Not All Seed Is Declared Equal: Improving Access

Event Date: Feb 28, 2017
Time: 09:30 AM to 11:00 AM (GMT -5)
Location:
The City Club of Washington DC
555 13th St NW
Washington, District of Columbia, 20004, United States
Event Links: Webinar Recording
Information
Seed is the single most important agricultural input of crop production, but not all seed is equally accessible and/or available. Agrilinks, Microlinks and the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance convened a special event where experts addressed how Quality Declared Seeds (QDS) might be able to close some of the gaps by offering a range of crop and seed varieties critical to climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive agriculture.
Many small-scale farmers cannot afford to get large quantities of expensive certified seed and Quality Declared Seeds could provide an impact-oriented alternative. Produced by registered, trained, small-scale farmers or farmer groups, QDS can be an efficient way to expand smallholder farmer access to diverse seed varieties.
The event explored global seed quality regulations and trends with key examples and case studies from Uganda, Tanzania, and Malawi. Participants had the opportunity to engage in and discuss:
- The benefits of multiple seed certification systems and how the quality of QDS compares to other seed classes.
- What country-level policies are needed for Quality Declared Seeds to be adopted, produced and traded.
- The financial costs and benefits of QDS.
Not All Seed Is Declared Equal: Improving Access

Niels Louwaars is director of Plantum, the association of companies in the Netherlands dealing with plant reproductive materials. Trained as a plant breeder at Wageningen University, he spent about 10 years in Asia and Africa... more working in seed projects before returning to Wageningen University. There he worked for 20 years in different positions dealing with international cooperation and research. Based on that international experience, he developed the concept of Integrated Seed Sector Development, providing policy space for a variety of formal and informal seed systems. His PhD dealt with the interplay of policies and regulatory issues related to such seed systems, including intellectual property rights (WTO), national sovereign rights on biological diversity (CBD and ITPGRFA), Farmers’ Rights (ITPGRFA), and national seed laws. During that period he assisted several countries and institutions like the World Bank and FAO in designing their policies in this area. In Wageningen he was also manager of a major international interdisciplinary programme and represented the organization in the CGIAR. He was also a member of the Plant Breeder’s Rights chamber of the district court in The Hague. Currently he represents the Netherlands seed sector nationally and internationally. less

Astrid Mastenbroek works for Wageningen University – Centre for Development Innovation (CDI). For the last four years, she has been Chief of Party for the Integrated Seed Sector Development (ISSD) project in Uganda, funded by... more the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. One of the major achievements of the team is to organize farmer groups into sustainable local seed businesses that produce and market quality declared seed, a new seed class in Uganda. She has been working in the region since 2005 initially working for ZOA in South Sudan and later in Northern Uganda. She also worked briefly in Kenya Somaliland in 2012 after which she returned to Uganda to start the ISSD Uganda project. Astrid has a masters degree in irrigation and water management from Wageningen University and a MSc in agricultural economics from School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. Her areas of expertise include seed systems, seed policy, and seed demand economics. She has a keen interest in understanding seed purchase decisions by farmers. less

Latha Nagarajan is a senior economist at the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) based in Washington, DC. Latha works primarily on issues related to agricultural input markets, technology adoption and impact... more assessment. Latha has extensive field experience studying seed systems and markets in South Asia and Africa. She is part of the Rutgers Policy Impact Consortium with a research focus on seed policy. Previously Latha worked at Rutgers and IFPRI, and earned her Ph.D. in applied economics at the University of Minnesota. less

Louise Sperling is a Senior Technical Advisor at Catholic Relief Services focusing on more vulnerable populations. She has managed and technically backstopped programs in 30+ countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In terms... more of seed systems, per se, Sperling’s work encompasses ‘normal’ smallholder farmer systems as well as high stress ones: e.g. she led assessment missions after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, post-earthquake in Haiti, and pre-Referendum South Sudan. She has co/-authored over 100 articles, inter alia: Seed systems farmers use (Food Security 2016); Making seed systems more resilient (Global Environmental Change 2013, Understanding and strengthening informal seed markets (Experimental Agriculture 2010: Sperling and McGuire); and Moving towards more effective seed aid (Journal of Development Studies 2008). A new website, seedsystem.org shares practical and policy advice for those supporting smallholder farmer seed systems in crisis, chronic stress and developmental periods. less
Comments
Dear Kaganga John, welcome to Agrilinks! We are a community website and we encourage your contributions and any knowledge exchange as a result. After all, sharing even the smallest piece of information or experience can help another practitioner improve their project or program -- so log on, read what others have to say, and contribute! In order to register for the "Not all Seed is Declared Equal" event scroll to the top of the page and click on "Webinar Registration" on the right side next to the event description. This will register you for the online event. If you have any other questions, please email [email protected]
Quality Declared Seed. This is an interesting concept addressing a critical need and I am looking forward to the webinar. Apparently the idea has been around for over 20 years, but I have never heard of it, including 2.5 years in Tanzania, one of your referenced countries and where I was seriously in need of quality rice seed. Unfortunately, I doubt if this will contribute substantially to adoption of improved varieties, particularly if the intention is for annual renewal of Quality Declared Seed from registered seed producers. I seriously doubt if the seed industry in most host countries has the capacity for more than a small percent of the cultivated area. Thus farmers, particularly smallholder farmers in remote communities, will have to continue to rely on “market” seed that is locally available. The development community needs to closely look at alternative to get quality seed into the “market” seed system in remote areas. Thus I continue to promote the concept of the Genetic Pump for NGOs to push small quantities of improved genetic material into remote areas for local multiplication and distribution, mostly through private family enterprise agro-dealers as the most effective link to smallholder producers.
I think it is critical to trust the smallholder farmers even with only limited formal education, that when a variety distinguish is necessary farmers can and will keep track of the important varieties. This should not be too difficult to demonstrate. My primary example actually comes from Madibira, Tanzania. At the time there was no certified seed or even Quality Declared Seed, but we still had about 6 identified varieties in the area, including one called Zambia that I assumed leaked across the border and became well like even though it is not a recognized variety in Zambia. There was enough difference in seed appearance that farmer could easily recognize the different varieties and degree of contamination. Also, we were unable to determine any yield difference between the seed we had available for distribution and the same varieties of seed distributed under “market” seed conditions. Similarly in reviewing seed and planting material in Nigeria, while there had been no serious influx of genetic material in as much as 30 years, the farmers could still recognize different varieties of cassava according to what they were best used for, be that garri, direct consumption etc.
Please note that while we concentrate our program coordination through the government and civil officers, the host country is most likely economically financially suppressed with most income going for direct subsistence need, leaving very little tax base to support government service including certified or declared quality seed. The result is most host governments are financially stalled, but promoting their potential services well in excess of any capacity to accomplish, while condemning the competing private services that are and always have been the most effective means of assisting smallholder producers. For this reason most, perhaps 90%, of the smallholder producers are not, never have been, and never will be in contract with agriculture development officers. Also, remember most civil officers are so poorly paid that out of financial necessity they need to seek supplemental informal income where possible from within their job for which a gratuity for inspecting Quality Declared Seed would be a welcome contribution regardless of the amount off types in the seed. Will this provide more informal income opportunities for the inspection officers than quality seed for the farmers?
Sorry but I fear that is the state of most host countries. Please review the following webpages from the www.smallholderagriculture.com website:
http://webdoc.agsci.colostate.edu/smallholderagriculture/The_Crop_Genetic_Pump.pdf
http://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/financially-suppressed-economy-2/
http://smallholderagriculture.agsci.colostate.edu/financially-stalled-governments/
I hope you have a chance to review this comment, the reference material, and as appropriate incorporate it into the webinar.
Thank you and looking forward to the webinar next week,
Dick Tinsley
The more I think about my previous comments and the 20+ years the idea of Quality Declared Seed has been around with reference to Tnazania where I was looking for good seed for a 3000 ha rice irrigation project as well as I understand the limited financial capacity of most host governments, the more concern I become that this is a phanonom concept and USAID and other donors are be mislead as to how extensive and how available this seed is. I would thus sugges that after the webinar seek an independent confirmation that it exists. This could be by approach other NGOs involved in agricuture development but independent of USAID and see if they have heard of Qualilty Declared Seed and have accessed it for thier projects. Sorry but i do appreciate the extent host officers can take advaantage of donors.
Am Kaganga John, a smallholder farmer in Uganda and local indigenous seed collector and preserver especially seeds getting extinct/endagered for more that 10 years,how can i be registed,recogonized and be supported locally and globally through Agilinks.