The Federal Government has reduced the quantity of rice and maize seeds supplied to farmers under its Growth Enhancement Support (GES) scheme. The GES scheme is a Federal Government’s initiative under the Agricultural Transformation Agenda aimed at subsidising the cost of major agricultural inputs such as fertiliser and seeds.

The Coordinating Director, National Agricultural Seeds Council Mr Olusegun Olatokun, told newsmen recently that the quantity was reduced from 25kg and 20 kg to 12.5 kg and 10kg, respectively.

He explained that at the inception GES in 2012, farmers were given 50kg of rice and 40kg of maize, which was later reduced to 25kg and 20kg and now reduced to 12.5 and 10kg respectively.

According to him, the reduction was done with the objective of maximising the utilisation of the seeds given to farmers; to reduce wastage and reach more peasant farmers. He added that the Federal Government’s budget was also a factor for the reduction.

Olatokun stressed that the programme was for peasant farmers with one or two hectares of land and giving them too much seeds would result to wastage. He, however, pointed out that farmers with more than a hectare or two hectares of land were no longer peasant farmers and the scheme was not for them.

?” In 2012, that was the first phase of GES, we gave 50kg of rice to farmers but it was later reduced to 25kg because we learnt that there was a lot of wastage.

” In the first phase, 4.2 million farmers were registered and we realised that 3, 693,000 out of them were maize farmers.

“To satisfy these farmers at the 40kg we earlier planned, that would?amount to 53,000 tonnes of maize seeds?which would have cost us N10.8billon and government’s budget does not give room for that.

“When some of them (farmers) plant seeds and?they remain, they store?them in their warehouses or in their rooms, the vigour of these seeds deteriorate and they don’t return them for revalidation.

?”Before you replant seeds after saving it for months, you have to return it to the laboratory for revalidation in order to check the germination percentage, purity and to ensure that it is still improved seeds.

“If all these are not in place, it is no longer seeds but grains that would result in low or no yield at all,’’ he said.

Olatokun said also that some of the farmers were yet to understand the technology of seeds which made them save seeds for months without planting. Under the initiative, farmers access inputs through an electronic distribution channel known as the e-Wallet. The conditions of the e-Wallet scheme stipulates that a farmer registered under the scheme pays 50 per cent of the cost of farm inputs while the federal and state governments pay 25 per cent each.

One of the requirements for the scheme is the national farmers’ registration exercise, where farmers’ data?is captured into the ministry’s central data bank.