SEED SECURITY INITIATIVES IN
SOUTHERN AFRICA

J. Wobil
International Seed Industry Consultant, Accra, Ghana

1. INTRODUCTION

The use of quality seeds, along with other inputs and appropriate cultural practices, is recognised as the most cost-effective way of increasing crop production and productivity. Therefore, the continuous and unhindered economic access by farmers, especially smallholders, to good seeds, especially during calamities, is of paramount concern. In other words, seed security, both in its wider sense and its more restrictive or emergency connotation, should be accorded high priority in national, regional and global agriculture.

In southern Africa, and specifically the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), made up of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South African Republic, Tanzania, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe and, just a few months ago, joined by the Democratic Republic of Congo and Seychelles, the high rate of population growth, averaging about 3% per annum, requiring an ever-increasing quantities of basic staple foods, stands in sharp contrast with the rapidly declining food production in the majority of the countries. This decline is exacerbated by cyclical droughts, floods and hurricanes in some of the countries and civil strife and wars in others. As a result, food shortages are emerging as a permanent feature in many SADC countries and food aid and emergency seed supplies from external sources are becoming entrenched as a recurring phenomenon of SADC agriculture, a situation unfairly at odds with the recognised potential of the Community not only to feed itself, but also to have excesses for export.

In considering interventions that are likely to reverse the trend of recurring food shortages, seed security has been recognised as having the potential to serve as a major and the most cost-effective pathway to achieving significant advances in food productivity and production. But only recently has this recognition began to translate into practical action programmes to entrench seed security as a permanent feature of SADC agriculture.

The countries of SADC have a long history of traditional agriculture under which the farmer saves a portion of his harvest to plant the succeeding crop. Organised seed production and supply is of recent origin, mostly initiated after attainment of independence, though a few of the countries like South African Republic and Zimbabwe are known to have had, under colonial/settler agriculture, seed programmes dating back to the early 1940s.

Both in the case of old and new seed programmes in the formal sector, emphasis has been placed on only a few crops, mostly high value crops such as horticultural crops, industrial and cash crops and the major staple which is maize and, from the 1950s, hybrid maize which has come to form the backbone of the private seed industry in South African Republic, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Zambia and Tanzania.

Seed development programmes have led to the development in SADC of some vegetable seed production schemes, e.g. in Mauritius, a good system of planting material backup for sugar cane, coffee, cotton, forestry etc. in the cash crop sector in all the countries; substantial progress in the production and supply of introduced field crops such as wheat, potatoes, sunflower and soybean. However, for the mass of indigenous crops such as open-pollinated maize, sorghum, millet, food legume crops as well as roots and tuber crops, formal seed production and supply systems are underdeveloped and, in most cases, totally absent. For this group of crops, on-farm seed multiplication and farmers' seed saving practices, making up the informal seed sector constitute the main source of seeds, often providing between 95 and 100% of total seed requirements.

The increasing frequency of droughts and floods and consequent crop failures have impacted very negatively on the farmer's ability to keep his saved seeds on a continuous basis. Some of the most vulnerable SADC countries, endeavouring to wean themselves off dependence on externally sourced emergency seeds, have initiated seed security programmes and encouraged on-farm seed multiplication practices and village seed banks in which NGOs particularly have played a very important role as prime organisers as is the case in Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and, recently Tanzania.

For hybrid maize seed, SADC presents a picture of well-organised distribution, often private or parastatal, under elaborate marketing networks involving stockists and village sales depots. Adoption rates for hybrid maize seed range between 5 - 30% in Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi and Lesotho, about 60% in Zambia, nearly 70% in South Africa and Zimbabwe to nearly 80% in Swaziland. Due to climatic constraints, hybrid maize adoption is not significant in the rest of SADC. For the countries of high adoption rates, supply of hybrid maize seed has kept pace with demand, with Zimbabwe and South Africa able to export very substantial quantities to neighbouring countries in most years. For some of the countries, e.g. Swaziland, Malawi, Lesotho, Angola and Mozambique, local production of maize seeds fall behind demand and annual importation of seeds of hybrid maize and open pollinated maize varieties has been a regular feature.

For introduced or cash crops, such as sunflower, wheat, soybean etc., supply is fairly satisfactory through mainly the formal sector and is well organised though supply is not always at par with demand. For traditional crops, such as food legumes, root and tubers and cereals, sorghum and millets, in spite of almost total disinterest by the private or formal sector, in years of good crop harvests, the farmer's own saved seeds seem to be reasonably adequate to meet seed demand in all SADC countries. While the narrow range of seeds emanating from the formal sector are mostly adequate to meet demand even in years following droughts (due largely to strong production base, covering a good range of agroecological sites as well as seed movements within and between private sector entities) seed shortage in SADC countries often imply shortage of seeds of traditional crops, including open-pollinated maize. In a few cases, such as has been the case with Mozambique (until the early 1990s) and Angola, civil strife and wars have played an overriding role, disrupting both production and distribution of seeds and resulting in serious seed shortages.

In most cases, such seed shortages have been addressed through emergency seed aid by seed imports mainly, as has been the cases in Mozambique and Angola, commercial exports from neighbouring countries, such as the cases in Swaziland, Botswana, Tanzania, Lesotho and Namibia, and lastly by internal formal and informal sector mobilisation as was the case in Zambia from 1992 to 1996 under the Programme Against Malnutrition (PAM) in cooperation with several NGOs. It is clear that for the traditional crops mentioned, there is a fair level of self-sufficiency in all SADC countries in normal years simply because the farmer has for generations developed reliance on his own community sources of seeds.

The stability in climate, especially as it affects crop production, became seriously upset in the early 1990s. The whole of SADC, with the exception of a few pockets in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia, located in less vulnerable ecological niches or endowed with irrigation systems, became a bowl of parched earth, sparing neither crop nor livestock. Countries like South Africa and Zimbabwe, normally able to sell farm produce to neighbours, became themselves food importers, and countries normally importing food found their food import bill consuming grossly larger portions of their total import budget.

The impact on seed production and supply was very serious. Seed production levels dropped drastically in the formal sector and necessitated large movements of commercial stocks intra-regionally. In the informal sector, the paucity of harvested crops meant that most of it was consumed, leaving little to be set aside for seed. The average smallholder farmer in SADC could no longer rely on saved seeds because that source was depleted and had to rely on external sources, mainly emergency seed aid at subsidised prices, under seed/crop exchange arrangements or free in a few cases.

The poor climate started to abate in 1995 and gradually the farmer is re-establishing his/her on-farm seed multiplication and seed saving practices, in many cases with NGO and extension collaboration. For example, Mozambique has enjoyed good rains since 1995 and has drastically curtailed emergency seed imports by encouraging on-farm seed multiplication. In many areas of Zambia well known for their harsh agro-ecologies which hardly support even hardy crops like sorghum, root crops and cowpeas, farmers have grown maize for the past two years successfully. But sadly the long years of drought, and in Mozambique additionally the war, have destroyed many indigenous and adaptable cultivars and almost rendered them extinct since very little ex situ preservation of such germplasm had been undertaken. Thus the risk of even minor pest and weather catastrophes poses the threat of decimating wide tracts of the new cultivars which have become entrenched, especially where a single variety covers a huge land area.

On the positive side, there is heightened awareness in all SADC countries of the need to address seed constraints adequately. Consequently, from policy consideration at the governmental level, through very hectic corporate realignments to smallholder seed self-sufficiency drives, including the establishment of village seed banks, SADC as a whole has taken initiatives to ensure continuous and unhindered access to seeds by all farmers. The extent to which national programmes address the harm done to the region's local germplasm, assist the private sector to play a more supportive role beyond the narrow range of seeds of commercial interest and the extent to which the small scale farmer is assisted to efficiently conduct his on-farm seed multiplication practices and household seed security measures will determine whether SADC can confront another cycle of drought with a more acceptable damage control in respect of the seed industry and by inference crop production. In these endeavours, the informal sector stands out as the most important area for interventions.

The informal seed sector is made up of unregulated and uncontrolled seed operations and is largely represented by on-farm seed selection and multiplication efforts by the farmers themselves, seed exchanges among farmers and use of planting material saved from previous crop harvest and set aside for seed during the succeeding cropping cycle. The sector is characterised by absence of interventions by external organizations, divorced from research and seed quality control, confined to seeds which the formal sector largely does not consider profitable to embark on, dependent on mostly traditional cultivars and devoid of any sophisticated infrastructure. For decades, the sector was neglected by national seed programmes in spite of its record of providing nearly 90% of total seed requirements in Africa, and SADC in particular. Along with the recent recognition of the potential of this sector in enhancing seed delivery has come a myriad of efforts, national, international and of NGOs to strengthen the sector. But it is important to avoid embarking on interventions in the sector which have the likelihood of so altering it that it ceases to present the advantages which presently make it attractive and preferred by the majority of small scale farmers.

Most of SADC countries consider the issue of the informal sector a new phenomenon in spite of its long history. This is largely because of official neglect in the past which has resulted in the paucity of information on the needs, activities, outputs and characteristics of the sector. In South Africa, for example, there is virtually no existing strategy developed to meet the needs of that sector as the country has been very dependent on a vibrant commercial agricultural sector in the past. It is important to stress that assistance to the informal sector in South Africa should not diminish the effectiveness of the commercial sector in feeding that country and others. Perhaps in South Africa, emphasis should be placed on creating the necessary conditions which will enable the formal seed sector to incorporate more of the seeds required by small scale farmers. But there is clearly a need for exchange visits to enable South African seed officials and workers to acquire the necessary skills from neighbouring countries in order to meet the needs of the informal seed sector which confront the authorities there, however small scale those needs will be.

In Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania, NGOs and a few donor-assisted projects have been the most active in this sector, training farmers on simple improved on-farm seed multiplication where the new element of linkage to research and quality control is being gradually introduced, with extension support. Other activities are community-based seed production systems, village seed stores and seed banks, assistance in enhancing crop utilisation, enhanced storage practices as well as education on simple methods of ensuring and monitoring seed quality.

Potential interventions include:

• Training on methodologies on seed production, storage, distribution and utilisation;
• Organisation of groups sharing common goals, such as crop introductions and crop choices;
• Establishing linkages with research, extension and quality control;
• Organising community seed production stores/seed banks; and
• Organising smallholder seed entrepreneurs.

Although the extension service plays an active role in activities supporting the informal sector, the leadership has been mainly provided by NGOs, as already stated. NGOs recognise the need to adopt participatory and gender sensitive approaches to assisting the sector. In South Africa, the government, the private sector and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) are assisting the informal sector through various programmes chief among which is assistance to smallholder sector affected by drought and assistance to small farmers Peace Gardens Special projects by the ARC for the enhancement of small-scale sector farming.

In other countries, NGO efforts are being complemented with donor and national programmes. In Zambia, a UNDP project of 3-year duration is due to take off soon, aimed at developing a Smallholder Seed Production Programme. GTZ and FINIDA have been active in similar activities, as has been an on-going UNDP Food Legume Project. In Tanzania, DANIDA is soon to launch a project aimed at enhancing on-farm seed production on a nation-wide basis.

In a few countries, where the situation of the informal sector has not been studied and is, therefore, poorly understood, the sector is allowed to play its traditional role without let or hindrance, as in Namibia, Mauritius, Lesotho and Swaziland. In Angola and Mozambique, the war so decimated agriculture that the informal sector virtually disappeared due to massive dislocation of farmers. While Mozambique has made rapid progress in restoring on-farm seed multiplication, it is clear that a wide range of indigenous germplasm has been irretrievably lost. In Angola, the recovery has only just started, but is still hampered by continuing security problems which put a heavy responsibility on government and NGOs to be the main seed providers in the short and medium term.

The strength of the informal sector lies mainly in the maintenance and multiplication of local cultivars which are the most adaptable to the growing area. Such cultivars are generally more tolerant to drought, pests and diseases, possess the preferred plant type, colour of seed and have cooking and palatability attributes preferred by the consumer. Therefore, the chief source of seeds in the informal sector is the farmer's own plot. There is a trend towards incorporating research-developed varieties on the basis of achievement of one of the following attributes which might constitute a constraint in local cultivars:

• short maturity period and drought tolerance;
• pest and disease resistance;
• high yield; and
• suitability for agro-processing.

The acceptance of such new varieties will depend on whether or not the other preferred characteristics found in local cultivars have been compromised. Where new crops are being introduced to the farmer, the introduction of modern varieties is easier since there may be few local cultivars of good performance to compare with. NGOs, in collaboration with extension, have been the most active in the effort to introduce improved seed into the informal sector. Such efforts have been successful where good on-farm trials and demonstrations have been conducted. In the final analysis, the farmer is the one to decide. And contrary to popular opinion, the farmer is not averse to change, but rather to blind change. When he or she recognises a superior material which holds advantages over their own, the change is swift and effective. Indeed, even without interventions, farmers have been known to adopt improved seed which they themselves have experimented with, or whose performance on the neighbour's farm they have assessed and found superior.

By the standards of the formal sector, most experts cite as the major production problems in the informal sector, the following:

• lack of isolation, rougeing and proper storage, leading to lack of purity;
• insufficient pest control in the field and in storage, leading to possible accumulation of pests and diseases;
• insufficient know-how in seed production;
• inadequate use of farm inputs;
• inadequate seed processing methods;
• poor marketing opportunities, especially for introduced crops;
• suppressing seed demand;
• inadequate farm credit to procure the necessary facilities and carry out the necessary practices required for quality work;
• lack of coordination among NGOs involved in the informal sector, leading to conflicting messages;
• absence of official policy guidelines on the informal sector, robbing it of the needed official support and required resources; and/or
• weak extension backup due largely to lack of knowledge on the sector as well as insufficient logistic support to reach the farmers with relevant messages.

Although there are no reliable records on the quantities of seeds passing through the informal sector, it is clear that under normal circumstances it generates enough to fully satisfy the needs of farmers who rely on it. It is the occurrence of disasters such as droughts, floods and hurricanes/cyclones and civil strife which upsets the delicate balance between consumable harvest and farmer-saved seed. However, of late, declining soil fertility, as already mentioned, is tending to introduce some permanency into seed shortages in the informal sector, as less and less of the stored crop remains beyond the farmers' subsistence needs.

The most important source of seed is the farmer's saved seed for the following reasons:

• the farmer does not have to pay cash for it nor travel to procure it;
• the farmer knows the cultivar he is planting and most likely has confidence in its proven performance; and
• there may not be any organised supply system for the particular seed.

The second most important source of seed is the neighbour's saved seed which is exchanged or purchased for similar reasons. The third important source of seed in the informal sector is grain purchased from the local market. Since the last category was not specifically prepared to serve as seed, it poses the greatest threat in terms of viability, disease and other undesirable physical as well as genetic qualities, and therefore is a source of last resort.

Seed availability issues in the informal sector hinge mainly on:

• how to ensure sustainable availability under emergency situations;
• how to improve production, processing, storage and marketing systems;
• how to improve seed quality;
• how to introduce relevant advantages of modern plant breeding; and
• how to rapidly establish smallholder seed production for traditional and newly introduced crops which the formal sector does not consider attractive enough to invest in.

Observations of NGO and donor-assisted project activities in Zambia would indicate that more sustainable seed production techniques for newly introduced crops need to be developed if the target farmers are not to develop dependence on project-supplied seed.

Many countries in SADC see seed security in its restricted sense of assurance of seed availability during emergencies, and not in its wider connotation of the continuous and unhindered access to seeds by farmers, under all circumstances.

While a few governments, as is the case in Zimbabwe and Zambia, have standing arrangements with commercial seed houses to manage national seed security stocks, and South African seed companies normally keep up to 20% of their maize seed stocks as carry over seed, the rest of SADC remains permanently unprepared and waits for the next emergency to occur before initiating a response. Slowly, the recognition is dawning that seed security should be viewed in its wider sense and appropriate policy changes made to ensure that all participants in the seed sector are adequately prepared and resourced to play their various roles when emergency strikes. In that regard, strengthening the informal sector to be more effective ensures protection for the majority of farmers since it is their preferred source of seeds. At any rate, the influx of seeds from extra-regional sources has had a negative influence on the sub-regions genetic resources. Efforts aimed at curtailing such seed importation by ensuring the utilisation of adaptable cultivars selected by the farmer are, therefore, a sure way of addressing this negative influence. Additionally, all the countries recognise the need to enhance free movement of seeds in the region, especially during emergencies as well as creating a collaborative environment to share resources and information to combat the vagaries of droughts, floods and cyclones.

The private sector in SADC also has an important role to play in seed security. It has the proven capability to serve as back-up during seed shortages at the national and regional levels. Additionally, it provides opportunity for the periodic infusion of improved seed into on-farm seed multiplication, especially in newly introduced crops. The informal sector possesses the potential of upward mobility into the formal sector and hence the two are not mutually exclusive.

In 1993, FAO with financial assistance from Austria, assisted SADC countries to organise in Swaziland, a workshop on on-farm seed production. As a follow-up and in response to the recommendation of that workshop, a Technical Meeting for the Promotion of a Seed Security Network for SADC Countries was organised in Lesotho in September, 1997 under FAO/Austria sponsorship. At the end of the meeting the representatives of SADC countries unanimously recommended the urgent establishment of a SADC Seed Security Network and requested FAO and donor countries to offer them technical and financial assistance.

The network would offer opportunity for countries of the region to:

• Cooperate in their seed sector development efforts;
• Share resources required to further develop the region's seed sector;
• Share information and early warning on current and foreseen situations in the seed sector for better planning;
• Assist each other through sharing of resources in case of emergency;
• Develop and adopt common seed policies and harmonise rules, procedures, regulations and methodologies to enhance regional cooperation in seed production, processing, storage, marketing and utilisation, in both the formal and informal sectors;
• Conduct a large number of training sessions at the farmer level to boost small farmer expertise in simple farm level seed multiplication techniques; and
• Utilise the capabilities and resources of the private seed sector in the sub-region to enhance smallholder seed utilisation and security.

Members of the network, to comprise seed agencies and companies, seed projects, NGOs, research and extension, and farmer groups will gain a more up to date insight into the region's seed sector and be better prepared to play their roles in ensuring regional and national seed security. For the private sector, opportunity will be offered to play a more important role in seed security and achieve a good basis for product expansion and thus realise better marketing opportunities.

Technical and other information that will be carried by the network's newsletter and discussed at various fora will also form a good basis for proper and effective planning by governments and by all seed agencies.

The ultimate beneficiaries of the network will be the mass of small-scale farmers of SADC who have hitherto not enjoyed the benefits of modern crop improvement. Through the training and developmental activities of the network, such farmers will enhance their crop outputs, not only to boost their household food security, rural incomes and standard of living, but will also contribute more effectively to their national economies.

Each member Ministry of Agriculture will be expected to draw up, in consultation with member seed agencies in the country, and in line with guidelines to be developed by the Secretariat, country-level activities relating to:

i) Community Level Programmes

• organisation of on-farm seed production;
• organisation of community seed farms, seed banks and seed stores;
• development of smallholder seed entrepreneurs; and
• household and community seed security arrangements.

ii) National Level Programmes

• Formulation and implementation of national policy and plans;
• Compilation of detailed data, quantitative and qualitative, on national seed sector, both formal and informal, and including output and situation of private companies;
• Implementation of smallholder seed projects both national and donor-assisted; and
• Defining and enhancing roles of all participating agencies and institutions.

iii) Regional Level Programmes

• Sharing of information and expertise on seed sector issues;
• Cooperation in accelerated seed movements across national boundaries in times of emergencies;
• Participation in the harmonisation of rules, regulations and procedures in the seed sector; and
• Release of relevant national experts for network assignments.

iv) Secretariat Level Programmes

• Designation of a national officer to serve as National Co-ordinator to act as their country’s contact person for the Regional Network Secretariat; and
• Provision of necessary communication facilities and other office resources, with possible assistance from the Network, to enable the National Co-ordinator maintain contact with the Secretariat.

6.3 Activities to be carried out by the Network

The Network will be service in nature, aimed at assisting member countries in the following areas:

1. Training activities especially in seed security activities with particular emphasis on on-farm seed production;

2. Workshops and Conferences to enhance regional expert consultations on topical issues;

3. Publications and Newsletter/Magazine for the dissemination of information especially on important seed industry data and regional seed trade statistics;

4. Computerised databases for the exchange of information on:
   • Seed sector statistics, including seed demand and supply information;
   • Information on released/commercial varieties, seed policies and legislation;
   • Early warning information on seed demand and supply;
   • Addresses, particulars and roles of seed agencies and experts as well as relevant international institutions;
   • Approved methodologies for various seed sector activities, including on-farm seed production; and
   • Available sources of information, including books, publications and agencies.

5. Advisory Services to National and Community Programmes especially in:
   • Seed policy formulation;
   • National seed programme planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation;
   • Development of seed acts and regulations;
   • Seed demand/forecast surveys;
   • Modalities and procedures for specific activities such as maintenance of strategic seed reserves, smallholder seed entrepreneurship etc.; and
   • Preparation of proposals or project documents on seed development for donor funding.

   

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