Veronica Mulhall, a communications consultant with Context Global Development, interviews the operational head of Umudike Seeds and Assistant Director and coordinator of seed technology at NRCRI, Mark Tokula, and plant breeder with the BASICS Project through the IITA Partnership and lead for the NextGen Cassava Breeding Project, Chiedozie Egesi, about how they are implementing the seven building blocks of early generation seed systems to increase stakeholder collaboration and advance root crop seed systems in Nigeria.

Umudike Seeds was set up by NRCRI to be a private not-for-profit company to increase private sector engagement in Nigeria’s root crops seed systems.

Veronica Mulhall:
How does the public sector currently play a role in varietal development in your seed system?

Mark Tokula:
Our host institution, the National Root Crops Research Institute, NRCRI, is the main public sector agency in Nigeria established for varietal development and genetic improvement roots and tubers, generally.

Through NRCRI, the public sector in Nigeria has appropriated funds and human resources for breeding and turning out new varieties. Public institutions are able to define the playing by hearing the demands of farmers in terms of quality, new food forms, diseases, and so on to be able to overcome it. Frequently, it is in collaboration with other international agencies and donor-funded projects. 

There is a focus on capacity building through collaboration with these other agencies and funders. At times, the public sector budgetary allocation has a deficit that results in a bottleneck to creating new varieties. This is where collaboration provides necessary intervention, the licensing or the release of these varieties that meet tomorrow's needs.

Chiedozie Egesi:
In addition, we have always promoted public-private partnerships. Umudike Seeds is an excellent example as it is set up by a public organization, but it will be managed privately as its own entity. It is a win-win public-private partnership process. Right now, Umudike Seeds is setting up its board and hiring a chief executive; it has independent accounts and independent governance structure.

Currently in Nigeria, the developers (NRCRI and IITA) of new seed varieties and the regulators (NASC) are both in the public sector. As public organizations, we are developing varieties and then sell them to our spin-off companies to produce the early generation seeds and begin to market them. There's a lot of collaboration and thought around: (1.) What kind of varieties do the clients have now? (2.) How do we define it? (3.) How do we popularize it? (4.) What game-changing varieties should we bring to them? (5.) How do we reach a decision as to when to introduce a new variety and what kind of variety?

Veronica Mulhall:
How is your organization working sustainably to establish reliable funding sources? 

Mark Tokula: 
Our sustainability is hinged on the already existing partnership. We take our activities seriously, hiring the appropriate staff, training in terms of capacity building, and creating an enabling environment for breeding and varietal development. Meeting these activities are written in our mandate. There are key performance indicators with which we are judged at the end of the day, (1.) how many varieties we produced, (2.) how they are fairing among the farmers, and (3.) reincorporating varietal feedback to help breeders to move ahead.


Veronica Mulhall:
What does your breeding program do to work closely with farmers?

Mark Tokula: 
Our breeding program puts emphasis on the farmers. We run farmer participatory trials to nationally coordinated research trials that take place in farmers’ fields, subjecting the clones to conditions of farmers’ fields. There are ongoing trainings and we work with farmers to assess varieties. We emphasize good agricultural practices to bring about uniformity and test how varieties can fare in the farmer’s field condition. 

When you are developing a variety, you have to have the farmers in mind. It needs to be a joint process for the finished variety to be good - So, that the variety can move, so that it can fly! Working with the farmers ensures the variety will have adoption and sustained adoption that will not fall by the wayside. 

Chiedozie Egesi: 
Breeding should not be left to the breeders alone. More stakeholders should be involved in the decision-making process. Multiple stakeholders should have input to determine what are the best variety characteristics. 

We must also consider, what are all byproducts of a crop when developing a new variety. Cassava is not only a food security crop, but it is now also being used as an industrial raw material, such as starch. The characteristics that a farmer needs for home consumption are different from what the starch factory requires. Working with the relevant stakeholders, they can evaluate the test variety and give us feedback to decide what variety to select.

We are prioritizing our work with female farmers. Too many female farmers are behind the scenes, but the truth is that the majority of the female cassava farmers are not recognized. When we call for meetings, it is the men that show up, We're trying for a level of equity - 50% female farmers - to help with varietal testing. We have to encourage more women. We need to go beyond the call of duty to make sure that women are able to work with us. It is vital to making our work sustainable.

Veronica Mulhall:
What advice do you have for others trying to do the same?

Chiedozie Egesi: 
The first thing is to have a paradigm shift. You need to know that you are not developing the variety for your use in the research center. Think of big companies such as Pepsi, Cola, Apple that we know are successful - What do they do there? They look for what their clients need. One approach is purely demand-driven and the other is knowing your client so well, you are able to show them what they need. These are two approaches you need to use.

Veronica Mulhall:
What role does public sector organizations play in coordinating early generation seed production?

Mark Tokula:
In Nigeria, the public sector, specifically NRCRI, plays a key role in early generation seed development. Umudike Seeds itself was originally an NRCRI pilot. Even now that Umudike Seeds is a private not-for-profit organization, students, land, and many resources and infrastructures are able to be leased from NRCRI. Without the NRCRI, we would not be able to have varieties that we are going to promote to the market.
 

Veronica Mulhall:
What does your organization do to promote strong institutional and interpersonal linkages?

Mark Tokula: 
Our best advice to promote strong institutional and interpersonal linkages is to set expectations with all the partners from the start. Create a memorandum of understanding at each point and complete a need assessment to have clear roles. Also, if you all set goals upfront together, there is a greater chance of success. 

All the project components that are supposed to function together should be carefully selected, knowing who is relevant for each part. and then coming together in partnership, allows projects to have improved results and collaborating results that can move you further.

Veronica Mulhall:
What does your seed quality assurance system look like?

Mark Tokula: 
Fantastic! We are really proud of our seed quality assurance systems. We use new technology for the rapid multiplication of plantlets, which is semi-autotrophic hydroponics and we also use aeroponics in our yam process. In the testing lab, we use clean plantlets that are sent to the field. All that we produce as early generation seed that is to be sent to the market has to undergo a quality assessment from the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC).

The national agricultural Seeds Council is Nigeria’s certifying body for all classes of material and seeds. If It is not certified - it is not seed. Samples are taken to the lab and then for analysis to prevent counterfeiting seed. There is a seed codex being created. This way we will be able to track seed and see if it is certified. This seed tracker is another innovation that is playing a big role in the quality assurance of seeds that we produce and sell to the market. These are just some of the efforts that have been made to ensure that quality is not compromised.

Veronica Mulhall:
Can you give an example where private sector funding has motivated research or seed production activities?

Chiedozie Egesi:
This may not be as applicable to Nigeria’s roots and tubers seed systems because although companies such as Monsanto, Syngenta, and Pioneer are here in Nigeria, they are focusing more on grain seeds. One example was Syngenta recently supported the release of a new potato variety in Nigeria.

It is still rare, but funders, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, have been incentivizing the private sector with seed grants in hopes to get this type of practice started. The goal is to take it to the farmer in a systematic way with the best quality of seed. We need the seed companies that are focused on root and tuber crops that have unique propagation techniques.
 

Veronica Mulhall:
How do you go about creating a brand that distribution partners and farmers can trust?

Mark Tokula: 
In the past, one variety could be called by many names throughout different parts of Nigeria. Now, we have created branding methodologies to create memorable names for varieties. It is important key players and stakeholders are part of the branding so everybody recognizes that material by the same name.

Chiedozie Egesi:
Branding is key, but we still see the challenges here. One thing we are doing is to check the integrity of the materials. We are taking our marketing efforts to the local level creating flyers to share materials and make sure they are well-characterized. For example, there is one sweetpotato we have named ‘mother’s delight’ because mothers love to use its leaves to cook soup. We are seeing when the name is relatable and easy to remember, the variety does better in marketing. It is a win-win.

Veronica Mulhall:
Why is it important for us to have more public-private sector engagement?

Mark Tokula: 
It is very important because of the acceptability of the products that will come out of the interaction. We must emphasize public-private engagement so that all parties buy-in and the end product is valuable - and used - by all. This engagement drives innovation and provides feedback so we can reiterate. 

Chiedozie Egesi: 
When you look at agricultural seed systems around the world, government influences play a large part in how they work but it is important to think of agriculture as a business and strike a balance between both public and private sectors. Both sides play key roles in successful early generation seed systems. Both public and private sectors need to interface to bring about effectiveness in this seed revolution.