The inaugural Rwanda National Seed Congress, which took place in Kigali on July 31 and August 1, 2023, marked a significant milestone for the country’s seed industry. Themed “Private Sector Strategic Roadmap for the Seed Industry 2030”, the event brought together key stakeholders from the government, public, and private sectors to address challenges and opportunities in the national seed value chain.
Discussions centered around pertinent issues concerning the seed sector in general, with a particular focus on the Rwandan National Seed Strategic Roadmap. This document, which was developed through consultations with various stakeholders, provides a comprehensive plan to steer the industry towards success and sustainable growth.
“Enhancing and managing the seed system is a complex endeavor that requires the collaboration of various stakeholders,” said Chris Ojiewo, CGIAR Seed Equal Initiative lead. “This is where public-private partnerships come in as a valuable tool for nurturing the growth and expansion of the seed industry.”
Chris Ojiewo, CGIAR Seed Equal Initiative lead, presented at the inaugural National Seed Congress in Rwanda. (Photo: NSAR Congress)
During a presentation entitled Public-private Partnership: A Tool for Development and Strengthening of the Seed Sector, Ojiewo highlighted the growing importance of collaboration and partnerships in the current seed system. He emphasized that the processes and elements that shape the seed sector are complex and extensive, making it too much for any one organization—whether public or private—to handle alone.
The way forward
During the congress, several key recommendations were proposed to increase the potential of the seed industry. The government was encouraged to seek accreditation with major seed industry quality organizations, such as the International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) certification schemes, while adopting International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) to establish an improved regulatory environment conducive to industry growth.
The empowerment of the National Seed Association of Rwanda (NSAR) as an advocate and facilitator for the seed industry was also highlighted as an essential measure. The government’s support in enabling the seed association to become increasingly self-regulatory is seen as crucial to the industry’s growth over the next seven years, with private seed industry players developing internal systems to ensure compliance with rules and regulations.
Another key recommendation for increasing sustainable improved seed use in Rwanda was the use of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), which will play a critical role in promoting the country as a seed production and trade investment destination.
Ojiewo emphasized the importance of such partnerships, noting that “PPPs have the potential to transform the seed industry by leveraging the strengths of different organizations.” He further highlighted that in addressing the challenges of global food security and sustainable development, the way forward becomes clear through collaboration, innovation, and a shared commitment to advancing agricultural progress through collaborative efforts.
The congress also focused on attracting affordable financing to scale up investments throughout the seed value chain. It was considered essential to involve industry financial players in the development of optimal financing structures to support the expansion of the industry.
As a result of the successful event, plans have already been made for the second National Seed Congress in 2024. Scheduled to take place in Kigali on July 29 and 30, 2024, the next event aims to build on the achievements of the first congress and further drive the growth of Rwanda’s seed industry.
CGIAR’s Seed Equal Initiative helps farmers by providing them with better seeds that are nutritious, preferred in the market, and that can withstand climate change. These varieties have been carefully developed to exhibit significant genetic advancements, ultimately benefiting farmers. It also makes sure that women and other marginalized groups have fair access to these seeds.
Jubilant farmers after buying seed during day two of a fair in Masvingo District, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Tawanda Hove/CIMMYT)
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center is working with its partners to support farmers in Zimbabwe embrace conservation agriculture and improved seed varieties to achieve more successful harvests in areas affected by climate change.
The R4 Rural Resilience and ZAMBUKO initiatives aim to help farmers through a number of activities. These include demonstrations of seed and conservation agriculture, field days and seed fairs, which look to develop farmers’ awareness about improved seed and novel varieties.
The fairs highlighted the importance of good seed practices and the benefits of improved varieties to both farmers and seed companies, who attended the events.
The initiative, which is run in collaboration with the Department of Specialist Services (DRSS), the Agricultural Advisory and Rural Development Services (ARDAS) and the World Food Program (WFP), with financial support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), helps those in the industry see the advantages of improved varieties over old ones, which may have been on the market for more than 20 years.
“It is now very critical for farmers from all walks of life to abandon old varieties which they have grown for decades and adopt the recently released varieties that offer some solutions to the new challenges,” said James Gethi, a seed systems scientist with CIMMYT. “There has been massive investment in research that has specifically focused on addressing the adversity of climate change and variability it brings, such as prolonged dry spells, heat stress, and new diseases that have emerged. As such, it is beneficial to the farmer to shift to the latest varieties as they suit the environmental context better compared to the older varieties.”
In recent years, Zimbabwe has experienced erratic rainfall and severe heatwaves during summer months, which is a key period for the growth of crops. This has led to low yields in various parts of the country, but the situation could improve through the combination of improved agronomy and varieties presented by seed and seed distribution companies who attended the fairs.
“Together with CIMMYT and other partners, we have invested in developing varieties that will help us achieve our annual food security goals,” added Busiso Mavankeni, head of the Crop Breeding Institute (CBI), which is housed within DRSS. “As such, farmers not adopting these new varieties contribute towards a huge waste of beneficial and relevant scientific research. Whilst it is not the farmers’ fault why they haven’t adopted them, we need to take deliberate steps to ensure farmers are aware of these varieties. That is the only way we can stimulate their adoption.”
Private sector partner poses with a happy farmer, who has procured drought tolerant seed. (Photo: Tawanda Hove/CIMMYT)
Improving seed management
One of the project’s core aims is to promote positive seed management practices to both farmer and seed companies. In fact, these seed companies have a key role to play in supporting farmers with this knowledge. Understanding how to store crops in optimal conditions, for example, can lead to a more successful harvest.
“It is essential for both the farmers and local agro dealers to know how to manage seed before sale and planting,” Gethi added. “For example, rarely do farmers check the expiry date of seed when they buy them from an agro dealer. Secondly, when the seed needs to be stored, it is essential for it not to be stored close to heat sources or to be unnecessarily exposed to the sun for prolonged periods. This compromises its germination potential. Furthermore, it is crucial for farmers to only buy seed from registered and reputable agro dealers.”
These important messages were relayed to farmer throughout the project’s demos and field days, which led up to the seed fairs.
In addition to purchasing seeds, farmers had the opportunity to learn about new developments and build relationships in the private sector by attending the fairs.
“With these seed fairs, we have not only brought this multitude of seed and machinery companies to your doorstep so that you easily access good seeds, but so that you can also talk and understand what new products are on offer,” explained Christian Thierfelder, principal cropping systems agronomist, innovation science leader for Africa within CIMMYT. “For this coming season, we do not want to see you growing ancient varieties but would want to see you purchase new products which perform better than the old ones.”
ARDAS agricultural extension officer Canaan Jakata was also encouraged by the success of the project’s activities and is looking forward to seeing the farmers who attended the seed fairs enjoy a successful yield during the upcoming summer season. “I am very keen on assessing the performance of farmers in my ward who bought these improved varieties at the seed fairs as compared to neighboring wards in the district which did not. Regardless of how the season turns out, I expect superior performance from my farmers,” said Jakata.
For certified seed to reach a farmer’s field for cultivation, it passes through many hands – international and national breeding programs, government regulatory agencies, private seed companies, and retailers or agrodealers. These organizations each play an important role in the design, testing, production and distribution of improved maize and wheat varieties.
Together, these processes, actors, and the relationships between them form a seed system, which incorporates the production, conservation, exchange, and use of propagation materials for crops. As defined by the CGIAR Community of Excellence for Seed Systems Development (COE), seed systems are complex, involving arrangements between public and private sectors, layers of regulation, and years of research and development, and are specific to each crop, country, agroecological environment and market context.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has extensively researched and worked with the facets and actors of cereal seed systems in Latin America, Asia and Africa, specifically in relation to cereal crops, and with maize and wheat in particular.
The role of CIMMYT scientists in supply and demand
Breeding teams use traditional and advanced techniques to identify improved maize and wheat breeding lines according to the desired traits determined by farmers and consumer markets. In addition to higher grain yields, other preferred traits include more and larger grains or fruit, resistance to pests and diseases, tolerance to environment pressures (such as drought or poor soils), better nutritional quality, or flavor and ease of processing.
These lines are used for further breeding, testing, seed multiplication by public and private sector partners. Others engage in varietal testing on farmers’ fields and support seed companies in production.
To foster smallholder farmers’ access to these improved varieties, CIMMYT implements a seed systems strategy divided into supply side development, concerning breeding and seed production, and demand side development, covering issues related to variety distribution and uptake. On the supply side, CIMMYT scientists’ work is carried out in three phases:
Product development phase: Breeders advance through CIMMYT’s breeding funnel (pipeline) the most promising materials from one improvement stage to the next. The best candidates are first tested in field trials at research stations and then in farmers’ fields. Afterwards, CIMMYT organizes field days to showcase the best performing materials to public and private sector partners.
Product allocation phase: Local partners request new CIMMYT products and sign licensing agreements that protect the new seed from private ownership claims and help accelerate marketing and distribution in target regions at affordable prices.
Release and commercialization phase: Farmers can obtain and benefit from seed of improved maize and wheat once national authorities register and release varieties that excel in national performance trials and public and private sector partners begin seedproduction and marketing or distribution.
On the demand side, CIMMYT scientists work to support seed systems development though its work on:
Farmer preferences and demand for varieties: Scientists look to understand current and future preferences and needs for varieties. This involves the use of innovative tools, such as product concept testing, on-farm testing and ranking, and participatory varietal evaluation.
Seed industry development: Small and medium sized seed businesses, as well as agrodealers, play a critical role in the distribution of seed. Our work looks to understand entry points for support to the seed industry for advancing faster uptake of new varieties by farmers.
Consumer demand for grain: The preferences of consumers and agroindustry for grain and grain-based foods provide an important source of demand for new varieties. CIMMYT scientists engage with consumers and agroindustry for innovation in food product design and testing consumer acceptance. Insights gains are reported back to breeding and seed production teams for design of future cereal varieties.
Gender-sensitive seed systems
A team of social scientists at CIMMYT with expertise in economics, gender and marketing works to understand the needs and preferences of farmers, consumers, and the agroindustry for new varieties. They develop retail strategies, such as targeted marketing, in-store seed assessment support and price incentives, promote the adoption of better policies in support of seed companies and seed markets.
CIMMYT explores mechanisms to help seed companies adapt their products to women’s preferences. Research shows that beyond yield potential, women seek different characteristics in seeds than men. For example, women are more inclined to favor a variety with a longer grain shelf life. Similarly, when women engage in participatory variety selections, they tend to make more objective evaluations of varieties than men.
Our experts advance strategies to promote inclusive and effective delivery systems, helping both female and male farmers obtain the seed that works best for their specific needs. This ongoing model gives CIMMYT feedback from farmers and public and private sector partners, which informs subsequent breeding research.
Why are cereal seed systems important?
CIMMYT contributes to new improved seeds getting to farmers, consumers and agroindustry, which ultimately leads to lasting positive impacts in terms of food security and economic development.
Cereals such as maize and wheat play a critical role in global food security. Increasing their productivity in the Global South remains a key developmental priority. Smallholders face increasing pressure to sustain and increase their yields in the face of three main issues: climate change, which increases the frequency of severe drought, floods, and pest and disease outbreaks; rapidly rising costs of inputs, such as land, labor, fertilizer; and unfavorable marketing conditions for their grain.
As a critical entry point for improved agricultural technology, seed systems are in urgent need of improvement and modernization. Since the onset of the Green Revolution in the 1960s, the discovery, development, and delivery of improved seed for smallholder farmers has remained an essential part of global and local initiatives to increase smallholder productivity.
What does a sustainable, inclusive, and productive seed system look like?
For the future, there are serious challenges for expanding and deepening the impact from investments in breeding. Market intelligence systems are urgently needed to support breeding teams in future product design and evidence-based prioritization. Innovation is needed in terms of how actors within the systems inform and support farmers to experiment with new seeds.
CIMMYT is working with CGIAR partners to implement a new, 10-year strategy. Effective seed systems achieve the widespread adoption of varieties that capture the gains from crop improvement and connect actors along the value chain so that all can benefit from a productive crop, from seedbank to soil. In close collaboration with national agricultural research systems (NARS), CGIAR has had historic success introducing improved cultivars to smallholder producers of staple crops, with high return on investment. However, there is still some standing criticism that large, public breeding programs take a technologically-biased and supply-pushed approach to agricultural innovation.
Cereal crop breeding programs can become more demand-oriented by employing more market segmentation strategies – breaking down target client markets into smaller, more geographically and demographically specific groups – and developing a more accessible description and profile of its products. Using similar approaches, CGIAR is likely to expand demand-oriented programs in genetic innovation and seed systems development in the new phase of operations.
Cover photo: Staff members bag maize at the Demeter Seeds warehouse. (Photo: Emma Orchardson/CIMMYT)
The ever-changing environmental conditions and the urgency to improve food production and productivity for growing populations have ushered in the necessity for smallholder farmers to have widespread access to improved seed in the last mile. However, adequate access to the preferred, good-quality seeds that are climate-resilient and nutrition-dense is essential to farmers’ food and livelihood security. While seed security is an important first step to improved food production in developing countries and well examined in disaster situations, it remains understudied concerning long-term seed sector development, says a new study.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) describes seed security as “ready access by rural households, particularly farmers and farming communities, to adequate quantities of quality seeds adapted to their agro-ecological conditions and socioeconomic needs, at planting time, under normal and abnormal weather conditions.” In 2016, FAO specified two elements: varietal suitability (traits that respond to farmers’ preferences) and resilience (stability of seed system in the context of shocks) in addition to seed quantity, quality, and access identified in the earlier conceptualization of seed security.
Widespread seed insecurity
The study analyzed farmers’ seed use and preferences (demand-side) and the role of actors and institutions (supply-side) to understand farmers’ seed security. The latter was examined within the context of the recently adopted Pluralistic Seed System Development Strategy (PSSDS) of Ethiopia to understand how they affect the availability, quantity, quality, accessibility, and suitability of seeds from different sources. They focused on seed systems in two districts in Central Ethiopia — subsistence teff-growing and commercial wheat-growing districts. Since it started its operation in Ethiopia, CGIAR’s International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has been one of the major actors in the commercial wheat district covered in this study. CIMMYT has contributed to the capacity building of Kulumsa Agricultural Research Center, a center of excellence for wheat research and development in East Africa that has released over 70 improved bread wheat and durum wheat varieties.
Despite great strides made in improving the seed sector in Ethiopia, the study found that the farmers in the two districts predominantly rely on the informal seed systems, concluding widespread seed insecurity in both regions. The study reported discrepancies between seeds farmers say they prefer and those they actually use. This discrepancy is due to the limited availability of improved varieties and specially certified seeds of these varieties, challenges with seed quality from some sources, and inequitable access to preferred seed and information according to sex, age, and wealth.
Explaining the finding concerning the widespread seed insecurity observed in the study districts, Teshome Hunduma, the lead author of the study, noted: “We were able to reveal some of the social, political, and institutional constraints and opportunities that underlie chronic seed insecurity among smallholder farmers in the two districts in Ethiopia. The country has a good seed sector development policy, for instance, the PSSDS, but these constraints limited its implementation.”
Women empowerment and access to certified seeds
In the study districts where CIMMYT operates, wealthy farmers aligned with the Ethiopian government received a privileged position as model farmers enjoyed increased seed access. Likewise, female-headed households targeted by the extension services had improved access to certified seeds. The presence of development actors, including CIMMYT alongside its partners such as Kulumsa Agricultural Research Center, actively contributed to the “unusual empowerment of women in the predominantly wheat-growing districts,” according to Hunduma. Hunduma referred to the following excerpt from the study to confirm his upbeat impression during his field research.
The study reports: “the women focus group participants highlighted unexpectedly positive empowerment of female heads of household and their related access to improved agricultural technologies [improved wheat]:
Unfortunately, all of us are on our own, i.e., we are widows and divorcees. ( . . . ) We do everything that most men do in farming. In the past, women, including widows and divorcees, were not considered equal to men. Now, we have more freedom and voice. We equally participate in meetings, trainings, and access inputs as men. We express our ideas in public gatherings… We learnt new techniques and gained skills in agriculture. We have better savings; some of us have saved between 70,000 to 100,000 ETB. We have full control over our incomes and resources. We hire labor and rent land to expand our production.
According to Hunduma, “development actors, including CGIAR and its partners, targeted female heads of households for varietal adaptation trial, seed multiplication, extension and credit services, which led to a significant push for a gender-sensitive approach to agricultural development.”
Over the past two decades, Ethiopia has also achieved high wheat production levels and productivity due to the germplasm that CGIAR introduced in the country in collaboration with its partners. This strategy has firmly put the country on the right path towards wheat self-sufficiency.
As national seed policies and programs in developing countries have primarily focused on the formal seed supply system, farmers’ use of seeds from the formal seed system remains limited. The pluralistic seed system approach could appear to provide a path to seed security in developing countries. Nevertheless, political, organizational, and economic interests within key institutions represent significant obstacles, which need to be addressed. The study concludes that efforts to support farmers’ access to seeds should recognize the complementarity of formal and informal seed systems. Thus the study advocates a pluralistic approach to seed sector development by promoting complementarity of activities between value-chain components of each seed system.
Cover photo: Part of Ethiopia’s Southeastern wheat belt in the Heexosa district, where the pioneering Green Revolution project started in Ethiopia. (Credit: Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
“My goal is to produce and sell 200 metric tons of hybrid maize by 2025,” says Subash Raj Upadhyaya, chairperson of Lumbini Seed Company, based in Nepal’s Rupandehi district.
Upadhyaya is one of the few seed value chain actors in the country progressing in the hybrid seed sector, which is at a budding stage in Nepal. He envisions a significant opportunity in the domestic production of hybrid maize seed varieties that not only offer a higher yield than open-pollinated varieties but will also reduce expensive imports. Leaping from one hectare to 25 hectares in hybrid maize seed production within three years, Upadhyaya is determined to expand the local seed market for hybrids.
Nepal has long been a net importer of hybrid seeds — mainly rice, maize and high-value vegetables — worth millions of dollars a year to meet the farmers’ demand, which is continuously rising. Although hybrid varieties have been released in the country, organized local seed production and marketing were not in place to deliver quality seeds to farmers. The hybrid variety development process is relatively slow due to lack of strong public-private relationships, absence of enabling policies and license requirements for the private sector to produce and sell them, lack of suitable germplasm and inadequate skilled human resources for hybrid product development and seed production. This has resulted in poor adoption of hybrid seeds, especially maize, where only 10-15% out of 950,000 hectares of Nepal’s maize-growing area is estimated to be covered with hybrid seeds, leaving the balance for seeds of open pollinated varieties.
This is where experts from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have stepped in to unlock the untapped potential of domestic maize production and increase on-farm productivity, which is currently around 2.8 metric tons per hectare. Aligning with the goals of the National Seed Vision (NSV 2013-2025), the USAID-funded Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project, implemented by CIMMYT, fosters private sector involvement in the evaluation, production and marketing of quality hybrid seeds to meet the growing domestic demand for grain production, which is currently being met via imports. In 2020, Nepal spent nearly $130 million to import maize grain for the poultry industry.
A graphic shows the Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project’s innovations and intervention in hybrid seed. (Graphic: CIMMYT)
Teach a man to fish
Strengthening and scaling hybrid seed production of different crop varieties from domestic sources can be a game-changer for the long-term sustainability of Nepal’s seed industry.
Through the NSAF project, CIMMYT is working with eight partner seed companies and three farmers cooperatives to produce seeds of maize, rice and tomato. CIMMYT has played a vital role in making suitable germplasms and market-ready products of hybrids sourced from CGIAR centers available to the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) and partner seed companies for testing, validation and registration in the country. But this alone is not enough.
The project also carried out the partners’ capacity building on research and development, parental line maintenance, on-station and on-farm demonstrations, quality seed production and seed quality control to equip them with the required skills for a viable and competitive hybrid seed business. The companies and farmer cooperatives received hands-on training on hybrid seed production and marketing coupled with close supervision and guidance by the project’s field staff assigned to mentor and support individual seed companies. CIMMYT’s NSAF project also provides financial support to selected hybrid seed business startups to enhance their technical and entrepreneurial skills. This is a new feature, as prior to the project starting nearly all of the seed companies were mainly involved in aggregating open-pollinated variety seeds from farmers and selling them with no practical experience in the hybrid seed business.
In 2018, CIMMYT, through the NSAF and Heat Stress Tolerant Maize for Asia (HTMA) projects, and in close collaboration with NARC’s National Maize Research Program, engaged its partner seed company to initiate the first hybrid maize seed production during the winter season. Farmers’ feedback on the performance of the Rampur Hybrid-10 maize variety showed it could compete with existing commercial hybrids on yield and other commercial traits. As a result, this response boosted the confidence of seed companies and cooperatives to produce and market the hybrid seeds.
“I am very much motivated to be a hybrid maize seed producer for Lumbini Seed Company,” said a woman hybrid seed grower, whose income was 86% higher than the sale of maize grain from the previous season. “This is my second year of engagement, and last year I got an income of NPR 75,000 (approx. USD$652) from a quarter of a hectare. Besides the guaranteed market I have under the contractual agreement with the company, the profit is far higher than what I used to get from grain production.”
To build the competitiveness of the local seed sector, CIMMYT has been mentoring partner seed companies on business plan development, brand building, marketing and promotion, and facilitating better access to finance. As part of the intervention, the companies are now selling hybrid seeds through agro-dealers in attractive and suitable product packages of varied sizes designed to help boost seed sales, better shelf life and compete with imported brands. They have also started using attractive seed packages for selected open-pollinated rice varieties in a bid to increase market demand. Prior to the project’s intervention, companies used to sell their seeds in traditional unbranded jute bags which are less suitable to maintain seed quality.
AbduRahman Beshir, NSAF seed systems lead, gives an explanation on CIMMYT’s hybrid maize seed interventions during a field visit in Nepal. (Photo: CIMMYT)
Unite and conquer
Encouraging public-private partnerships for seed production is crucial for creating and maintaining a viable seed system. However, the existing guidelines and policies for variety registration are not private sector friendly, resulting in increased informal seed imports and difficulty to efficiently run a business. This draws attention to conducive policies and regulations patronage in research and varietal development, product registration, exclusive licensing, and seed production and marketing by the private sector.
CIMMYT supports the Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal (SEAN), an umbrella body with more than 2,500 members, to promote the private sector’s engagement in the seed industry and foster enabling policies essential to further unlock Nepal’s potential in local hybrid seed production and distribution. Together, CIMMYT and SEAN have facilitated various forums, including policy dialogues and elicitations on fast track provision of R&D license and variety registration by the local private seed companies. These are vital steps to realize the targets set by NSV for hybrid seed development and distribution.
To further enhance linkages among seed sector stakeholders and policy makers, CIMMYT, in coordination with NARC’s National Maize Research Program, organized a high-level joint monitoring field visit to observe hybrid maize seed production performance in April 2021. As part of the visit, Yogendra Kumar Karki, Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, accompanied by representatives from the National Seed Board, National Planning Commission, Ministry of Finance, NARC, Seed Quality Control Center and SEAN, interacted with seed grower farmers and seed companies on their experiences.
The trip helped build a positive perception of the private sector’s capability and commitment to contribute to Nepal’s journey on self-reliance on hybrid seeds. “The recent advances in hybrid seed production by the private sector in collaboration with NARC and NSAF is astounding,” said Karki, as he acknowledged CIMMYT’s contribution to the seed sector development in Nepal. “Considering the gaps and challenges identified during this visit, the Ministry will revisit the regulations that will help accelerate local hybrid seed production and achieve NSV’s target.”
In continued efforts, CIMMYT is also partnering with the government’s Prime Minister Agricultural Modernization Project (PMAMP) maize super zone in the Dang district of Nepal to commercialize domestic maize hybrid seed by partner seed companies. This will enable companies to invest in hybrid maize seed production with contract growers by leveraging the support provided by the PMAMP on irrigation, mechanization and maize drying facilities.
“Our interventions in seed systems integration and coordination are showing very promising results in helping Nepal to become self-reliant on hybrid maize seeds in the foreseeable future,” said AbduRahman Beshir, seed systems lead for the NSAF project. “The initiative by the local seed companies to further engage and expand their hybrid seed business is an indication of a sustainable and viable project intervention. The project will continue working with both public and private partners to consolidate the gains and further build the competitiveness of the local seed companies in the hybrid maize seed ecosystem.”
Nepal’s seed industry is entering a new chapter that envisages a strong domestic seed sector in hybrid seed, particularly in maize, to capture a significant market share in the near future.
A shop attendant displays drought-tolerant maize seed at the Dryland Seed Company shop in Machakos, Kenya. (Photo: Florence Sipalla/CIMMYT)
For several decades, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has worked with partners and farmers to improve maize and wheat varieties. Packed with “upgrades” such as tolerance to environmental stresses, tolerance to diseases and pests, boosted nutrient content, higher yield potential and storage capabilities, and improved efficiency in using water and fertilizers, these seeds are rolled out by CIMMYT and its partners to create new opportunities for easier and better lives for farmers.
Together with national research partners, farmers, local governments and seed companies, CIMMYT’s work in seed systems has reaped results. Its experts are eager to put this experience into further action as CGIAR embarks on the next ten years of its journey to transform food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis. And rightly so: investments in CGIAR research — mainly through their contributions to enhancing yields of staple food crops — have returned ten-fold benefits and payoffs for poor people in terms of greater food abundance, lower prices of food, reduced food insecurity and poverty and reduced geographical footprint of agriculture. A large part of this impact is the result of CIMMYT’s day to day efforts to create a better world.
A Bangladeshi woman cuts up feed for her family’s livestock. They did not previously have animals, but were able to buy them after her husband, Gopal Mohanta, attended a farmer training from CIMMYT and its partners, which gave him access to better seed, technologies, and practices. Mohanta planted a wider range of crops, and in 2005 he planted maize for the first time, using improved seed based on CIMMYT materials. (Photo: S. Mojumder/Drik/CIMMYT)
Replacing old varieties, not as easy as it sounds
Slow variety turnover — that of more than ten years — makes farmers vulnerable to risks such as climate change and emerging biotic threats. On the other hand, planting improved varieties that match farmers’ needs and the geography they work in, can increase productivity gains and improve the nutritional status of smallholders and their families. This, in turn, contributes to increased household incomes. Indirectly, the benefits can reach the surrounding community by providing increased employment opportunities, wage increases and affordable access to food.
Despite its tremendous benefits, varietal turnover is no small feat.
When it comes to seeds, detailed multi-disciplinary research is behind every new variety and its deployment to farmers. Just as the production of a new snack, beverage or a car requires an in-depth study of what the customer wants, seed systems also must be demand-driven.
Socioeconomists have to work hand-in-hand with breeders and seed system specialists to understand the drivers and bottlenecks for improved varietal adoption, market needs, and gender and social inclusion in seed delivery. Bottlenecks include the lack of access by farmers — especially for resource-poor, socially-excluded ones — to reliable information about the advantages of new varieties. Even if farmers are aware of new varieties, seeds might not be available for sale where they live or they might be too expensive.
Possibly the most complex reason for slow variety turnover is risk vulnerability: some farmers simply can’t afford to take the risk of investing in something that might be good but could also disappoint. At the same time, seed companies also perceive a certain risk: they might not be interested in taking on an improved variety that trumps the seeds from older but more popular varieties they have on stock. For them, building and marketing a new brand of seeds requires significant investments.
Agricultural seed on sale by a vendor near Islamabad, Pakistan. For improved crop varieties to reach farmers, they usually must first reach local vendors like these, who form an essential link in the chain between researchers, seed producers and farmers. (Photo: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT)
New approaches are yielding results
Despite the complexity of the challenge, CIMMYT has been making progress, especially in Africa where slow variety turnover is creating roadblocks for increased food security and poverty alleviation.
Recent analysis of the weighted average age of CIMMYT-related improved maize varieties in 8 countries across eastern and southern Africa reveals that the overall weighted average age has decreased from 14.6 years in 2013 to 10.2 years in 2020. The remarkable progress in accelerating the rate of variety turnover and deploying the improved genetics — with climate resilience, nutritional-enhancement and grain yield — are benefiting more than eight million smallholders in Africa.
In Ethiopia, CIMMYT, EIAR and ICARDA’s work led to the adoption of improved rust-resistant varieties, corresponding productivity gains and economic benefits that, besides the urgent need to fight against the damaging rust epidemic, depended on a combination of enabling factors: pre-release seed multiplication, pro-active policies and rust awareness campaigns. The estimated income gain that farmers enjoyed due to adopting post-2010 varieties in 2016/2017 reached $48 million. For the country itself, the adoption of these varieties could save $65 million that otherwise would be spent on wheat imports.
Bill Gates echoes this in Chapter 9 of his new climate book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, as he describes CIMMYT and IITA’s drought-tolerant maize work: “[…] experts at CGIAR developed dozens of new maize varieties that could withstand drought conditions, each adapted to grow in specific regions of Africa. At first, many smallholder farmers were afraid to try new crop varieties. Understandably so. If you’re eking out a living, you won’t be eager to take a risk on seeds you’ve never planted before, because if they die, you have nothing to fall back on. But as experts worked with local farmers and seed dealers to explain the benefits of these new varieties, more and more people adopted them.”
Bidasem director general María Ester Rivas (center) stands for a photo with her seed processing team. Bidasem is a small seed company based in the city of Celaya in the central Mexican plains region known as the Bajío. Despite their small size, Bidasem and similar companies play an important role in reaching small farmers with improved seed that offers them better livelihoods. (Photo: X. Fonseca/CIMMYT)
Holistic action needed if we are to reach farmers with genetic innovations
Now more than ever, with increased frequency and intensification of erratic weather events on top of the complications of the COVID-19 pandemic, successful seed systems require the right investments, partnerships, efforts across disciplines, and enabling policies.
Varietal release and dissemination systems rely greatly on appropriate government policies and adoption of progressive seed laws and regulations. CGIAR’s commitment to farmers and the success of national seed systems is described in the recently launched 10-year strategy: “CGIAR will support effective seed systems by helping national governments and private sector companies and regulators build their capacities to play their roles successfully. New initiatives will be jointly designed along the seed distribution chain, including for regional seed registration, import and export procedures, efficient in-country trialing, registration and release of new varieties, and seed quality promotion through fit-for-purpose certification.”
In line with CGIAR’s ambitious goals, to provide farmers with a better service, small- and medium-size seed companies need to also be strengthened to become more market-oriented and dynamic. According to SPIA, helping local private seed dealers learn about new technology increases farm-level adoption by over 50% compared to the more commonly used approach, where public sector agricultural extension agents provide information about new seed to selected contact farmers.
CIMMYT socioeconomics and market experts are putting this in practice through working with agrodealers to develop retail strategies, such as targeted marketing materials, provision of in-store seed decision support and price incentives, to help both female and male farmers get the inputs that work best.
Within the new CGIAR, CIMMYT scientists will continue to work with partners to strongly improve the performance of wheat and maize in smallholder farmers’ fields. Concerted efforts from all actors conforming the entire seed system are essential to achieve our vision: to transform food systems for affordable, sufficient and healthy diets produced within planetary boundaries. Wheat and maize seed systems will form the basis to fulfill that vision and provide a tried and tested roadmap for other crops, including legumes, vegetables and fruits. Together, we can keep a finger on the pulse of farmers’ needs and build healthy diets for a better tomorrow from the ground up.
As one of the pioneer homegrown seed companies in Uganda, Farm Inputs Care Centre (FICA) has become one of the leading players in the seed sector value chain. Since its inception in 1999, it has played a significant role in variety development and maintenance, seed production, and processing, packaging and marketing.
The close linkages it has maintained with partners such as National Agriculture Research Organization (NARO)’s National Crops Resources Research Institute (NaCCRI) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have seen it acquire new hybrids for commercialization and production of early generation seed.
A FICA representative stands in front of a demonstration plot for one of the organization’s stress-tolerant maize varieties in Uganda. (Photo: Mosisa Worku/CIMMYT)
A unique opportunity for collaboration
Recurrent plant threats such as drought, pests and diseases — alongside the perpetual need to develop and foster better performing varieties in changing climatic conditions — has required partners to intensify efforts to tackle these challenges to bolster smallholders’ resilience. The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project, for instance, ushered in the partnership between CIMMYT, FICA, national agriculture research systems, and other partners to develop and scale up well-adapted, drought-tolerant maize varieties among farmers in Uganda and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.
“One of the unique features of the collaboration is that besides CIMMYT, there was a multi-stakeholder platform that would convene key seed sector players to discuss issues affecting the industry. Ultimately, this benefitted the farmers,” says FICA’s Chief Executive Officer Narcis Tumushabe.
This partnership continued during the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) initiative — which ran from 2016 to2020 — and now, in the Accelerating Genetic Gains in Maize and Wheat (AGG) project, which launched in July 2020 with the ambition of fast-tracking the development of climate-resilient, higher-yielding, demand-driven, gender-responsive and nutritious maize and wheat varieties.
Tumushabe is happy that the hybrids delivered in the DTMA and STMA projects proved worthwhile against multiple stresses in farmers’ fields, offering reliable yields even in challenging conditions like drought or other stresses. Because of the diverse ecological zones in Uganda, it was essential to test the hybrids FICA accessed through the CIMMYT-NARO partnership across different ecological zones, ahead of commercialization. This has given farmers opportunities to choose the varieties that are suitable in their environment. The five varieties FICA chose to promote include Longe 9H — which produces about 700 metric tons annually — and WE 2114, WE 2115, WE 3106 and UH 5355, which cumulatively produce about 1,300 tons annually.
The WE 3106 variety has a strong stem and produces big cobs and Tumushabe notes that some livestock farmers prefer this variety as a good forage source for their livestock. Large-scale commercial farmers prefer WE 2114 due to the positioning of the ears at a uniform height, which makes it easy for harvesting using combine harvesters.
Additionally, FICA breeders have also developed impactful combination hybrids using CIMMYT and FICA lines and the company looks to double its annual production of certified stress-tolerant maize seed to 4,000 metric tons in the next five years. Currently, it enlists about 800 contract seed growers to support its seed multiplication efforts.
A FICA employee walks through a seed production field growing hybrid maize variety WE2114 in Masindi, Uganda. (Photo: Mosisa Worku/CIMMYT)
Surmounting monumental challenges for varietal turnover
Promoting new seed varieties, especially in a highly competitive market, is no mean task. With the seed delivery systems in sub-Saharan Africa mainly driven by the supply side, seed companies end up multiplying only the popular varieties that are already in high demand, explains Mosisa Worku Regasa, a seed systems specialist at CIMMYT.
“Consequently, these companies become reluctant to multiply new seed varieties due to deficient demand, thereby slowing down the rate of varietal turnover,” says Mosisa. “There is, however, a growing push for a demand-driven system.”
“Some avenues for cultivating a demand-led environment include investing a great deal of resources to better understand farmers’ preferences or product profiles, setting up numerous demonstration plots for newer, better-performing varieties closer to the farmers locations in addition to investing in other marketing and promotional activities.”
Still, the seed sector must confront other dynamics such as farmers that are captive of old albeit popular varieties.
“There are cases where, depending on the stage of a seed company’s development, the number of products that one can deliver in the right quality and appropriate maintenance level has to be limited or realistically managed,” Tumushabe explains.
“The seed company also ought to be sure that the new variety will be superior to existing varieties under farmers’ conditions. That is why one may find little excitement if the genetic gain of a new crop variety is not significantly high compared to the already known and available crop variety. This may make one wonder why an old variety continues to persist in the market.”
To create awareness and sustain the demand for its seed, FICA has established demonstration farms to showcase the performance of its stress-resilient maize varieties among farmers and engaged agro-dealers as last mile seed merchants. It is also during field days held at demonstration farms where the company obtains feedback on how to improve its breeding program, particularly from women smallholder farmers. Such efforts have helped raise the company’s share of stress-tolerant maize seed production to 70% of the total maize seed it produces, which indicates good progress in variety replacement.
How do you create the largest market for stress-tolerant seed away from a major business center and attract over 1000 smallholder farmers in two days? Organize a seed fair to strengthen knowledge and information sharing.
The availability, access and use of climate-resilient seed by smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe is often hampered by transport costs, the distance between farming areas and viable seed markets, lack of public transport to business centers, and the inflated prices of seed and inputs by local agro-dealers. As a result, resource-poor farmers who cannot afford to purchase inputs resort to exchanging local seed retained or recycled from informal markets. This has devastating effects on farmers’ productivity, food and nutrition security.
Under the Zambuko/R4 Rural Resilience Initiative, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is promoting climate-smart technologies and appropriate seed varieties alongside conservation agriculture (CA) systems in Masvingo district, Zimbabwe. Since 2018, mother and baby trials have successfully yielded results for smallholders in Ward 17 and additional mother trials have been introduced in Ward 13.
To overcome the challenges of seed access, CIMMYT partnered with eight seed companies — including Agriseeds, Mukushi and SeedCo — to host two seed fairs in October, targeting farmers in Wards 13 and 17. The intervention sought to address seed insecurity while reducing the knowledge gap on available stress-tolerant seed varieties by smallholder farmers.
Groundwork preparations led by the Department of Agriculture and Extension Services (AGRITEX) mobilized farmers from the host wards as well as farmers from neighboring wards 15, 19 and 25. In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, regulations relating to social distancing, the use of masks and sanitization were adhered to throughout the events.
Climate-smart seed choices
A key message delivered to the more than 1000 farmers who attended the seed fairs was the importance of their preference when selecting the right seed for their field. “Farmers must be critical when selecting seed and ensure that their preferred seed will perform well under the prevailing climatic conditions to give a good harvest,” said CIMMYT seed systems specialist Peter Setimela.
Seed company representatives were offered a platform to market their varieties and explain the benefits of each product on the market while leaving it to the farmers to decide on the most suitable variety for their own needs. “Farmers came early for the seed fairs and showed interest in our products,” said Norman Chihumo, a regional agronomist at Syngenta Distributors. “We recorded fairly good sales of seed and chemicals through cash purchases and vouchers.”
Later in the day, farmers toured the seed company stands to see the diverse maize varieties and small grains on offer — including millet and sorghum, cowpeas and groundnuts — and heard testimonials from participants in the mother and baby trials. “Listening to a success story from a farmer I know gives me the confidence to follow suit and buy seed that works in this harsh climate of ours,” said Joice Magadza, a farmer from Ward 17.
Local farmer Happison Chitono agreed. “I never used to grow cowpeas on my plot,” he explained, “but after learning about the ability it has to fix nitrogen into my soil and possibility of rotating the legume with maize, I am now gladly adding it to my seed input package.”
Muza Vutete, a baby-trial farmer shares the advantages of adopting conservation farming principles at a seed fair in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)
A seed fair is also a knowledge market
A key highlight of the seed fair was the learning platform promoting CIMMYT’s ongoing activities under the Zambuko/R4 Rural Resilience Initiative. Here, cropping systems agronomist Christian Thierfelder shared the objectives of this initiative with participating farmers.
“We know how good this seed is, but we also have to grow it in a sustainable way, so we make best use of the limited rainfall we receive in this area while we improve our soils,” he explained to farmers. “Cropping systems such as conservation agriculture combine no-tillage, mulching and crop rotation in a climate-smart agriculture way which enables farmers to harvest enough, even under heat and drought stress.”
Thierfelder also demonstrated the use of farm equipment promoted by CIMMYT in collaboration with Kurima Machinery, explaining how these can help reduce drudgery and save time on planting, transport and shelling.
Representatives from Kurima machinery conduct a demonstration of the two-wheel tractor during the seed fair in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Shiela Chikulo/CIMMYT)
Vouchers for transparent seed access
The seed fairs culminated in the distribution of seed and input vouchers. One hundred farmers were selected through a transparent raffle and redeemed their vouchers at their preferred seed company stands. They then also had the option to purchase additional seed, fertilizer and chemicals using their own cash.
Particularly high sales were recorded for Provitamin A orange maize, which sold out on both seed fair days. Stress-tolerant varieties such as ZM 309 and ZM 523 from Zimbabwe Super Seeds, ZM521 from Champion Seeds, and MRI 514 from Syngenta were also favorites among the farmers, while white sorghum and cowpea varieties such as CBC2 also sold well. Most of these varieties were already known to farmers as they had seen them growing for two years in CIMMYT’s mother trials of Ward 17.
The seed fairs ended on a high note with a total of 1.2 tons of seed sold to farmers on both days and agro-dealers hailed the fairs as a timely business venture for creating linkages and bringing seed suppliers on-site to assess their shops. A post-seed fair monitoring exercise will soon follow up on farmers’ use of the seed and the performance of demo packs and purchased varieties.
The Zambuko/R4 Rural Resilience Initiative supported by the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the World Food Programme (WFP) aims to increase farmer resilience and capacity to withstand climatic shocks and stresses in rural communities of Masvingo, Mwenezi and Rushinga in Zimbabwe.
It’s not always easy to produce and sell new maize varieties in Malawi.
Seed companies often serve as the link between breeders and farmers, but numerous challenges — from lack of infrastructure to inconvenient finance systems — mean that the journey from the laboratory to the field is not always a smooth one.
In spite of this, the sector continues to grow, with established and up-and-coming seed companies all vying to carve their own niche in the country’s competitive maize seed market. To help bolster the industry, CIMMYT is working with around 15 seed companies in Malawi, providing them with early generation seed for CIMMYT-derived maize varieties, technical production training and marketing advice.
In a series of interviews, representatives from three of these companies share how they chose their flagship varieties and got them onto the market, and the CIMMYT support that helped them along the way.
Staff bag maize cobs at a Demeter Seeds warehouse in Lilongwe, Malawi. (Photo: Emma Orchardson/CIMMYT)
Francis Maideni, Technical Breeder and Management Advisor at Demeter Seeds
The company started primarily because we wanted to help farmers — the issue of profits came later. The founders of Demeter Seeds saw a gap in the market for open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) and thought they could fill it. We’ve now migrated halfway into hybrids, but we still feel that we should serve both communities.
At the beginning we used to multiply and sell OPVs from CIMMYT, and we started doing our own multiplication here a few years ago. What I like about CIMMYT is they have been continuing to give us technical support. The breeding teams are our regular visitors. When they give us materials they come here, work with us, we go to the fields together. We’re so proud of this collaboration. Our whole company is based on CIMMYT germplasm since we don’t have our own breeding program to develop our own varieties.
How do you decide which varieties to work with?
When we were starting out, the decision of which varieties to work with was based on what CIMMYT recommended based on the data from on-farm trials. Most Malawian farmers use local maize varieties so it’s a good step for them to start using improved varieties – not necessarily hybrids.
Apart from the yields, what else do Malawian farmers look for? It has to be white and it has to be poundable or flint varieties with a hard endosperm. Of course, there are other attributes you have to worry about as well such as yield and drought tolerance. The seasons are changing, the rainfall period is becoming shorter so we’re looking for short-maturing materials in particular. If you have a variety that takes 90-100 days to mature, you’re OK, but if you choose one that takes 140-150, the farmer can be at risk of losing out because it doesn’t fit well into the growing season.
Having looked at those particular parameters we can decide on the variety we’re going to go for because this feeds into what our regular farmers want.
Is it easy to get farmers to buy those varieties, given that you know exactly what they’re looking for?
We’re not the only ones dealing with maize hybrids, so if you’re not aggressive enough in marketing you’ll not be able to survive.
You can’t just see that the demand is there and then put the product out. We have a marketing team within the company whose role is to market and advise the farmers. We try to listen to what’s happening on the ground, see how our varieties are performing and share results with the breeders. If you sell your seed you have to get feedback – whether it’s doing well or not.
But it can be difficult with the lack of infrastructure in Malawi. There are some places which are not accessible, so there are farmers who want your seed but you can’t reach them. Those farmers end up planting some local seed, which they might not have planted if they had access to improved varieties.
Chingati Phiri stands in front of a CPM plot reading for sowing in Bunda, Malawi. (Photo: Emma Orchardson/CIMMYT)
Chingati Phiri, Managing Director at CPM Agri-Enterprises
CIMMYT equals maize, so there’s very little we’d be doing without them. There has been collaboration and partnership since we started the seed business.
We got all the parent materials, expertise and production training from CIMMYT. We now even have our own CIMMYT-trained internal inspectors, who ensure that the seed that we produce meet quality standards that are required. When they were giving us the lines, they also helped us with production of the basic seed to start our maize production. Without CIMMYT, we wouldn’t be here.
You’re one of the few seed companies in Malawi producing vitamin A biofortified maize, which CIMMYT develops in partnership with HarvestPlus. How did you decide to work on that variety?
We selected the orange vitamin A maize firstly because of corporate social responsibility reasons. There is a developmental aspect to what we do, and we’re not just here for money. I think whatever we’re doing should also help the people that are buying from us. We knew that micronutrient deficiency is an issue in Malawi, so we hoped that the vitamin A biofortified maize could address some of the country’s malnutrition problems.
When the Government said it was looking at alternative ways of combating malnutrition, this was one of the proposed solutions and we thought we should be the first to do it. As of now, I think that of the 20-something lead seed businesses in Malawi, we’re one of only three producing this maize.
How challenging has it been to promote that variety?
Very, because the orange maize was not popular to begin with. In the first year, we had about 25 metric tons of seed and we didn’t even sell 10.
Yellow maize was brought in to feed people during a famine in the early 90s, so I think when people see orange maize now they are reminded of that hunger. There are still those negative associations. So we had to do some convincing, visiting farmers with HarvestPlus and telling them about the benefits.
But this is our third year and we don’t have any seed left — it’s all gone. Combined, the three companies involved in orange maize production had about 65 metric tons. But this year the demand has been around 1,050 metric tons. What we produced is not even one tenth of what is required.
Now that the orange maize has been popularized, we see demand increasing in the next five years as well. Apart from farmers, we’ve also had inquiries from people that want to use it for industrial purposes and are looking for very large quantities. Now we know, if people are looking for orange maize, we’ll be among the first to provide it.
Shane Phiri, Operations Manager at Global Seeds, shows a bag of MH34 seed. (Photo: Emma Orchardson/CIMMYT)
Shane Phiri, Operations Manager at Global Seeds
I studied agribusiness management for my first degree and went into farming immediately after. Later I completed a Masters in Agronomy, but the moment I started talking to CIMMYT I knew that I was lacking knowledge on the technical side. Over the years I’ve attended a number of courses — maize technician courses and programs to help people in the seed industry learn about hybrids — thanks to CIMMYT. A large part of my knowledge has come from those trainings, visiting the research station in Harare and attending field days.
Global Seeds is known for its flagship product, MH34. Why did you decide to focus on that specific variety?
One of the main driving factors for us to go for MH34 was that it was not being produced by anyone else. This was a new variety that no other company had branded as their own yet, so it was a good opportunity for us to own it.
At the same time, I liked this variety because it had two lines from CIMMYT and one line that’s bred locally. It’s kind of a mix. I really liked that because it meant that it would be a bit of a challenge for anyone outside the country to produce it because they would not get that extra 25% from the Malawian line.
Did that also make it difficult for Global Seeds to produce?
It was not easy for us to get it on the market. It’s one of the stories I’m most proud of — to say we’re one of the few companies producing this variety — especially when I look back at the last three years and the work it took to get it to where we are.
We got the lines we needed from CIMMYT, but when we went to the local program to get that one last ingredient, we got less than 1.4 kilograms. Normally we would need at least 5 kilograms.
We knew we had to produce quickly to commercialize the variety, so we took 900 grams and started trying to increase the line under irrigation. Then the water supply ran out and we had to hire a water bowser. It was quite a journey but in the end we produced a handful of seed, and now the story is that this variety is flying off the shelves.
Amarech Desta (left) is the chairwoman of Tembo Awtena, a womens’ seed producer association in the Angacha district of Ethiopia’s Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNP). As part of the Wheat Seed Scaling project, the group received early-generation seed and a seed thresher from CIMMYT. “In 2016 we sold more than $7,400 worth of seed,” Desta said. “Our success attracted 30 additional women farmers in 2017, bringing the total membership to 133.” (Photo: Apollo Habtamu/CIMMYT)
High-yielding, disease-resistant wheat varieties used by Ethiopian wheat farmers between 2015 and 2018 gave them at least 20% more grain than conventional varieties, profits of nearly $1,000 per hectare when they grew and sold seed, and generally improved food security in participating rural households.
These are the result of a project to rapidly multiply and disperse high-quality seed of new improved varieties, and the work of leading Ethiopian and international research organizations. The outcomes of this project have benefitted nearly 1.6 million people, according to a comprehensive new publication.
“Grown chiefly by smallholders in Ethiopia, wheat supports the livelihoods of 5 million farmers and their families, both as a household food crop and a source of income,” said Bekele Abeyo, wheat scientist of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), leader of the project, and chief author of the new report. “Improving wheat productivity and production can generate significant income for farmers, as well as helping to reduce poverty and improve the country’s food and nutrition security.”
Wheat production in Ethiopia is continually threatened by virulent and rapidly evolving fungal pathogens that cause “wheat rusts,” age-old and devastating diseases of the crop. Periodic, unpredictable outbreaks of stem and stripe rust have overcome the resistance of popular wheat varieties in recent years, rendering the varieties obsolete and in urgent need of replacement, according to Abeyo.
“The eastern African highlands are a hot spot for rusts’ spread and evolution,” Abeyo explained. “A country-wide stripe rust epidemic in 2010 completely ruined some susceptible wheat crops in Oromia and Amhara regions, leaving small-scale, resource-poor farmers without food or income.”
The Wheat Seed Scaling project identified and developed new rust-resistant wheat varieties, championed the speedy multiplication of their seed, and used field demonstrations and strategic marketing to reach thousands of farmers in 54 districts of Ethiopia’s major wheat growing regions, according to Abeyo. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded the project and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) was a key partner.
Using parental seed produced by 8 research centers, a total of 27 private farms, farmer cooperative unions, model farmers and farmer seed producer associations — including several women farmer associations — grew 1,728 tons of seed of the new varieties for sale or distribution to farmers. As part of the work, 10 national research centers took part in fast-track variety testing, seed multiplication, demonstrations and training. The USDA Cereal Disease Lab at the University of Minnesota conducted seedling tests, molecular studies and rust race analyses.
A critical innovation has been to link farmer seed producers directly to state and federal researchers who supply the parental seed — known as “early-generation seed”— according to Ayele Badebo, a CIMMYT wheat pathologist and co-author of the new publication. “The project has also involved laboratories that monitor seed production and that test harvested seed, certifying it for marketing,” Badebo said, citing those accomplishments as lasting legacies of the project.
Abeyo said the project built on prior USAID-funded efforts, as well as the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat (DRRW) and Delivering Genetic Gain in Wheat (DGGW) initiatives, led by Cornell University and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Department for International Development (DFID).
Protecting crops of wheat, a vital food in eastern Africa, requires the collaboration of farmers, governments and researchers, according to Mandefro Nigussie, Director General of EIAR.
“More than 131,000 rural households directly benefited from this work,” he said. “The project points up the need to identify new resistance genes, develop wheat varieties with durable, polygenic resistance, promote farmers’ use of a genetically diverse mix of varieties, and link farmers to better and profitable markets.”
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR Research Programs on Maize and Wheat and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. For more information, visit staging.cimmyt.org.
Nepal’s National Seed Vision 2013-2025 identified the critical skills and knowledge gaps in the seed sector, across the value chain. Seed companies often struggle to find skilled human resources in hybrid product development, improved seed production technology and seed business management. One of the reasons is that graduates from agricultural universities might be missing on recent advancements in seed science and technology, required by the seed industry.
Researchers from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have been collaborating with Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU) to review and update the existing curriculum on seed science and technology, for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. This work is part of the Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Feed the Future initiative.
Realizing the need to increase trained human resources in improved seed technologies, CIMMYT researchers held discussions with representatives from the Department of Agronomy at AFU, to begin revising the curriculum on seed science and technology. Developed four years ago, the current curriculum does not encompass emerging developments in the seed industry. These include, for example, research and product development initiated by local private seed companies engaged in hybrid seed production of various crops, who want to be more competitive in the existing market.
Each year, approximately 200 bachelor’s and 10 master’s students graduate from AFU. In collaboration with CIMMYT, the university identified critical areas that need to be included in the existing curriculum and drafted new courses for endorsement by the academic council. AFU also developed short-term certificate and diploma courses in the subject of seed science and technology.
AbduRahman Beshir, CIMMYT, discusses the importance of linking academic courses with the emerging trends of the seed industry. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
Shared knowledge
On November 20, 2019, CIMMYT, AFU and Catholic Relief Services (CRS) organized a consultation workshop with seed stakeholders from the public and private sectors, civil society and academia. Participants discussed emerging needs within Nepal’s seed industry and charted out how higher education can support demand, through a dynamic and responsive program.
Sabry G. Elias, professor at Oregon State University (OSU), discussed recent advances in seed science and technology, and how to improve productivity of smallholder farmers in Nepal. He is supporting the curriculum revision by taking relevant lessons from OSU and adapting them to Nepal’s context. Sabry shared the courses that are to be included in the new program and outlined the importance of linking graduate research with the challenges of the industry. He also stressed the importance of building innovation and the continuous evolution of academic programs.
Sabry Elias, Oregon State University, talks about the importance of critical thinking to bring innovations to the seed sector. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
Professors from AFU, Nepal Polytechnic Institute, Tribhuvan University, and several private colleges introduced the current courses in seed science and technology at their institutions. Santosh Marahatta, head of the Department of Agronomy at AFU, discussed the limitations of the current master’s and doctoral degree programs, and proposed a draft curriculum with integrated courses across the seed value chain. J.P. Dutta, dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at AFU, shared plans to create a curriculum that would reflect advanced practices and experiences in seed science and technology.
Scientists and researchers from Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) presented their activities and suggested key areas to address some of the challenges in the country’s seed sector.
“Our aim is to strengthen local capacity to produce, multiply and manage adequate quality seeds that will help improve domestic seed production and seed self-sufficiency,” said Mitraraj Dawadi, a representative from the Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal (SEAN). “Therefore, we encourage all graduates to get hands-on experience with private companies and become competent future scientists and researchers.”
AbduRahmann Beshir, Seed Systems Lead for the NSAF project at CIMMYT, shared this sentiment. According to him, most current graduates lack practical experience on hybrid seed development, inbred line maintenance and knowledge on the general requirements of a robust seed industry. “It is important that universities can link their students to private seed companies and work together towards a common goal,” he explained. “This human resource development drive is part of CIMMYT’s efforts to help Nepal on its journey to self-reliance.”
Organizers of the stakeholder consultation workshop to enhance the role of higher learning institutions in the Nepal seed sector at AFU, Chitwan. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
In Nepal, it takes at least a year to collate the demand and supply of a required type and quantity of seed. A new digital seed information system is likely to change that, as it will enable all value chain actors to access information on seed demand and supply in real time. The information system is currently under development, as part of the Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
In this system, a national database allows easy access to an online seed catalogue where characteristics and sources of all registered varieties are available. A balance sheet simultaneously gathers and shares real time information on seed demand and supply by all the stakeholders. The digital platform also helps to plan and monitor seed production and distribution over a period of time.
Screenshot of the DESIS portal, still under development.
Challenges to seed access
Over 2,500 seed entrepreneurs engaged in production, processing and marketing of seeds in Nepal rely on public research centers to get early generation seeds of various crops, especially cereals, for subsequent seed multiplication.
“The existing seed information system is cumbersome and the process of collecting information takes a minimum of one year before a seed company knows where to get the required amount and type of seed for multiplication,” said Laxmi Kant Dhakal, Chairperson of the Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal (SEAN) and owner of a seed company in the far west of the country. Similarly, more than 700 rural municipalities and local units in Nepal require seeds to multiply under farmers cooperatives in their area.
One of the critical challenges farmers encounter around the world is timely access to quality seeds, due to unavailability of improved varieties, lack of information about them, and weak planning and supply management. Asmita Shrestha, a farmer in Surkhet district, has been involved in maize farming for the last 20 years. She is unaware of the availability of different types of maize that can be productive in the mid-hill region and therefore loses the opportunity to sow improved maize seeds and produce better harvests.
In Sindhupalchowk district, seed producer Ambika Thapa works in a cooperative and produces hybrid tomato seeds. Her problem is getting access to the right market that can provide a good profit for her efforts. A kilogram of hybrid tomato seed can fetch up to $2,000 in a retail and upscale market. However, she is not getting a quarter of this price due to lack of market information and linkages with buyers. This is the story of many Nepali female farmers, who account for over 60% of the rural farming community, where lack of improved technologies and access to profitable markets challenge farm productivity.
At present, the Seed Quality Control Center (SQCC), Nepal Agriculture Research Council (NARC), the Centre for Crop Development and Agro Bio-diversity Conservation (CCDABC) and the Vegetable Development Directorate (VDD) are using paper-based data collection systems to record and plan seed production every year. Aggregating seed demand and supply data and generating reports takes at least two to three months. Furthermore, individual provinces need to convene meetings to collect and estimate province-level seed demand that must come from rural municipalities and local bodies.
A digital technology solution
CIMMYT and its partners are leveraging digital technologies to create an integrated Digitally Enabled Seed Information System (DESIS) that is efficient, dynamic and scalable. This initiative was the result of collaboration between U.S. Global Development Lab and USAID under the Digital Development for Feed the Future (D2FTF) initiative, which aimed to demonstrate that digital tools and approaches can accelerate progress towards food security and nutrition goals.
FHI 360 talked to relevant stakeholders in Nepal to assess their needs, as part of the Mobile Solutions Technical Assistance and Research (mSTAR) project, funded by USAID. Based on this work, CIMMYT and its partners identified a local IT expert and launched the development of DESIS.
The Digitally Enabled Seed Information System (DESIS) will help to create market and research linkages for Nepal’s seed system.
DESIS will provide an automated version of the seed balance sheet. Using unique logins, agencies will be able to place their requests and seed producers to post their seed supplies. The platform will help to aggregate and manage breeder, foundation and source seed, as well as certified and labelled seed. The system will also include an offline seed catalogue where users can view seed characteristics, compare seeds and select released and registered varieties available in Nepal. Users can also generate seed quality reports on batches of seeds.
“As the main host of this system, the platform is well designed and perfectly applicable to the needs of SQCC,” said Madan Thapa, Chief of SQCC, during the initial user tests held at his office. Thapa also expressed the potential of the platform to adapt to future needs.
The system will also link farmers to seed suppliers and buyers, to build a better internal Nepalese seed market. The larger goal of DESIS is to help farmers grow better yields and improve livelihoods, while contributing to food security nationwide.
DESIS is planned to roll out in Nepal in early 2020. Primary users will be seed companies, agricultural research centers, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, agrovets, cooperatives, farmers, development partners, universities, researchers, policy makers, and international institutions. The system is based on an open source software and will be available on a mobile website and Android app.
“It is highly secure, user friendly and easy to update,” said Warren Dally, an IT consultant who currently oversees the technical details of the software and the implementation process.
Farmers in Nepal show their most popular digital tool, a mobile phone, during a training. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
As part of the NSAF project, CIMMYT is also working to roll out digital seed inspection and a QR code-based quality certification system. The higher vision of the system is to create a seed data warehouse that integrates the seed information portal and the seed market information system.
Digital solutions are critical to link the agricultural market with vital information so farmers can make decisions for better production and harvest. It will not be long before farmers like Asmita and Ambika can easily access information using their mobile phones on the type of variety suitable to grow in their region and the best market to sell their products.
Access to affordable quality seed is one of the prerequisites to increase agricultural production and improve the livelihoods of Nepali farmers. However, there are significant challenges to boost Nepal’s seed industry and help sustainably feed a growing population.
Six years ago, Nepal launched its National Seed Vision 2013-2025. This strategic plan aims at fostering vibrant, resilient, market-oriented and inclusive seed systems in public-private partnership modalities, to boost crop productivity and enhance food security.
The Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project, led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), is supporting the government to enhance national policies and guidelines, and private seed companies to build competitive seed businesses and hybrid seed production.
General view of a hybrid maize field from Lumbini Seed Company, a NSAF project partner, in Nepal’s Bhairahawa district. (Photo: Subhas Sapkota)
Quality seed can increase crop yield by 15-20%. However, there are critical challenges hindering the growth of Nepal’s seed industry. Existing seed replacement rate for major cereals is low, around 15%. About 85% of Nepali farmers are unable to access recently developed improved seeds — instead, they are cultivating decades-old varieties with low yield and low profits. Some of the factors limiting the development of seed systems are the high cost of seed production and processing, the limited reach of mechanization, and the low use of conservation agriculture practices.
The demand for hybrid seeds in Nepal is soaring but research in variety development is limited. Most of the country’s supply comes from imports.
In collaboration with the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC), the NSAF project team is working with seed companies and cooperatives to scale hybrid seed production of maize, tomato and rice. Through this project, CIMMYT collaborated with the Seed Quality Control Center (SQCC) and national commodity programs of the NARC to draft the first hybrid seed production and certification guidelines for Nepal to help private seed companies produce and maintain standards of hybrid seeds.
Extension and promotion activities are essential to bring improved seed varieties to farmers. Standard labelling and packaging also needs to be strengthened.
Yubak Dhoj G.C., Secretary of Nepal’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, explained the importance of seed stakeholders’ collaboration to achieve the National Seed Vision targets. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
A joint effort
CIMMYT and its partners organized a two-day workshop to review the progress of the National Seed Vision. The event attracted 111 participants from government institutions, private companies and development organizations engaged in crop variety development, seed research, seed production and dissemination activities.
In the opening remarks, Yubak Dhoj G.C., Secretary of Nepal’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, addressed the seed sector scenario and its challenges. He stressed the importance of collaboration among seed stakeholders to meet the targets of the National Seed Vision in the next six years.
During the technical sessions, Madan Thapa, Chief of the SQCC, analyzed the current status of the National Seed Vision and highlighted the challenges as well as the opportunities to realize it.
Laxmi Kant Dhakal, Chairperson of the Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal (SEAN) emphasized the importance of private sector engagement and other support areas to strengthen seed production and marketing of open-pollinated varieties and hybrids.
Seed systems specialist AbduRahman Beshir shares CIMMYT’s experiences in hybrid testing and seed business promotion in Nepal. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
Tara Bahadur Ghimire, Principal Scientist at NARC, gave an overview of the status of NARC varieties, source seed and resource allocation.
Dila Ram Bhandari, former Chief of SQCC, led a discussion around the assumptions and expectations that arose while developing the National Seed Vision.
Technical leads of maize, rice, wheat and vegetables presented a road map on hybrid variety development and seed production in line with the National Seed Vision’s targets for each crop.
“A large quantity of hybrid seeds, worth millions of dollars, is being imported into Nepal each year,” explained AbduRahman Beshir, Seed Systems Lead of CIMMYT’s NSAF project. “However, if stakeholders work together and strengthen the local seed system, there is a huge potential in Nepal not only to become self-sufficient but also to export good quality hybrid seeds in the foreseeable future. Under the NSAF project we are witnessing a few seed companies that have initiated hybrid seed production of maize and tomato.”
In one of the exercises, workshop participants were divided in groups and examined different topics related to the realization of the National Seed Vision. They looked at genetic resources, hybrid and open-pollinated variety development, source seed production and supply, private sector engagement and marketing, seed extension and varietal adoption by farmers, seed quality control services, and roles of research partners and other stakeholders. The groups presented some of the major challenges and opportunities related to these topics, as well as recommendations, which will be documented and shared.
The outcomes of this mid-term review workshop will inform policy and guide the discussions at the upcoming International Seed Conference to be held in early September 2019.
In one of the breakout sessions, a group discusses challenges and recommendation to improve private sector engagement. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
Regulating hybrid seed production
At the workshop, participants thoroughly discussed the draft hybrid seed production and certification guidelines, developed under the NSAF project.
The guidelines are the first of their kind in Nepal and essential to achieve the targets of the National Seed Vision, by engaging the private sector in hybrid seed production.
Hari Kumar Shrestha, CIMMYT’s Seed Systems Officer, and other seed experts from the SQCC presented the main features and regulatory implications of the guidelines.
After the workshop, the guidelines were sent to the National Seed Board for approval.
Finance is a key driver for agricultural development, as it allows farmers and agribusinesses to improve production efficiency and adopt improved technologies. In Nepal, most of the seed in the formal sector is produced by companies and cooperatives which, like any enterprise, need access to finance in order to grow and increase their capacity.
Nepal’s Agricultural Development Strategy 2015-2035 and National Seed Vision 2013-2025 are key policy documents of the government that provide a roadmap for the development of the agricultural and seed sectors in the country.
In 2017, realizing the need to increase investments in the agricultural sector, the central bank of Nepal, Nepal Rastra Bank, adopted the Priority Sector Lending Programme (PSLP). This program mandates banks and financial institutions to allocate 10% of their loan portfolio to the agricultural sector at a subsidized interest rate of 5%.
The Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) project is providing an interface between banks and seed enterprises. Commercial banks are improving their knowledge of the seed sector, its needs and growth opportunities, so they can develop loan products and credit modalities that match the requirements of seed producers and agribusinesses.
These enterprises require finances to upgrade their infrastructure, increase production and grow their businesses. The business plans of seed companies which partner with the NSAF project indicate that the average size of loan required is around $50,000 — 60% for infrastructure development and 40% for working capital. About 66% of the working capital is used to procure raw seed from contract seed growers.
A farmer processes a loan through Laxmi Bank’s branchless banking system in Kailali district, Nepal. (Photo: Suman Khanal/CIMMYT)
Barriers to lending
Given the huge requirement for finance for seed procurement, access to loans through the PSLP can provide respite to seed companies. However, unlike in other commercial agribusiness, bank lending under the PSLP is uncommon in the seed business, as financial institutions lack understanding of the sector. Many seed companies have not been able to benefit from these loans due to perceived high risks or the lack of business plans and compliance mechanisms required by banks.
In 2018, the NSAF project team assessed the current status, challenges and opportunities in seed business financing through the PSLP. The project also facilitated a seed growers’ lending model through a tripartite agreement between Laxmi Bank Pvt. Limited, Panchashakti Seed Company and seed growers to access loans under PSLP.
On June 14, 2019, NSAF organized a meeting in collaboration with Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal (SEAN) to present findings of their assessments and experiences. The meeting brought together representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, national financial institutions, private sector banks, seed companies, agricultural cooperatives and development organizations, who took part in the deliberations and also contributed to refining policy recommendations to enhance seed sector financing.
The assessments showed that PSLP awareness among farmers is low and seed growers borrowing from the informal sector were paying high interest rates, ranging from 24-36% per year. Lack of adequate business plans and compliance mechanisms for seed companies, limited eligibility criteria for PSLP, complex loan acquisition process and collateral issues were some of the factors that made funds largely inaccessible to smallholder farmers. Moreover, the terms and conditions for loan repayment stipulated by banks do not synchronize with the agricultural crop calendar and farm cash flows.
Navin Hada, AID Project Development Specialist at USAID, discusses the strategic measures to enhance access to seed business financing with relevant stakeholders. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
Tailor-made financing solutions
Participants in the meeting discussed ways to create a conducive environment to access financial services for agricultural producers and agribusinesses. Seed companies suggested to improve banks and financial institutions’ understanding of the agricultural markets and build their capacity to assess business opportunities. They also requested that banks simplify the documentation process for acquiring loans for farmers.
Participants from the Kisanka Lagi Unnat Biu-Bijan Karyakram (KUBK), a Nepal government project located in Rupandehi district Province 5, highlighted their model where farmers, organized into cooperatives, are linked to the Small Farmer Development Bank, which could be worth exploring in other sites.
Branchless banking promoted by NSAF is a workable strategy to provide financial services to seed growers in remote areas.
The action research also highlighted that innovative modalities, such as group guarantees, can be a feasible approach to mitigate risks to fund seed growers who do not have land registration certificates and whose land rights have not been transferred in their names. In the case of female producers, this is especially helpful, as many women are the lead decision-makers on the land registered under the name of their husbands, who are migrant workers abroad.
Utilizing the learning from this event, NSAF and SEAN will share the evidence-based policy recommendations with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, the Ministry of Finance, the central bank and the Bankers’ Association of Nepal.
Through the NSAF project’s facilitation, banks have approved loans amounting to $2.5 million for business expansion of seven seed companies in 2018. The project will continue to support its seed partners in developing and strengthening their business plans and will facilitate linkages with commercial banks.
The Nepal Seed and Fertilizer project is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and is a flagship project in Nepal. The objective of NSAF is to build competitive and synergistic seed and fertilizer systems for inclusive and sustainable growth in agricultural productivity, business development and income generation in Nepal.
Participants of the results sharing meeting on Access to Finance in Seed Sector in Nepal. (Photo: Bandana Pradhan/CIMMYT)
