Informal Seed Traders: The Backbone of Seed Business and African Smallholder Seed Supply

Abstract

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.

Linking Up: The Role of Institutions and Farmers in Forage Seed Exchange Networks of Southeast Asia

“…The participation of traders and veterinarians as seed suppliers was unique to Vietnam and indicates the development of adaptive network pathways for forage dissemination when collective action was less pronounced. Traders have critical roles in many informal seed systems, and calls have been made to rethink their importance in seed supply and security (e.g., Delaquis et al, 2018;Sperling et al, 2020). Despite this, the adoption of improved forage seed was not common.…”

Tapping the Economic Potential of Chickpea in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Seed producer cooperatives have a comparative advantage of delivering seed to farming communities at an affordable price [100]. Sperling et al [101] emphasized the need to focus on the informal seed channels and particularly on traders who move "potential seed" (informal or local seed) even to high-stress areas where commercial companies have closed shop (i.e., conflict zones) or where they have never set foot at all (e.g., remote areas with little infrastructure). The authors have proposed an initial framework to examine entry points of support to ensure informal markets can deliver the seed farmers want and need-via the contact point of traders.…”

“…Agro-dealers, with agricultural input sale points distributed across the region including in a small village, could play a critical role in taking improved chickpea varieties to "the last mile", particularly to places where seed companies may not reach. They have been proved useful to gain access to improved seeds in required quantities including small seed packs [51,101,103] where farmers could buy small quantities at an affordable price to test before going large scale. As pointed out by the AGRA, farming in low-income countries will need to evolve rapidly to remain competitive and gain access to growing urban markets [6].…”

Institutionalizing Quality Declared Seed in Uganda

“…Low adoption rates of improved crop varieties and quality seed are well-known issues in sub-Saharan Africa and have been for decades [3,[6][7][8][9]. Over the last ten to fifteen years, numerous development partners and implementers (public sector, private sector, and nonprofit actors) actively tested and implemented various seed delivery models, addressing the supply/access side of farmers' adoption of quality seed and improved varieties [7]. Many of these input delivery investments focused on maize seed (especially hybrids) and fertilizer [10][11][12][13].…”