Social institutions mediating seed access in West African seed systems (original) (raw)
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Supporting farmer participation in formal seed systems: lessons from Tharaka, Kenya
This article examines contemporary challenges of formal seed sector participation for resource-poor farmers in Tharaka and engages in a wider discussion of national seed policy and formal seed sector development in Kenya. While many farmers reported utilising modern seed varieties developed by the formal seed sector, the majority of these were introduced through seed aid and maintained through seed saving, supporting seed system integration strategies. Building on these findings, the article discusses ways in which national seed policy in Kenya might be refined to better meet national and regional development goals focused on decreasing the incidence of hunger and poverty.
Review of Community Seed Production Practices in Africa Part 1: Implementation Strategies and Models
This review is limited in scale and scope and covers five case studies in Africa. Two of the studies are classic emergency interventions: one post-conflict and one post drought. Three of the case studies are developmental in nature; one focused on different approaches to increase farmer access to recently released drought-tolerant cereal varieties, another looking at smallholder participation in legume seed supply, and one looking at three women’s groups as seed enterprises. This review is based on an analysis of published and unpublished policy reviews, briefing and discussion papers, journal articles, meta-reviews, training material, strategy documents, evaluations, and case studies on seed production and seed delivery with a focus on the diverse but not well understood area between farmer seed management and commercial seed. This review has also been informed by discussion with seed system practitioners, particularly those involved in the case studies examined. This space between farmer seed management and commercial seed has been referred to as community seed production, smallholder seed enterprises, informal seed supply, and local seed system development programs. The objective of this review is to examine the status and trends in community seed production in order to identify key criteria for success and possible areas of improvement, including the role of community seed production in linking formal (public and private) seed sectors with the farmer seed system. The first section of the review (Part 1) details the five case studies in terms of major activities and implementation strategies.
Within the context of the case studies presented, there are clear lessons learned and the second section of the review (Part 2) draws out those lessons in looking at seed and variety, description of community seed production, the support role of public, private, and civil society actors, the role of subsidies and technical support, farm level impact, and sustainability. A general theme running through all of these case studies is improving farmers’ access to quality seed of desired varieties. Topics include varietal identification, seed production, seed quality, seed policy, and seed marketing. The main conclusions are: Community seed production is necessary to improve formal and farmer seed system links; community seed production objectives should be explicit and include coherent activities for closing out, transitioning into commercial entities, or linking with publicly funded programs; community seed production is more effective when there is strong collaboration between the public sector, the commercial sector, and civil society/NGOs; The lack of standard ex-ante seed system diagnostics, including economic analysis to justify the scale and scope of interventions, significantly limits the capacity of donors and seed practitioners to make rational investments and intervention design decisions.
Increasing seed system efficiency in Africa: Concepts, strategies and issues
1999
The MSU International Development Paper series is designed to further the comparative analysis of international development activities in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Near East. The papers report research findings on historical, as well as contemporary, international development problems. The series includes papers on a wide range of topics, such as alternative rural development strategies; nonfarm employment and small scale industry; housing and construction; farming and marketing systems; food and nutrition policy analysis; economics of rice production in West Africa; technological change, employment, and income distribution; computer techniques for farm and marketing surveys; farming systems and food security research.
Seed is a vital input to improve agricultural production and productivity. Farmers obtain seed from both formal and informal sources. The informal seed sector in Ethiopia is the major seed supplier of seed for many crops grown in the country. Access to the formal seed sector is limited for the farmers, and hence the role of informal seed supply system is significant. The study is intended to assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and prevailing challenges and institutional frameworks of the informal seed supply system of sorghum and maize crops in Medegha Tolla district of east Haraghe zone, Ethiopia. Purposive sampling method was employed to select four sample KAs and probability proportional to size random sampling was used to select 200 sorghum and maize grower sample respondents. The data collected from sample respondents was using structured interview schedule were processed using descriptive statistics with the help of SPSS software. In addition, the qualitative data were also collected using FGDs, key informant interviews and field observations. The qualitative data were analyzed using narrative analysis, SWOT analysis and actor linkage analysis. The research revealed that the main seed sources for the farmers in the study area were own saved seed, neighbours, local markets, NGOs and the woreda agricultural and rural development office. Farmers in the study area obtain seed mainly by means of exchange with other seed/grain, gift and cash. The respondents and discussants indicated that timely availability, easily accessibility, local adaptability, knowledge and skill sharing along with the seed were the important strengths of the informal seed supply system of the study area. However, the major weaknesses, as reported by the respondents were low quality of seed, lack of purity and lack of specificity of variety. The major challenges faced by the farmers to improve the system were frequent drought, lack of adequate knowledge and skill in seed related activities and lack of appropriate storage. The study also identified the opportunities to strengthen the informal seed system and thereby improve the seed supply system in the area. The presence of traditional seed experts, farmers’ cooperatives, facilitating GOs and NGOs, proximity to research centre and Haramaya University were among the opportunities available. The informal seed supply system in relation to achieving seed security was assessed and it was found that it has a strong contribution. The main actors involved in the informal seed supply system of the study area were farmers, NGO and GOs; and the linkage between these actors found to be very weak. Therefore to strengthen the informal seed supply system, the existing opportunities should be used as a tool and the linkage between actors should be strengthened. Key words: informal seed system, SWOT, institutional frameworks, actor linkages
Informal Seed Traders: The Backbone of Seed Business and African Smallholder Seed Supply
, 2020
To work well and be sustainable, seed systems have to offer a range of crops and varieties of good quality seed and these products have to reach farmers, no matter how remote or poor they may be. Formal seed sector interventions alone are not delivering the crop portfolio or achieving the social and geographic breadth needed, and the paper argues for focus on informal seed channels and particularly on traders who move 'potential seed' (local seed) even to high stress areas. This paper provides the first in-depth analysis on potential seed trader types and actions, drawing on data collected on 287 traders working in 10 African countries. The research delves into four themes: the types and hierarchies of traders; the technical ways traders manage seed using 11 core practices; the price differential of +50% of potential (local) seed over grain, and the pivotal roles which traders play in remote and crisis contexts. Traders are the backbone of smallholder seed security and need to be engaged, not ignored, in development and relief efforts. A detailed action framework for leveraging seed trader skills is presented, with the paper addressing possible legal and donor constraints for engaging such market actors more fully.
Seed Systems Support in Kenya: Consideration for an Integrated Seed Sector Development Approach
Journal of Sustainable Development, 2015
The threats of climate change and rising food prices have stirred renewed attention for seed and food security in Africa, inviting new thinking on the role of seed sector development in coping with these concerns. One conceptual framework that has gained attention is the Integrated Seed Sector Development (ISSD) approach. The ISSD approach has evolved as a response to the almost exclusive focus on formal seed systems in seed sector development programs. Instead, ISSD aims to recognize and support all the diverse seed systems that exist in a particular country. An analysis of the evolution of seed policies and regulatory frameworks in Kenya since independence indeed exposes a continuous support for the formal seed sector while support given to the informal sector has merely been intended to transform it into formal. In reality, however, the formal and informal sectors appear to be made up of a plurality of seed systems, with the informal seed systems being the main source of seed for most crops. The article continues with analysing some of Kenya's recent policy shifts in order to explore how its new seed policy and legislative framework may fit within ISSD principles, and concludes with some recommendations on how the variety of seeds systems that exists on the ground and in particular local seed systems can be supported.
Usefulness of seed systems for reviving smallholder agriculture: a South African perspective
African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development, 2021
South Africa is considered a food-secure nation; however, food insecurity is still a major challenge for many poor rural households that rely on cash incomes and government grants for survival. Furthermore, these grants are not always adequate to meet households’ basic needs and fail to provide them with the food required for food and nutrition security. Some of these households rely on agriculture to supplement their food needs, and an important aspect of this agricultural production is the seed system. Smallholder farmers in rural areas rely on informal seed systems, and use traditional knowledge and methods to produce, harvest, store, and sell their produce. This research combined quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the role of informal seed systems in promoting food production in rural smallholder agricultural households in South Africa. The narrative review showed reword that while smallholder farmers acquire seed from informal seed systems, they face numerous challe...
Journal of Crop Improvement, 2012
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Pluralistic Seed System Development: A Path to Seed Security?
Agronomy, 2021
Seed security is central to crop production for smallholder farmers in developing countries, but it remains understudied in relation to long-term seed sector development. Here, we compare seed systems in two districts of Central Ethiopia characterized by subsistence-oriented teff cultivation and commercially oriented wheat production and relate this to the country’s pluralistic seed system development strategy (PSSDS). Our analysis is based on quantitative and qualitative information from a household survey and focus group discussions with farmers, as well as document review and key informant interviews with actors that make up the seed sector in the study sites. Farmers in both districts used a range of seed sources but primarily obtained their seeds from informal sources. Evidence of seed insecurity was found in both districts, as apparent from discrepancies between what the seed farmers say they prefer and those they actually use, limited availability of improved varieties and es...