Growing African attention to seed quality management

High quality seed is as important as good soil preparation as a start to the process of getting good crop yields.

There are increasing efforts all over Africa to teach smallholder farmers the importance of effective seed selection and preservation. Seed management issues are also getting more attention with the growing awareness of the vital role smallholder farmers play in preserving Africa's rich but threatened species biodiversity.

In early February a four-day training course on seed management was held in Rwanda for farmers from that country and neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. Participants were drawn from agriculture associations and cooperatives.

In Zimbabwe leading seed production company Seed Co has contracted smallholder farmers as outgrowers of various kinds of seed. Seed Co recently said it had increased the production of hybrid maize seed from 14 500 tonnes to 22 000 tonnes through a contract-growing project with new farmers. The national seed-maize requirement is 40 000 tonnes per season.

A company spokeswoman said the farmers all initially go through intense training that can take more than three growing seasons. "Farmers who grow seed for Seed Co enter into contracts that ensure the security of germ plasm, seed quality and viability of both the grower and the company through enhanced productivity,’’ she said.

Trained production officers in the company's laboratory carefully monitor production to meet the stringent local and international standards required of seed maize.

While there is a lot of money and attention focused on high-yielding hybrid seeds of various types particularly in the commercial seed sector, those in sustainable agriculture caution that the best chance of hybrids to realize those high yields is under conditions that are increasingly difficult for many African farmers, particularly smallholders, to attain. They point out that to actually yield their high potential, many of the hybrids also require large amounts of nutrients and water at a time when African soils are increasingly fatigued and sufficient water availability is ever more uncertain.

For instance, while hybrid maize has done well for large-scale commercial farmers who can afford synthetic fertilizers and have access to irrigation, the results have been mixed with poor farmers growing the crop on marginal soils with little or no fertilizer and depending on rain.

There is an argument that while the renewed focus on seed quality is good for all farmers, African smallholders should particularly be steered towards better management of and more reliance on well-adapted "traditional" open-pollinated varieties than on hybrids. It is thought by some that it is better for smallerholders to rely on hardy, drought-tolerant varieties than on hybrids whose high-yielding potential may not be easily achievable by the smallholders for a variety of environmental and economic factors.