Nigeria unveils law to protect plant breeders

The government of Nigeria has unveiled the Plant Variety Protection Act 2021 (PVP) to safeguard the intellectual property rights of breeders.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Sabo Nanono launched the law and said it aims to enhance farmers’ access to quality seeds to boost food production in the country. Essentially, plant breeding is the purposeful alteration of plant species to create desired genotypes and phenotypes for specific purposes.

The Act was a brainchild of the Nigerian Agricultural Seed Council (NASC). Nanono bemoaned the low budgetary allocation to research, lamenting that the huge chunk of the funds going to research institutes are for salaries and allowances, and not actual research. He said the development was totally unacceptable adding that this was why the federal government is taking the issue of research seriously.

Agricultural transformation agenda

“We need to do something drastic and we need to be serious about research to develop the agricultural sector. Though the country is good at making laws, implementation remained major challenge. It was important that the PVP act is fully implemented while stakeholders monitored progress,” said the minister.

The minister also insisted that there are enough seeds in the country adding that the problem centered on accessing quality ones. He said innovation and research remained major challenges towards the development of the agricultural sector.

Also, speaking at the unveiling, Director General, NASC, Dr. Philip Ojo, described the legislation as an important milestone in the development of the agricultural sector. He noted that Nigeria was one of the few countries in Africa without a plant variety protection system. He said the PVP law was critical to the agricultural transformation agenda of the current administration as this would incentivise national and multinational agribusiness investments in the country.

“We will begin to see on our farmers’ field superior yielding, stress tolerant, disease resistant, smart climate and input varieties which will be introduced by innovative breeders both from the public and the private sector in few years to come,” said Dr. Philip Ojo.