Understanding and Strengthening Informal Seed Markets

Abstract

SUMMARYInformal markets receive little attention from governments and researchers, despite their centrality to farmers' seed security. This paper documents the importance of informal markets for supplying seed and restocking critical plant genetic resources in normal and stress periods. It analyses farmers' rationales for using such markets and their strategic actions in selecting out seed from grain. Conceptual aids for differentiating among market goods -grain, 'implicit seed' and seed -are presented, including tracing of agro-ecological seed sources, traders' seed management behaviour and seed/grain price patterns. Ethiopian case material gives rare insight into how different scales of traders manage the seed/grain divide. Better understanding of informal markets is an important precursor to strengthening them as such markets have unrealized potential to deliver more and higher quality seed, and a greater range of modern and local varieties. Support for informal seed markets could usefully feature in rural livelihood and social protection programmes, but this will require basic shifts in interventions and further refinements in market analysis.

Seed systems smallholder farmers use

“…Maize is the referent group for crop clusters; while there is little difference between maize and other cereals, legumes are significantly more likely to be obtained from local markets, vegetative crops less. This supports arguments made elsewhere (Sperling and McGuire 2010) that local market provision is especially important for legumes.…”

“…For these latter crops, small seeds and dry storage conditions present fewer challenges to self-storage than for legumes such as beans (Sperling and McGuire 2010). Use of social networks was noted in greatest quantity for the VPCs, partly as the market option here is so limited.…”

“…Some parallel trends were noted in the SSSA for Kenya and from a number of other studies that contained more extensive socio-economic background information. In one Rwandan study from the early 1990s, the poorer segments bought 90 % of their bean seed from local markets for the main growing season, compared to 6 % for the relatively rich (CIAT 1991;in Sperling and McGuire 2010).…”

“…This gap is partly due to a reluctance by formal sector actors to consider goods from such channels as representing potential seed at all, and their assessing use of market seed as 'risky' (Lipper et al 2010;Sperling and McGuire 2010). In contrast, farmers in select parts of the world explicitly use the market to defer risk: they sell legumes at harvest and buy back seed at sowing time, so as to transfer the risk of storage losses over to traders (example, Haiti SSSA).…”

Accelerating genetic gains in legumes for the development of prosperous smallholder agriculture: integrating genomics, phenotyping, systems modelling and agronomy

“…Legume seeds also suffer from loss of germination faster than cereals, especially in hot, humid environments. Seed producers and traders must meet these challenges by investing in proper storage, thereby increasing the willingness of farmers to buy seed regularly off-farm with an assurance of better quality than farm-save seed (Sperling and McGuire, 2010). Besides these challenges, legumes are highly self-pollinated and it is assumed that farmers save their own seed for several seasons and do not need to buy new seed each season, which makes it difficult for seed companies to predict demand for seed.…”