BASICS II Stakeholders seminar: progress to date and the way forward

On 7 July, the Building an Economically Sustainable and Integrated Cassava Seed System (BASICS II) held a virtual seminar, “Sustainable seed system through BASICS II: Progress so far”, as part of IITA’s West Africa seminar series. The seminar, moderated by Sylvia Oyinlola, Head of Administration, IITA Western Africa Hub, highlighted key achievements of the project.

Prof Lateef Sanni, BASICS II Project Leader, highlighted the project’s goals, which provide farmers with access to affordable, quality-assured seeds of cassava varieties. According to Sanni, establishing a commercially viable seed value chain across the breeder, foundation, and commercial sectors will build a sustainable integrated commercial seed system.

He said the concentration on the breeding level and advancing some varieties released by national systems to the private sector have been through the quasi-informal system. “That is why the model today in BASICS II is to promote, strengthen the operation of early generation seed companies, such as IITA GoSeed and Umudike Seeds,” he added.

As part of the models used, he stated that BASICS II has concentrated on commercial seed enterprise systems in Benue and Kogi states for the past few years. Likewise, the processor-led approach, where large-scale industries are strengthened to have their own soil laboratory and get the plantlets to their own seed producers, will replace disease-prone cassava varieties at that level.

With the successes recorded at the breeding level, including the renaming of cassava varieties and new varieties released, the extensive scientific work of building efficient nucleus seed production systems from ex-vitro plantlets, and assembling early generation seed enterprises, the overall aim is achieve commercial seed level.

Sanni highlighted the key achievements of the seed systems being promoted, including the release of nine high-demand varieties, five new varieties released in 2020, nine varieties renamed and promoted, and three being tested. Also, efficient nucleus seed production systems have been built either from ex-vitro plantlets into semi-autotrophic hydroponics (SAH) production to mass produce plantlets and scale this innovation to the private sector. Other innovations promoted include pencil and green stem technology. “All the varieties developed were requested by the markets and industries using them,” he added.

He also mentioned progress with the early generation seed enterprises level. IITA GoSeed has been strengthened and supports four Nigerian enterprises producing and selling foundation seed to generate adequate revenues for sustainability. At the commercial seed level, “we have established 208 Commercial Seed Entrepreneurs (CSE) in Benue, Kogi, and other states, with about 37% females as seed entrepreneurs, although there is a target of 50% females, and women are encouraged to own this thriving business,” he said.

He reported that Lava Kumar, IITA Head of Virology Unit, led the quality control and disease management together with Joseph Onyeka and Principal Scientist James Legg. They worked with the National Seed Council and Tanzania Seed Council to strengthen the capacities of farmers, ensuring that farmers and seed entrepreneurs produce quality, disease-free, high-yielding, resistant cassava seeds.

He mentioned the commitment to work with BASICS II in all cassava programs, support, and fund capacity building of cassava growers in seed production in the 36 states of NIgeria as the key achievement with advocacy policymakers.

Concluding the session, he highlighted the need to commercialize less expensive, well-adapted stem multiplication technologies as alternative production systems to SAH as one of the lessons learned. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic restricted the movement and gathering of people, which was one of the challenges faced. “With the arrival of vaccines this year, we are optimistic that more progress would be achieved,” he said.