure to ensure seed efficiency within the country.
He mentioned that government started to import seeds because of the weak structure in the country and the provision of license to some private company has also caused influx of fake seeds in the country.
Dr. Chakanda said that as part of their target in 2021, they are able to achieve more seed production and also the setting up of a better system to screen seeds in order to ascertain the quality and effectiveness of the seed.
He recounted that research on seeds begun during the 70’s while the agency was under Sierra Leone Agricultural Research Institute (SLARI), which he said yielded some semblance of control and normalcy in the research process.
He noted that there was also a German sponsored project which was focused to ensure that seeds are available, but said that they were unable to achieve their objective as only 10 percent of farmers benefited from the project.
In that vein, he said, all of the aforesaid efforts were disrupted in the 90s, because there were no structure within the seed companies owned by the Government of Sierra Leone to maintain those gains, which caused the informal sector to dominate the seed preservation process.
Dr. Chakanda mentioned that successive government had failed to give attention to the seed sector which had led to weak structure between researcher and farmers, adding that the war, political instability, Ebola and covid-19, and social unrest had all contributed to the downward trend in the seed sector.
“It is important for government to resuscitate the seed sector as the uncertainties in the sector has caused insecurity for farmers who solely depend on government to provide them with seeds,” Dr. Chakanda said.
He Highlighted that the mandate of the agency among others is to ensure; regulation and control all seed activities in Sierra Leone; register and cancel license of seed actors, conduct sampling, testing, quality control and certification, carry out due diligence of all aspects of seed operation, determine fees for registration, certification, importation, and exportation, set standards for varieties and purity, and carry out seed’s inspection.