The National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) under the National Agricultural Research Act Section 39 is mandated to determine conditions for making the technologies and intellectual property generated from her research activities available in public interest.

Further in line with the Plant Variety Protection Act 2014, NARO as a Breeder streamlined the process for access and licensing of her plant varieties in an effort to addressing challenges related to quality assurance, product stewardship and tracking and traceability.

This is therefore an official notice to inform the general public that seed companies that fulfilled requirements to produce certified seed of NARO varieties signed licensing agreements with NARO. Certified seed from these licensed seed companies will have a NARO Varietal Identification Number (NVIN) on the packaging. The NVIN structure comprises of 14 alpha-numeric digits that identifies a specific product offered by the licensed seed companies, with a format NARO(YY)(CCC)(XXX):

• •!  “NARO” refers to NARO the Breeder;
• •!  “YY” refers to the year of release of the plant variety;
• •!  “CCC” refers to the crop code
• •!  “XXX” refers to the variety serial number.

• The public is hereby informed that purchase of seed from unlicensed seed companies is at own risk. The following are the details of seed companies and the respective plant varieties that are licensed: !