NAIROBI, (Xinhua) --
Small, family farmers in Africa purchase more than half of their
seeds every year through local markets and other informal
sources- neglected outlets that present a major opportunity for
improving access to better crop varieties crucial to dealing
with climate, nutrition, and other production challenges in a
region where food security remains a major concern.
Thats a key finding
from comprehensive new research released today in the Journal
Food Security that examined some 10,000 seed transactions across
five African countries and Haiti.
The investigators
discovered that, contrary to conventional wisdom, it appears
most smallholder farmers in Africa- the continents dominant
producers who typically cultivate crops on about a hectare or
less of land- are not reliant on seeds saved from year to year.
Instead, some 55
percent of seed they plant is purchased- mainly from local
markets or from friends and fellow farmers.
Local markets were
found to be particularly important for legumes, accounting for
64 percent of seeds for crops like beans and cowpea that are an
essential source of protein and other nutrients.
In contrast, a
relatively small proportion of transactions 2.4 percent overall
with no country higher than 17.4 percent involved certified
seed produced by private sector companies and sold through farm
supply stores or agrodealers.
Our work is
significant because it indicates smallholder farmers are far
more likely to purchase seed rather than rely on saved seed,
said Louise Sperling, a Senior Technical Adviser at Catholic
Relief Services (CRS) who led the research while working with
the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (known by
its Spanish acronym CIAT).
The challenge is
that most of their purchases are going through informal
channels like local markets, which dont have access to many
of the new crop varieties that could help farmers improve
nutrition and adapt to climate change.
Sperling and her
co-author, Shawn McGuire of the University of East Anglia (UEA),
said their findings indicate that supplying smallholder farmers
with a wider selection of crop varieties is a significant and
untapped business opportunity-for both formal and informal seed
sellers.
Thats particularly
true in contemporary Africa, they said, where international
institutions and national governments are aggressively investing
in developing new crop varieties specifically intended to help
smallholder farmers deal with a range of challenges.
Varieties that soon
could be available include beans that can withstand high
temperatures, potatoes that are resistant to late season blight,
and maize that can tolerate droughts, which are becoming more
common due to climate change.
Innovations in
crop science will be of little value to smallholder farmers if
they are not matched by innovations in seed delivery, McGuire
said.
We need to see
the formal sector more firmly focused on serving the needs of
smallholder farmers and it is especially important to realize
the potential of local markets as a source for seeds. Our
research shows that local markets are used by most farmers and
especially the more vulnerable. Yet local markets receive
almost no attention from development professionals or
governments.
The studys
conclusions were drawn from extensive interviews with farmers in
Kenya, Malawi, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Zimbabwe, and Haiti that were conducted as part of the Seed
System Security Assessment (SSSA).
Launched in 2008,
the assessment is part of SeedSystem.org, a collaboration
involving CRS, CIAT, the UEA School of International
Development, the Pan-African Bean Research Alliance (PABRA), and
the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
It now contains
extensive information on over 10,000 farmer transactions across
ten different seed sources for 40 different crops.
SeedSystem.org is
a resource that helps the humanitarian and development
community better understand the choices available to farmers
that can support their livelihoods and reduce the risks
inherent in agriculture, said Julie March, Agriculture and
Food Security Advisor at USAIDs Office of U.S. Foreign
Disaster Assistance.
Sperling and McGuire
note that there has long been anecdotal evidence pointing to the
importance of local markets as a source for seed.
But they said their
study is the first to extensively quantify, crop by crop, where
farmers obtain seed.
For example, they
found that even in countries where agrodealers owned more of
the marketthey accounted for 11.6 percent of sales in Kenya and
17.5 percent in Malawimost of the sales involved only a few
crops, chiefly maize in Kenya and maize and cotton in Malawi.
Meanwhile,
agrodealers supplied less than one percent of legumes and
vegetatively propagated crops like sweet potatoes.
This is an
important gap area for clusters of crop types key to basic
nutrition and calorie provision, the study states.
Mastering the
science of delivery: Getting high quality seed to smallholder
farmers
Sperling and McGuire
said their research points to the need for action on two fronts.
First, they believe
formal seed producers and sellers would be wise to embrace the
smallholder farmer as their core customer.
The study points to
Kenyas Dryland Seeds as a company that has generated
significant revenue by providing legume seeds (beans, cowpeas,
green grams and pigeon peas) and in the smaller packages most
smallholder farmers prefer.
Sperling and McGuire
also believe seeds for new crop varieties would reach more
farmers if they were available in supermarkets and small, mom
and pop stores that often are more common in remote communities
than agrodealers.
But the bigger
challenge, they said, is finding ways to make new crop varieties
available through informal sellers, like the seed and grain
traders who often travel to remote regions, serving the last
mile to farmers that many worry may never be bridged by formal
sellers.
Selling seeds
through more informal channels poses challenges for quality
assurance, but they are not insurmountable, Sperling said.
We cant wait for
formal channels like you find in Europe and the United States
to fully mature in Africa, particularly when they are failing
to move an entire category of critical crops like legumes. The
bottom line is we need to be more open to new ways of getting
seed to farmers and not let the perfect be the enemy of the
good.
Catholic Relief
Services is the official international humanitarian agency of
the Catholic community in the United States.
The agency eases
suffering and provides assistance to people in need in 93
countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. For
more information, visit
www.crs.org or
www.crsespanol.org and follow Catholic Relief Services on
social media: Facebook, Twitter at @CatholicRelief and @CRSnews,
Google+, Pinterest and YouTube.
The University of
East Anglia (UEA) is among the top 1per cent of universities
globally (Times Higher Education World Rankings 2014-15) and
placed 10th in the UK for the quality of its research
output (Research Excellence Framework 2014).
Also known for its
outstanding student experience, it has achieved a Top 10 rating
in the National Student Survey every year since the survey
began. UEA is a leading member of the Norwich Research Park -
one of Europes largest concentrations of researchers in the
fields of environment, health and plant science. The city of
Norwich boasts more highly cited scientists than any UK city
outside London, Oxford and Cambridge.
www.uea.ac.uk.
The International
Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) a member of the CGIAR
Consortium develops technologies, tools, and new knowledge
that better enable farmers, especially smallholders, to make
agriculture eco-efficient that is, competitive and profitable
as well as sustainable and resilient.
Eco-efficient
agriculture reduces hunger and poverty, improves human
nutrition, and offers solutions to environmental degradation and
climate change in the tropics.
With headquarters
near Cali, Colombia, CIAT conducts research for development in
tropical regions of Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
www.ciat.cgiar.org.
CGIAR is a global
research partnership for a food-secure future. Its science is
carried out by the 15 research centers who are members of the
CGIAR Consortium in collaboration with hundreds of partner
organizations.
www.cgiar.org
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