Govt urged to deal with counterfeit seeds to address food security

There is need to increase penalty for unscrupulous importer’s selling counterfeit and substandard seeds.

Joseph De Vries, the Chief Agricultural Transformation Officer at Alliance for Growing Revolution in Africa (AGRA) says selling of fake seeds in Africa is impacting negatively on food production.

He says the Kenyan government needs to come up with heavy penalties for these unscrupulous traders to eradicate low food production.

African Green Revolution Forum and Alliance for Growing Revolution in Africa have already invested over 100 million dollars over 10 years in Grain industry and has set aside 400 million dollars that is expected to go towards supporting farming in Africa.

Retired Nigerian president, Olusegan Obasanjo, said African needs serious commitments to propel growth of agriculture development across the African continent

He reiterated that there is need for the African leaders to build capacity in the food related matters to establish the right strategies and policies to help attain this objective.

He was speaking during the first Africa Food Prize awarded to Kanayo Nwanze, the President of the Rome-based International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD). Obasanjo added that the Maputo Declaration on agricultural development must be implemented by countries that have not yet done so.

“This Declaration has to be implemented; only a few countries so far are implementing it. 20 of the other countries are in and out,” he said.

IFAD president, Kanayo Nwanze, added that the African continent needs to curb post-harvest losses of up to 4 billion dollars annually.

Dr Nwanze observed that feeding Africa would involve curtailing illicit food outflows that have ravaged the continent.

“Africa has the capacity to feed itself but only if we can do the right thing, and that’s bringing accountability in agriculture,” said Dr Nwanze.

He says 25% of flowers in Europe come from Kenya. Nwanze said Africa needs to buy, consume local food production to promote local development.

During the African Green Revolution Forum leaders have been urged to come up with measures and streamline policies to illicit food outflows and put in place concrete regulation to oversee food security.

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