Africa's agriculture and food systems were already grappling with challenges such as climate change and weather variability, pests and disease, and regional conflicts. With rising new cases of COVID 19 propelling various African governments to enforce strict restrictions of varying degrees to curb the spread. Thus, the pandemic posed unprecedented shocks on agriculture and food supply chains in Sub Saharan Africa. In this study, we use survey data collected from nine countries in Central, Eastern, and Southern, Africa to understand the immediate impact of COVID-19 on production, distribution, and consumption of common beans, and possible food security implications. Descriptive analysis of data collected from bean farmers, aggregators, processors, bean regional coordinators, and mechanization dealers reveal that COVID-19 and government restrictions had impacted the availability and cost of farm inputs and labour, distribution, and consumption of beans in Eastern and Southern Africa. The immediate impacts were dire in Southern Africa with Central Africa slightly impacted. The production and distribution challenges negatively impacted on frequency and patterns of food consumption in households in Africa. Thus, the pandemic poses a greater risk to food security and poverty in the region. Governments could play a significant role in supporting the needs of smallholder farmers, traders and other actors through provision of subsidized agricultural inputs.
To work well and be sustainable, seed systems have to offer a range of crops and varieties of good quality seed and these products have to reach farmers, no matter how remote or poor they may be. Formal seed sector interventions alone are not delivering the crop portfolio or achieving the social and geographic breadth needed, and the paper argues for focus on informal seed channels and particularly on traders who move ‘potential seed’ (informal or local seed) even to high stress areas. This paper provides the first in-depth analysis on potential seed trader types and actions, drawing on data collected on 287 traders working in 10 African countries. The research delves into four themes: the types and hierarchies of traders; the technical ways traders manage seed using 11 core practices; the price differential of +50% of potential (local) seed over grain, and the pivotal roles which traders play in remote and crisis contexts. Traders are the backbone of smallholder seed security and need to be engaged, not ignored, in development and relief efforts. An action framework for leveraging seed trader skills is presented, with the paper addressing possible legal and donor constraints for engaging such market actors more fully.
This article explores the informal seed business, focusing on the yellow bean in Tanzania. The yellow bean is a major bean type traded, yet little is known about the seed supply that fuels it. The survey research in 2019 encompassed larger grain traders, informal seed traders, and retailers, covered major production, distribution and sale hubs, and was complemented by GIS mapping of seed and grain flows and DNA fingerprinting of yellow bean samples. Results showed that traders buy and sell grain and informal seed: it is not one business or the other, but both. Informal seed is an important moneymaker, representing between 15 and 40% of trader business in non-sowing and sowing periods, respectively. In the year monitored, 100% of the yellow bean seed was drawn from the informal sector, amounting to $US 4.35 million just among those sampled. Nevertheless, the informal and formal sectors are clearly linked, as over 60% of the beans sampled derived from modern varieties. Informal traders prove key for: sustaining the grain business, serving the core of the seed business, and moving varieties at scale. More explicit efforts are needed to link the informal sector to formal research and development partners in order to achieve even broader impacts.
Over the past decades, the number of certified organic farms have increased significantly in Uganda. One assumption is that certified organic agriculture contributes to economic, social and ecological health of agroecosystems. In the literature, however, there is thin empirical evidence to support such claims. We therefore developed health indicators and contrasted data from four Ugandan farming systems with principles and objectives of organic agriculture. We identified four health patterns (ecology-driven, economically struggling, socially-driven, and hanging in) demonstrating the impact of farm management on agroecosystem health and trade-offs between health domains. Ecological farm health is strengthened only if the conversion goes beyond 'organic by default'. Marketoriented specialization can create lock-in situations if production strategies cannot be changed easily. Food shortages occur when additional income from certified production does not compensate for the reduced area and effort devoted to food crops. We conclude that the positive effects of organic certification on agroecosystem health cannot be taken for granted. Interventions promoting organic agriculture should acknowledge risks smallholder farmers take by converting to cash crop-oriented certified organic farming. A challenging question will be how aspects of wellbeing and social health can be translated into certification standards and thus product attributes.
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