Maize seed variety selection and seed system development: the case of southern Africa

2017 ◽  
pp. 33-48
Author(s):  
Peter S. Setimela ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
System Development ◽  
Maize Seed ◽  
Variety Selection ◽  
Seed System

Contextualizing private sector-based seed system development: The case of sorghum in Eastern Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 003072702110563
Author(s):  
Caroline Hambloch ◽  
Jane Kahwai ◽  
John Mugonya
Keyword(s):  
Rural Development ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
System Development ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Improved Varieties ◽  
Seed System ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Farming Households

Private sector-based seed system development remains a key development intervention in Sub-Saharan Africa. Seed system interventions promoting the adoption of improved varieties through the private sector generally follow a linear, market-oriented technological adoption logic. A qualitative case study of the sorghum seed system in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania demonstrates that this model may not be able to drive the broad-scale adoption of improved sorghum varieties and to generate significant benefits for small sorghum-farming households. The findings suggest that the agro-ecological, social, and political-economic contexts critically determine the role improved varieties and the private sector can play in rural development. Improved sorghum varieties promoted by both the public and private sectors may not suit the needs, preferences and contexts of farming households. Seed companies hold sorghum as an add-on in their portfolio, investing less resources and research into sorghum compared to more profitable crops such as vegetable and maize seeds. Significant political-economic obstacles exist that favor the support of cash crops such as maize and rice, limiting the growth and development of the private sector in the sorghum seed system. We conclude that future interventions should build on approaches that aim to develop more diverse channels of seed delivery in both the formal and informal seed systems, adopt a livelihoods perspective to evaluate the costs, benefits, and risks associated with the adoption of new technologies, and acknowledge that seed system interventions are only one out of a portfolio of interventions to generate rural development.

scholarly journals Politics of Seed in Ethiopia's Agricultural Transformation: Pathways to Seed System Development

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teshome Hunduma Mulesa
Keyword(s):  
Development Strategy ◽  
System Development ◽  
Seed Systems ◽  
Assistance Program ◽  
Agricultural Modernization ◽  
Agricultural Transformation ◽  
The Third ◽  
Economic Barriers ◽  
Seed System ◽  
The Government

Seed system development in the developing world, especially in Africa, has become a political space. This article analyzes current Ethiopian seed politics in light of the historical dynamics of national and international seed system politics and developments. Drawing on multiple power analysis approaches and employing the lens of “international seed regimes,” the article characterizes the historical pattern of seed regimes in Ethiopia. While colonial territories underwent three historical seed regime patterns—the first colonial seed regime, the second post-WWII public seed regime, and the third post-1980s corporate-based neoliberal seed regime, Ethiopia has only experienced one of these. Until the 1950s, when the first US government's development assistance program—the Point 4 Program—enabled the second government-led seed regime to emerge, the farmers' seed systems remained the only seed innovation and supply system. The first colonial seed regime never took hold as the country remained uncolonized, and the government has hitherto resisted the third corporate-based neoliberal seed regime. In the current conjuncture in the contemporary Ethiopian seed regime, four different approaches to pluralistic seed system development are competing: (1) government-led formalization, (2) private-led formalization, (3) farmer-based localization, and (4) community-based integrative seed system developments. The Pluralistic Seed System Development Strategy (PSSDS) from 2013 is a uniquely diverse approach to seed system development internationally; however, it has yet to realize its equity and sustainability potential. This study shows that the agricultural modernization dependency and government-led formal seed systems development have sidelined opportunities to tap into the strength of other alternatives identified in the PSSDS. In conclusion, an integrative and inclusive seed sector is possible if the government takes leadership and removes the current political, organizational, and economic barriers for developing a truly pluralistic seed system.

scholarly journals Survey methods for seed system network analysis

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher E Buddenhagen ◽  
Kelsey F Andersen ◽  
James C Fulton ◽  
Karen A Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Survey Methods ◽  
Seed Systems ◽  
Present Survey ◽  
Multilayer Network ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
Variety Selection ◽  
Seed System ◽  
System Success

We present survey questions useful for describing agricultural seed systems. The questions are designed so that they can be used for standardized comparisons among seed systems, addressing both networks for seed movement and networks for the communication of information related to variety selection and integrated pest management. This approach provides information that can be used in multilayer network analyses of how information influences seed system success. Also provided are example data sheets with field descriptors that should provide for straightforward statistical analysis after data collection.

scholarly journals Pluralistic Seed System Development: A Path to Seed Security?

Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 372
Author(s):  
Teshome Hunduma Mulesa ◽  
Sarah Paule Dalle ◽  
Clifton Makate ◽  
Ruth Haug ◽  
Ola Tveitereid Westengen
Keyword(s):  
Development Strategy ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Seed Quality ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
System Development ◽  
Formal System ◽  
Household Survey ◽  
Seed Systems ◽  
Seed Security ◽  
Seed System

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 especially certified seeds of these, challenges with seed quality from some sources, and differentiated access to preferred seed and information according to sex, age and wealth. We find that the interventions prioritized in the PSSDS address most of the seed security challenges and seed system dysfunctions identified, but implementation lags, particularly for the informal seed system, which is largely neglected by government programs. The intermediate system shows promise, but while some improvements have been made in the formal system, vested political, organizational, and economic interests within key institutions represent major obstacles that must be overcome to achieve truly integrative and inclusive seed sector development.

scholarly journals Data collection for seed system network analysis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher E Buddenhagen ◽  
Kelsey F Andersen ◽  
James C Fulton ◽  
Karen A Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Seed Systems ◽  
Present Survey ◽  
Multilayer Network ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
Variety Selection ◽  
Seed System ◽  
System Success

We present survey questions useful for describing agricultural seed systems. The questions are designed so that they can be used for standardized comparisons among seed systems, addressing both networks for seed movement and networks for the communication of information related to variety selection and integrated pest management. This approach provides information that can be used in multilayer network analyses of how information influences seed system success. Also provided are example data sheets with field descriptors that should provide for straightforward statistical analysis after data collection.

Political and economic features of the maize seed industry in southern Africa

Agrekon ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.T. Kassie ◽  
O. Erenstein ◽  
W. Mwangi ◽  
J. MacRobert ◽  
P. Setimela ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Maize Seed ◽  
Seed Industry
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