The discussion on policies for assuring quality seed to smallholder famers in an important undertaking but needs to be done with considerable care to make certain that most of the seed doesn’t go to larger farmers and the certification process does not lead to substantial informal income (corruption) opportunities for the certification officers involved.  The key concern is the financial capacity of host governments to support the program. In this regard it has to be recognized in the overall suppressed economy common (1) to virtually all host government, there is virtually no tax base, and thus no operating funds to provide sustainable support for a certification program (2). Thus, while it is relatively easy to develop the technical capacity in seed technology and provide labs for doing the seed testing, the funding to operate and maintain such labs may be severely limited. Also, the logistic needs to reach smallholders in remote areas where the off-tarmac transport cost could be triple the paved transport and this be fairly transparent to compute, could make routine distribution of certified seed uneconomical.

The need is to avoid the Nigeria situation where there is only one seed certification team in Kano State to undertake the certification of a multitude of less than 1 ha seed multiplication plots (3). This would be impossible to actually make the designated 3 site visits per season and thus most of the certification has to be on the “honor” system most likely assisted with some nice Gratuities for the team!!

Thus seed policies need to carefully consider the prospects they have to provide more than a small fraction of the seed required each year and that the vast majority (<90%) of the crop land will be planted to “market” seed. The main question is how to get quality seed into the market seed system and be available to smallholder farmers and a price they can afford, particularly if the government imposes price ceiling on major stable crops.

Perhaps the most effective means of getting quality seed into smallholder communities is what I refer to as the “genetic pump” (4). That is for NGO working directly with agro dealers in various smallholder communities to import various lines for final multiplication within the community. A process if done carefully will only need repeating once in 4 or 5 years. I don’t know any other means to get it done, given the limited financial capacity of most host governments to sustain programs, seed or otherwise, and once you exceed the government’s financial capacity the probably are your program will go into the informal income process and be a greater disservice than service to the smallholder farmers.   This also means concentrating on self-pollenated crops or composite varieties and avoiding hybrids. The WASA (West Africa Seed Association) had a great opportunity to engage in this approach but got diverted into post-harvest handling of the grain.

1. http://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/financially-suppressed-economy .

2. http://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/financially-stalled-governments/ .

3. http://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/impact-of-financially-stalled-government-limited-variety-improvement-seed-certification/ .

4. http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.echocommunity.org/resource/collection/F6FFA3BF-02EF-4FE3-B180-F391C063E31A/The_Crop_Genetic_Pump.pdf .

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