By Kebba AF Touray
An audit report on the provision of farm inputs to farmers has disclosed that 94 percent of farmers lack knowledge of the significance of certified seeds.
According to an audit report, this was disclosed to auditors from the National Audit Office during their interface with farmers on certified seeds.
“Interviews with sixty-seven groundnut farmers revealed that 94% of them lack knowledge on the importance of using certified seeds and disclosed that they have not received any sensitization on this issue,” the audit report said.
The audit report continued to add that the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) said they have adopted the farmer field School and master farmer concept to monitor and disseminate research findings to ascertain the farmers’ usage of the certified seeds, and to bridge the extension/farmer gap ratio. The audit report said they found that the MoA through extension workers employed the farmer field School and master/farmer concept to farmers during their site visits.
However, the audit report said this approach primarily targets women in vegetable gardening, and not those in groundnut production, adding that their interviews with regional directors and extension workers also showed that the Ministry currently monitors and sensitizes farmers on the use of certified seeds.
“Despite these efforts, there is room for improvement in extension services particularly in addressing groundnut production and enhancing the overall effectiveness of certified seeds usage,” the audit report indicated, noting that only 6% of farmers interviewed said they have received sensitization on certified seeds.
The audit report said ineffective sensitization efforts by regional directors and extension workers have also led to many groundnut farmers using their own seeds which are of low quality and consist of seeds from different other varieties with varying maturity dates when compared to certified seeds.
The audit report said limited use of certified seeds among groundnut farmers is attributed to the insufficient level of sensitization by extension workers, and that this reflects the challenges that arise from the higher number of farmers to the limited number of extension workers on the ground.
“Our interview with farmers revealed that the extension worker to farmer ratio exceeds the FAO recommended ratio of 1:500 in most of the visited regions,” the audit report said.
It indicated that Regional Directors and extension workers interviewed by the audit team admitted not having a written monitoring schedule for farm visits, despite their claim of conducting monitoring visits.
“The lack of a written monitoring schedule has led to irregular monitoring of farmers by extension workers, which in turn reflects the ineffective delivery of extension services to farmers,” the NAO report concludes.
