1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

"Farmers’ seed production" essentially refers to growing a crop of which part is saved as seed for own use. Saving the best grains, roots or tubers from consumption, their storage and planting developed over centuries into structured local seed systems. Therefore, seed is the primary agricultural input, and is the embodiment of the farmer’s future harvest. This system is variously described as ‘farmer seed system’ or ‘local seed system’. The term 'informal seed provision system' essentially refers to the same, emphasizing that the farmers’ seed production takes place outside the formal regulated seed production sector. Such systems, which are directly linked to the adaptation of the farmers to their agro-ecological and cultural environment and support farming systems based on number of crops and varieties needed for household and on-farm use are the main agricultural resource for resource-poor small scale farmers in developing countries.

Developing countries constitute approximately two thirds of the world’s agriculturally productive land area and support about three quarters of its population. Because of the inherent resource limitations, these areas include some of the poorest segments of the world’s population who battle for their livelihood from small scale farming systems. It is obvious that any conditions which can disrupt small scale farming systems, may have devastating long-term implications for household, if not national, food security as this often also disrupts farmer seed systems. However, in the past decade some of these areas have experienced a propensity for devastating natural disasters and/or armed conflagrations. Because of this, rural households in these areas are food deficit in most years, and poverty limits their capacity for additional food purchases. For this reason most rural households have to put priority on obtaining food and incomes for the present, which leads to over-taxing of national and international relief resources. While small scale farmers often cannot afford to take a long-term view in regard to resource conservation, an international crisis is looming as donor fatigue has set-in resulting in a decline in funding for disaster mitigation relief efforts world-wide.

There is, therefore, a pressing need for strategies that will improve household food security and incomes in these areas, while at the same time creating conditions conducive for sustainable self-reliant seed production in affected areas. The prevailing mood among national and international aid agencies is that, despite inevitable problems, support of imperfect farmer seed systems may be a more sustainable disaster mitigation strategy, than supporting imperfect and often dysfunctional state managed seed relief enterprises in these areas.

1.2 Achievements

That informal seed provision systems are resilient to environmental changes, which at times are catastrophic, and agricultural advances is evidenced by the observation that they still contribute an estimated 90 percent of all seed used for food production in developing countries (Almekinders et al., 1994). Even in highly advanced agricultural systems found in most countries of the North, farmer-saved seed contributes to over 30 percent of all seed for self pollinated food crops (Ghijsen, 1996; Jaffee and Srivastava, 1994).

This paper explores how limited-resource farming households and communities presently manage their local seed provision systems, in particular emphasizing on their capacity to survive under recurrent emergencies. Further exploring the interaction between these systems and other institutions such as, National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS), International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), etc., in developing and adapting them to meet new challenges. Such a critique will enhance the establishment of international programmes designed to generate and exploit spillover benefits from these experiences.

1.3 Issues for consideration

The paper is divided into three parts. The first part will review the socio-cultural and economic issues that determine demand for seed, and draws implication for possible organization for seed supply systems to satisfy household food security. The main focus will be to outline the stages in the development of local seed systems and sketch out the roles and responsibilities of the various components that contribute to each stage. The second part of the paper presents an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of local seed systems. It focuses on competencies and incentives of each component involved in trying to devise strategies for strengthening local seed provision systems based on transaction costs that characterize collaboration among different types of organizations. The final section presents some possible intervention mechanisms which may be effective in quickly identifying and alleviating the effects of a disaster in limited -resources communities.

2. FARMER SEED PROVISION SYSTEMS

2.1 Diversity in an integrated system

Farmer seed provision systems are described as systems in which selection, seed production and seed diffusion or exchange are integrated with crop production and are defined in relation to the farming system, of which they are part of. The components of such farming systems being the farmer, the agro-ecological, socio-economic and cultural environment.

Although each farmer seed system tends to be location specific in terms of the combination of crops, varieties, seed, farmers and environment, this section will present a typical characterization of such seed system.

2.1.1 The seed system as part of a farming system

The typical small scale farm in developing countries combines a wide range of crops and varieties to meet the diverse objectives. The rationale for this are is that apart from household food security, this diversity is required to meet the demand for social amenities, health and socio-economic needs. For most crops and varieties, each individual household meets its own seed requirements. Seeds, which in the context of most farmers refers to any plant part which can reproduce the same kind of crop, are selected from crop production, in some cases the selection process can be elaborate. However, under very special situations where certain seed qualities, especially those related to variety genetic maintenance or improvement, are desired seed produced in separate plots. Experimentation is another important aspect of the seed production processes related to farmer seed systems

2.1.2 The seed system as part of farmer knowledge.

Farmer seed systems through repeated crop production and selection under local conditions, allowing for the effects of mutation, seed exchange, hybridization and selection pressure exerted by both natural factors and humans, represents a dynamic evolutionary system. Knowledge to manipulate plants to suit farming systems is well developed, as may be evident from the development of crop varieties out of wild species. This knowledge has been accumulated over centuries and generations of farming in the same, or similar, environment and has contributed immensely to the resilience of these seed systems to periodic aberrations in the crop production conditions which at times impact negatively on farming systems.

Farmer knowledge is not always apparent, as it is often influenced by socio-cultural parameters not easily comprehensible to most researchers and often seemingly incongruous with modern ‘scientific’ type of crop development. Brush et al. (1982) described a form of folk-taxonomy of the potato varieties based on agronomic characteristics such as skin colour, processing and culinary quality. Such folk-taxonomy are important for farmer variety selection and are a common feature for most farmer seed systems (Musa and van der Mheen-Sluijer, 1997) and have been used successfully in some breeding programmes (Monyo, 1998).

These two categories which define the characteristics of farmer seed systems while by no means comprehensive, serve to identify the various some selection criteria critical to the survival of these seed systems. These include:

(i) Feasibility under given socio-economic circumstances.

There is evidence that farmers capacities as breeders-selectors is extensive based on the level of adaptation of their varieties to local conditions. The grid selection is often accompanied by ‘shuttle-breeding’, which involves a process for shifting the selected plant populations between two different fertility environments The skills for grid-selections have been reported for chickpea adaptation for a particular environment in Ethiopia (Berg, 1994) and sorghum and pearl millet selection to resistance to Striga sp. in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe (Berg, 1994; Musa and van der Mheen-Sluijer, 1997). This skill is, however, limited to a few local farmer seed specialists, normally with larger land-holding than the average small scale farmer.

There is, however, little systematic information on similar occurrences for a general extrapolation to other regions or crops to be made, suffice to say variants of it may exist.

(ii) Correspondence with farmer’s goals and preferences.

Many crops have multiple uses. Maize and barley produce grain for consumption and leaves and stalks for livestock-feed. Some sweet potatoes, cassava and cowpea varieties are preferred because their leaves make good vegetables, while the tubers, roots and grain can be processed for food fresh or dried. In most cereal based farming systems, plant and animal production are integrated. Straw yield and straw quality may, in many cases, be at least as important as grain yield. Short straw varieties may thus not become very popular, where they are used for animal feed or for building materials (Musa and van der Mheen-Sluijer, 1997).

(iii) Feasibility under given natural conditions.

Different crops and varieties also provide an opportunity to use genetic diversity for optimal exploitation of available resources. The different planting and harvest dates of crops spreads the labour demands for ploughing, planting, weeding and harvesting. Two matching crops in mixed cropping make better use of water, the minerals and the space than when planted separately. Another important additional advantage of mixed crops and varieties is a reduced insect and disease pressure.

In general, the same principle which applies to mixed cropping and variety mixes apply to heterogeneous landrace varieties (farmer traditional varieties). Only because two genotypes of pearl millet look more alike than, for example, a cowpea and maize plant, the advantages of mixing will be less clear and more difficult to measure. However, farmer seed systems favour this type of varietal and crop mixes.

(iv) Ecological viability.

Different crops and varieties provide an opportunity to make better use of available resources. Longley (1993) described how labour-constrained Mende women rice farmers have developed different varieties to exploit variation in vegetation, land topography and changes in soil moisture regimes obtaining in their areas to successfully provide food throughout the year based on one crop. As rice is largely a self pollinating crop, subject only to small amounts of cross pollination, women resorted to individual hand panicle harvesting within a crop. This gave these farmers the option to reject ‘off-types’ or collect such ‘off-types’ for further experimentation. These farmers practiced a form of mass selection through this processes of selecting-out off-types in the course of panicle harvesting. Further, such action stabilized the main seed types, while effectively bringing about a systematic grouping among the off-types when planted out.

This form of panicle selection combined with shuttle-variety selection (Berg, 1994), has resulted in the differentiation of Mende rice germplasm into three distinct ecotypes. Short-duration rice ecotypes which ripen in three to four months are planted on moisture retentive soils at the foot of the valley slopes. Medium-duration higher yielding varieties with longer and stronger rooting systems, maturing between four to five months, are planted on free-draining upland soils when the rains have well set-in and provide the bulk of the grain harvest to this day. Long-duration types, ripening between five and six months and adapted to variable flooding levels ( including floating types) are planted in the beds of river courses and inland swamps - they are often planted during breaks between operations for establishing upland rice. These ecotypes allow the family to stagger their crop establishment, thus spreading the labour throughout the year in the food crop production processes. These characteristics are contained in the seed developed in seed provision systems tailored to meet the complexity in the cropping environment.

These practices allows harvesting to be staggered. Such a farming systems permits the farmer to be food secure without worrying too much about long term food storage. Similar variety diversity has been reported with women field bean growers in Malawi and Rwanda, root and tuber farmers in the Andean regions of South America and maize farmers in Mexico (Lourette and Smale, 1996; Eyzaguirree and Iwanaga, 1996; Musa and van der Mheen-Sluijer, 1997). All these farming systems rely on the explicit knowledge of utilizing varietal diversity maintained in the seed for household food security. However, food security in heterogeneous environments, can also be based on having access to crop genetic diversity, as observed in Mozambique. The knowledge farmers have on cereals, root and tuber, legume and pulse crops has been preserved in their seed systems to meet their household food security at different times of the year. The hunger period between each crop harvest, often is met by fleshy fruits like papaya or banana crops.

The diversity of crops and varieties spreads the labour demands for ploughing, planting, weeding and harvesting. This reduces the transaction costs (labour) for such farming systems under women control, involving limited long-term food storage. This demands a very sound knowledge of the seed to be used in such mixed cropping farming systems, often resulting in farmer seed security to be as complex as the environments they are designed to serve. Farmers make use of genetic variation as a tool in matching environmental variation, rather than make the environment uniform. The best documented case which illustrates the interface between farmer selection and environmental variations in both time and space is that of the Mende rice farmers in Sierra Leone.

West African rice farmers have for decades harvested seed from the centre of the field to maintain their genetic purity and avoid introgression from other landraces and other wild Oryza species surrounding the field. Sorghum farmers select heads for seed from a range of plant types, to maintain a near consistent heterogeneity in a variety. This is done to maintain the taste and malting characteristics required for various foods, including brewing traditional beer.

The diversity of crops and varieties serves the stability of farm production. Therefore, crop varieties or crop combination that produce each season a reasonable yield may be a better option for resource poor farmers than a single crop or variety with a high average yield, but with a higher risk of producing less than the required minimum to meet household food security.

These categories serve to show that local seed provision consists of basically three components: selection, production and distribution. However, in the main seed production, as part of the general food crop production, is the focal point of this system. This ensures equitable distribution of seed to all those prepared to grow crops, with a potential household seed secure through self-reliance in crop production. While selection, breeding, and crop or variety development are considered important these remain specialised areas, as the demand for new genotypes is cyclic phenomenon, occurring once after one or two decades; for most households such demand is often met through trade.

2.2. Household seed security

The objective of farmer seed systems is to make sufficient quantities of seed for the preferred crops and varieties of optimum quality available for each farming unit every planting season. This broadly defines seed security, recognising that it is both a function of two factors, namely seed availability and seed access. Seed availability generally refers to the amount of seed harvested during the course of food crop production in a farmer’s field, and is associated with the following supply parameters: quantity, timing and sustainability. Whereas the access aspect is related to the following parameters: quality (desired variety with the right genetic and sanitary criteria for producing a crop), equity (reaching all farmers) and finance (ability to have from external sources).

The two components important to seed security are generally based on needs and expectations of the farming system interfacing with individual household and community economic and cultural requirements. These basically divided into food consumption, medicinal, construction and clothing and the surplus for market and entertainment. These issues at the farmer level are not gender neutral and their consideration may offer critical insights into developing strategies for mitigating the effects of natural and man-made disasters.

2.2.1 Seed availability component: quantity, timing and sustainability aspects

Seed quantity is basically a function of crop production. Culturally because food crop production and processing is a woman's job, this aspect of the seed supply system has traditionally been associated with women in the informal farmer seed systems. The women generally over centuries have develop an intrinsic ability to select the correct mix of crops and varieties to meet the family’s expectations. Since the required quantities of seed for producing most crops is relatively small, women have generally developed the knowledge and skills associated with the conditioning, processing and storage of such seed.

Both the timely supply of seed for crop production and sustainability of the seed system is dependent on the efficacy of the conditioning and storage of planting material by the women. If the harvest is timely, and understanding of ecological parameters for food production is comprehensive (Longley, 1993), then timely supply of seed to suit any environment is possible. For instance, Kpelle women in Liberia maintain over 100 varieties of rice in swidden cultivation, while in the SADC region women have been reported to store seed of ten ecotypes of sorghum and pearl millet at a given period in their homestead granaries (Musa, 1995; Musa and Rusike, 1997; Rohrbach, 1997). Young girls become enculturated into their gender roles as managers of crop and seed diversity, and memorize information about the varieties and the micro-environments to which particular varieties are suited.

In all respects, women are better selectors of varieties and crops to meet all the expectations of the community or household. Seed production for household food security is generally a function of the food crop production, from which seed is selected either during the growing crop or after harvest. Therefore, seed availability is linked to sufficiency of the harvest to last from harvest to harvest, or is a function of household food security.

2.2.2. Access to seed: quality, equity and financial aspects

Crop productivity is dependent on three factors associated with seed: its genetic purity, sanitary purity, physical and physiological purity.

While the crop can not be better than the genetic potential of the variety, the other factors, if improved, can enhance seed germinability and seedling vigour and are a function of seed crop harvesting, seed conditioning, processing and storage. The latter three are closely related to responsibilities associated with women. The former, while a function of the selection process often involves several processes which involved shuttle-selection, breeding and development. Shuttle-selection requires access to land, which often falls in the domain of men in any farming system.

Therefore, access to improved germplasm at local seed provision level is under the socio-economic influences. The men determine the economic importance of acquiring new germplasm either through direct purchase, or providing land for such an exercise for crop improvement. While women have the knowledge for both selection and production of seed crops, the ultimate responsibility for such activities is in the male domain at both household and community level. Examples of various systems employed in gaining access to new germplasm are adequately addressed by Musa and van der Mheen-Sluijer (1997) and Tripp (1997).

Due to inequitable land distribution, most resource poor farmers are unable to grow the desired diversity of crops for sustainable seed security. The most vulnerable sectors of the population has always been women-headed family units. These often become seed insecure because they normally have to eat their stocks of food grain (Rohrbach, 1997; Sperling et al., 1993).

The main problem with local seed systems is that farmers often use poor quality grain as seed, even though seed of acceptable quality may be available, but the farmers often do not have the capacity or willingness to acquire it. Seed security, in particular access to technology, has always been the single most critical factor for household food insecurity.

3. THE NEED TO IMPROVE FARMER SEED SYSTEMS

While farmer seed systems have in the past proved resilient to both natural and socio-political catastrophes due to their intrinsic characteristics of being individually farmer based and heterogeneous in space and flexible in time (Musa and Rusike, 1997; Rohrbach, 1997), the speed at which such catastrophes occur and the population explosion threaten their viability.

Any analysis of the various options for informal local seed provision systems must account for difficulties in categorizing the potential participants, the complex nature of seed provision, and the multiple of sources of seed demand (Tripp, 1997). At the minimum, it must be recognized that the resilience of farmer seed systems are primarily based on their innovative and dynamic nature, which require coordination among different types of organizations. Collaboration between the local farming systems communities, the public, private and non-governmental organization sectors currently play an important role in the development of local seed provision systems. Th erefore, for these systems to effectively address the concerns of the farmers they purport to represent, it is necessary to be more specific in assigning particular responsibilities for performance and communication; in short identify the fault lines.

The components of farmer seed systems: selection, development, production, storage and distribution in most cases are part of common crop production processes and as such organised in a horizontal manner. Such seed systems are characterised by a tendency to maintain a wide diversity within and across crops and varieties, or landraces, as a response to diverse ecosystems and local markets. The focal point of farmer seed systems is the crop production phase, which is common to all farmers and thus important to seed security. Each component of the local seed system will be analyzed based on the strengths and weaknesses of the three key aspects critical for their sustainability:

• Organization and ownership of the resources needed;

• Stewardship of the system; an

• Incentives for the performance and technology/information transfer.

The viability of any seed supply option depends on the efficiency and incentives of each individual component.

3.1 Technology transfer

Integrated participatory approaches to seed provision through International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs), National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) and public extension services, and NGOs is required. If the system is to be sustainable and self-reliant it will have to have as its main objective to develop technology easily transferable to the target farmer groups. Such technology can only be based on open pollinated varieties which farmers can easily replicate.

3.2 Seed production

Local seed systems usually rely on individual farmers to multiply seed for home use and is often an integral part of crop production. However, it is not all farmers who are capable of producing a crop of the right quality for seed. Seed may be difficult to produce in some environments such as potato and cassava, groundnut and cowpea or beans due to viral or other diseases, and other agronomic difficulties encountered in a crop production system. Seed availability at household level is often, but wrongly included in statistics of seed availability at community level (Musa and van der Mheen-Sluijer 1997).

Communities which have successfully achieved seed security have rather relied on local informal seed producers to produce and multiply seed. In each community, there are recognized seed producers who through their crop agronomic knowledge, access to information are capable of maintaining the diversity in crops and varieties required for local household seed security. Roughly 20 percent of small scale farmers within a community in Zimbabwe provide seed into the local market and have emerged as recognized local seed sources (Rohrbach, 1997). This figure is not significantly different in other parts of the world, in particular Colombia, India and Nigeria, where local seed systems are critical to community seed security (Venkatesan, 1995).

Such farmers have offered the basis for developing sustainable seed supply systems in local communities in both the Indian sub-continent and Sub-Saharan African countries (Musa and van der Mheen-Sluijer, 1997). However, these farmers need training in quality seed production practices and marketing.

3.3 Plant variety selection, breeding and development

The local seed systems are increasingly being forced to depend on public breeding institutions, especially for open pollinated crops. However, public plant breeders’ priorities have often failed to address the concerns of the resource-poor farmers as illustrated in the case of Mahsuri rice (Salazar, 1994). The marginal, heterogeneous and remote environments are difficult to address by centralized formal breeding programmes typical of most IARCs and NARS.

Farmer participation in variety testing, selection and breeding can be linked to seed provision which is locality specific (Eyzaguirre and Iwanaga, 1996). The limitations of the centralized breeding programmes, which have been the major constraint to equitable distribution of technology at local level for centuries, have stimulated the exploration of the idea to transfer the final phase of the breeding programmed to the farmers themselves. Instead of the breeder selecting and allowing the farmer to adopt, or reject, farmers are best involved at various stages of a variety development. They may select from a larger number of options, sometimes unfinished products which are not yet genetically stable, this being an adaptation of the evolution of local seed systems based on shuttle-variety development discussed earlier.

This reduces the possibility that the breeder eliminates materials in earlier cycles of selection that are potentially good for particular conditions. It also provides the farmer with a wider range of materials to select from. The promising materials being transferred presumably to cover a wider range of materials, containing more genetic diversity.

• This offers more opportunities for developing local adaptation: final selection is done in situ. The genetically diverse populations will evolve differently in different environments.

• An additional advantage is that promising materials move more quickly into farmers fields. Instead of carrying out the 7 or 10 seasons of selection on-station, the breeder may give the farmers materials from much earlier selection cycles.

There are examples of successful landrace enhancement in rice (MASIPAG-Philippines) combines university researchers and local women farmers in the selection, improvement and distribution of local rice varieties (Salazar, 1992), in barley and wheat Ethiopia (Berg, 1992) sweet potato, cassava, pulses and oilseed crops in Mozambique and Angola (Chapman et al., 1997).

Participatory Variety Selection (PVS) is the term for the type of activities in which farmers evaluate and select released or pre-released or advanced (i.e. nearly-finished) varieties. Farmers may be invited to come to the experimental station or to district variety trials to select and take seed from the varieties they consider promising. In another form, a group of farmers may implement a community evaluation trial or farmers may be given materials to grow and evaluate on their own farm.

The greatest draw-back with such projects is that they require considerable input from NGOs whose commitment to long-term projects is still to be fully analyzed to facilitate the process and from NARS and public extension who backstop the technical aspects of the process.

3.4 Access to seed.

Source of seed production always requires particular care and supervision. In traditional local seed systems once the women had selected variety and the planting material, the responsibility for maintaining the true characteristics of a variety, particularly important for household food security and/or socio-economic concern, often rested with the men in seed gardens or specially selected seed plots. This activity is often undertaken by the village seed germplasm repository system, its complexity is determined by socio-cultural factors obtaining in a community. However, changes in socio-political governance of modern communities makes access to technology very difficult, as traditional systems of germplasm transfer have been compromised by modern socio-economic and political factors which have interfaced with the functional cultural organization of farming systems through regulatory framework which deny access to germplasm; for example, compulsory varietal registration and certification.

The National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) in collaboration with International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs) now constitute the most viable alternative and sustainable source of both old and new germplasm. IARCs which fall under the auspices of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) have made concerted efforts world-wide to collect, document and conserve the crop bio-diversity of all important ecotypes world-wide. However, the local germplasm repository system usually has no access to such centres, the main constraints being dysfunctional communication systems which prevent effective network linkages between these groups of participants. The constraints identified between farmers and technology and information sources can be divided into the following categories:

• regulatory: compulsory variety registration often lock-up valuable material which under commercial farming systems may be legitimate but which are not relevant to local farming systems where heterogeneity in traits and diversity in varieties often underpin the success of a farming system to meet the food and socio-economic demands of the family; and

• distance: nearly 70 percent of small scale farmers who rely on local seed systems are to be found in areas with poor and/or inaccessible road and electronic services. This limits interaction between farmers and the service providers.

These constraints have contributed significantly to the decline in crop productivity and increased incidence of food deficits and poverty.

However, The SADC/GTZ project, "Small Scale Seed Production By Self-Help Groups" (SSSP), has successfully launched five pilot informal seed provision systems based on the above concepts in three different SADC countries. Through a network of various projects under its control, SSSP has illustrated that collaborative activities between NARS/IARCs, the farmer, extension services and NGOs can empower farming systems to access germplasm of their preference. While the process requires external stewardship for a year or two, the farmers, through self-help financing, can have access to seed through the network of stakeholders.

4. INTERVENTION STRATEGIES FOR RESTORING PLANT GENETIC RESOURCE

4.1 Participatory variety selection

Participatory variety selection based on technology stored in various gene-banks under the control of institutions affiliated to CGIAR and NARS offer the most cost-effective method for increasing both crop and variety biodiversity. These have a tendency to be restricted in their application by various institutional release processes. A successful programme in the Manica Province was set back three years when it fell foul to restrictive compulsory release processes designed to control entry of hybrid and other exotic material.

It is recommended that the FAO, through NARS, harmonize regulations to permit easy access of IARC-cleared material into the farming systems of countries in the region. There is evidence that several crop varieties have a wide adaptation to environments in neighbouring countries. Testing of such varieties during favourable conditions will create a data base, which can be drawn on regional variety maps which could be used in a Geographic Information system (GIS). With such a powerful tool, it would be possible to intervene effective with appropriate seed of any crop variety before, during and after emergencies either locally or in countries with a similar ecological profile.

There are organisations trying to develop such a system through regional seed networks. Therefore, collaboration of such activities would go a long way in providing a cost effective method of disaster management at international level. It would then be easy to link NGOs and extension services through such a system.

4.2 Strengthening informal seed systems

Programmes designed to empower small scale farmers to be self reliant in seed provision offer the best option for early intervention by philanthropic organisations. Such programmes have been initiated by SSSP in three SADC countries, and linkages with similar in-country programmes appear to be bearing fruit. This suggests, that with slight modifications, a global informal seed provision systems model can be developed. This could be the basis for an international protocol for disaster mitigation, which could then be used in collaboration with GIS.

4.3 Harmonisation of regional seed laws

Seed laws have often been used to restrict access to technology by small scale resource-poor farmers rather than provide proprietary or quality protection. While phytosanitary requirements deserve a lot of respect, restrictions based on genetic purity of open pollinated varieties is often petty.

The conference is urged to recommend that FAO member countries, remove such punitive regulations wherever they exist.

4.4 Institutional capacity building

While most aid organisations have tended to rely on NGOs to implement their projects, the competency of the majority of these organisations, in particular with relation to seed technology, is questionable. The international donor organisations would be best served if an integrated technological delivery system was developed as that which obtains with GTZ-PRRS and DDAP in Sofala Province of Mozambique.

5. REFERENCES

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Notes

1. Seed Provision Systems in the context of this paper refers to all processes related to variety selection, breeding and development, seed crop production and harvesting, seed conditioning, processing, storage, marketing distribution and technology diffusion
2. Shuttle-variety selection in the context of this paper refers to a process whereby a variety is shifted between different environments until its genotype adapts to given environmental conditions.

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