Category: Sharing knowledge on Seeds

Week 115 – Litterature Review: Gender dynamics in seed systems: an integrative review of seed promotion interventions in Africa

Authors: Berber Kramer & Carly Trachtman, Springer Nature
Keywords: gender; seed policies; quality seeds

“Gender gaps in adoption of high-quality seeds of improved varieties persist in Sub-Saharan Africa, despite the implementation of various seed promotion interventions aimed at increasing adoption among all farmers. This paper reviews existing literature on common seed promotion interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa (including subsidies, financial services, quality certification schemes, and agricultural extension) and asks to what extent these interventions serve women farmers as much as men farmers.[…]”

Click on the following link to access the content: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12571-023-01403-2#:~:text=In%20terms%20of%20overall%20findings,and%20can%20improve%20women’s%20livelihoods.

© 2024 Springer Nature

Week 114 – Discussion Paper: Mapping the design and implementation of seed sector regulation: The case of Uganda

Authors: IFPRI, Katrin Kuhlmann, Adron Naggayi Nalinya, Tara Francis and David J. Spielman, 2023
Keywords: Seed policy, regulation, enabling environment

An enabling environment with clear, inclusive, and transparent seed laws, policies, regulations, and guidelines is the foundation for an efficient and effective seed sector. If well designed and implemented, the legal and regulatory framework can facilitate market diversification, supervision and quality control of seed and other forms of planting material, promotion of private sector participation, farmer access to improved seed varieties, reduced barriers for the movement of seeds across borders, and food security.

Click on the following link to access the content: https://ebrary.ifpri.org/utils/getfile/collection/p15738coll2/id/136948/filename/137158.pdf
©IFPRI

Week 113 – Guidelines: Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture

Authors: FAO
Keywords: Quality assurance; seed policies; Conservation

Well-managed genebanks both safeguard genetic diversity and make it available to breeders. The Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture lay down the procedures for conserving plant genetic resources. These voluntary Standards set the benchmark for current scientific and technical best practices, and support the key international policy instruments for the conservation and use of plant genetic resources.

Click on the following link to access the content: https://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/7b79ee93-0f3c-5f58-9adc-5d4ef063f9c7/

© 2013 FAO

Week 112 – Case study: Promoting the growth and Development of smallholder seed enterprises for food and security crops – Case studies from Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire and India

Authors: FAO
Keywords: small enterprises; seed policies; smallholders

Farmers everywhere depend on access to good quality seed, which is fundamental to their crop production systems. Most governments have made significant investments in strengthening national agricultural production capacities, yet farmers in developing countries still face difficulties in accessing the quality seed of the varieties that they require. Guaranteeing farmers’ access to quality seed can only be achieved through a viable seed supply system that can multiply and distribute seeds which have been produced or preserved. This is better achieved by the private sector, but medium- to large-scale international seed companies concentrate on high-value crops and avoid dealing in the self-pollinating, open-pollinating and vegetatively-propagated varieties on which most smallholder farmers depend for their food security as the biology of these crops makes it easy for farmers to keep their seeds for several seasons.[…]

Click on the following link to access the content: https://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/agphome/documents/PGR/PubSeeds/seedSynthesis_book7.pdf

©FAO

Week 111 – Technical Manual: Quality Declared Seeds: Addressing the challenges in access to quality seed for smallholder farmers

Authors: FARM AFRICA
Keywords: quality assurance; seed policies; smallholders

Crop productivity in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa remains low. Many crops produce yields below the global
average. This is brought about by many factors, including smallscale farmers’ low access to good quality seed. Less than 20% of farmed land in Africa is cultivated with improved seed due to its lack of accessibility and affordability. This results in farmers continuing to rely on traditional recycled seed and strengthens the need for Quality Declared Seed (QDS) systems.[…]

Click on the following link to access the content: https://www.farmafrica.org/downloads/2022/Quality-Declared-Seed.pdf

© farmafrica

Week 110 – Research Article: Africa’s “Seed” Revolution and Value Chain Constraints to Early Generation Seeds Commercialization and Adoption in Ghana

Authors: Philip Tetteh Quarshie, Abdul-Rahim Abdulai and Evan D. G. Fraser

Keywords: vegetables; seed policies; Africa

“The study aims to deepen understanding of how Early Generation Seeds value chain constraints impede commercialization and adoption of High Yielding Varieties (HYV) or improved Maize seeds by smallholders in Ghana within the broader strategies of a “Green Revolution for Africa”. Using qualitative and quantitative information obtained through one-on-one interviews with 15 key informants, a household survey from 110 smallholder farmers and document reviews, we discuss constraints and bottlenecks engendered by value chain structures, processes and mechanisms in Ghana’s formal seed distribution system. Seven main challenges were identified that undermine trust and hinder the expansion of HYVs: (1) the limited capacity of public institutions, (2) constrained capacity of the emerging private sector, (3) a lack of well-defined, fair and enforceable contracts between stakeholders in the delivery system, (4) land-tenure limitations, (5) poor forecasting of farmers’ demands for seeds by research institutions and seed producers, (6) sparse marketing arrangements for improved maize seeds, and (7) concentration of power to control seed supply in the hands of few institutions. […]

Click on the following link to access the content: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2021.665297/full

© 2023 Frontiers Media S.A.

Week 109 – Research Article: Navigating toward resilient and inclusive seed systems

Authors:  Ola T. Westengen, Sarah Paule Dalle and Teshome Hunduma Mulesa 

Keywords: inclusiveness; seed governance; resilience

Food systems face new climatic and socioecological challenges and farmers need a diversity of new plant varieties to respond to these. While plant breeding is important, institutional innovations in seed systems are critical to ensure that new traits and varieties make their way into farmers’ fields. This Perspective reviews the state of knowledge on seed system development, outlining insights emerging from the literature that can help navigate the way forward. We synthesize evidence on the contributions and limitations of the different actors, activities, and institutions pertaining to all seed systems smallholder farmers use, formal and informal. To do so, we structure our analysis on three functions—variety development and management, seed production, and seed dissemination—and two contextual factors—seed governance and food system drivers—that can be used to describe any seed system. Our review reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the activities of different actors along the entire chain of functions and demonstrates the multifaceted efforts to strengthen seed systems. We document that a new agenda for seed system development is taking root, based on the view that formal and farmers’ seed systems are complementary. Because needs differ from crop to crop, farmer to farmer, and between agroecological and food system contexts, a variety of pathways are needed to ensure farmers’ seed security. While the complexity of seed systems eludes a simple roadmap, we conclude by planting a “signpost” with principles to guide efforts to develop resilient and inclusive seed systems. […]

Click on the following link to access the content: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14735903.2023.2210005

© 2023 PNAS

Week 108 – Research Article: Laws and regulations enabling and restricting Africa’s vegetable seed sector

Authors: Katrin A. Kuhlmanna, Tara Francis, Indulekha Thomas & Pepijn Schreinemachers
Keywords: vegetables; seed legislation; Africa

“Farmers in sub-Saharan Africa do not have much choice of quality seed of vegetable cultivars adapted to local growing conditions and consumer demand. Only a handful of vegetable seed companies invest in local breeding research, while nearly all rely on seed imports. Our objective was to analyse to what extent existing seed laws and regulations enable or restrict the development of a research-based vegetable seed sector in Africa. Using a regulatory value chain approach, we analysed written laws and regulations for 13 countries and interviewed private and public sector stakeholders. We generally find that countries have taken a government-centred approach to seed quality control without recognizing that government agencies have little capacity to do this properly for vegetable crops. […]

Click on the following link to access the content: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14735903.2023.2210005
© 2023 Informa UK Limited

Week 107 – Research Article: The seed sector development in low-income countries: Lessons from the Malawi seed sector policy process

Authors: Henry G. Hunga, Levison Chiwaula, Wapulumuka Mulwafu and Mangani Katundu
Keywords: seed sector development; seed policies; Malawi

“Introduction: External conditionalities have shaped public policy development in borrowing nations. This has been through top-down policy support programs, an example being the policy reforms under the structural adjustment program. Under the seed sector reforms Malawi committed to the Southern Africa Development Community and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa harmonized seed regulations technical agreements. […]

Click on the following link to access the content: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2023.891116/full
© 2023 Frontiers Media S.A.

Week 106 – Research Article: Africa’s evolving vegetable seed sector: status, policy options and lessons from Asia

Authors: Pepijn Schreinemachers, Julie Howard, Michael Turner, Simon N. Groot, Bhupen Dubey, Learnmore Mwadzingeni, Takemore Chagomoka, Michael Ngugi, Victor Afari-Sefa, Peter Hanson & Marco C. S. Wopereis
Keywords: vegetables; seed policies; Africa

“Fostering better access to more nutritious foods across sub-Saharan Africa will be critical to ending hunger and malnutrition. In Asia, vegetable production and consumption have grown rapidly since the 1990s and the development of a dynamic vegetable seed industry, led by the private sector, played a pivotal role in this process. The availability of locally-bred and adapted varieties facilitated the rapid expansion of production and increased the supply of affordable vegetables to consumers. In contrast, the vegetable seed sector in sub-Saharan Africa has been slow to develop and has received little attention in the development agenda. Drawing from Asia’s experience, this paper outlines a four-point strategy to accelerate the vegetable seed sector in sub-Saharan Africa. […]

Click on the following link to access the content: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12571-021-01146-y
© 2023 Springer Nature