Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE)-listed investment holding company Zeder has acquired a 40 percent stake in East African Seed Company for undisclosed price.
Zeder, focused on food and related business, said it made the investment in the Kenyan seed vendor through its agriculture inputs subsidiary Zaad Holdings. The deal is subject to regulatory approvals in Kenya and South Africa, said Zeder.
The Nairobi headquartered firm was established in 1972. Its operations have expanded beyond Kenya to other East and Central African regions including Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia.
Its seeds are distributed through a network of dealers and stockists in major cities.
The firm said the investment will give it a foothold in the regional market where agro-dealing businesses have thrived in recent years as small holder farmers — the backbone of the sector turn to various inputs including fertilisers, certified seeds, agrochemicals and farm equipment to boost yields.
Full article...
September 12, 2019
South African Firm Acquires 40 % Stake In East African Seed
June 13, 2012
'Agribusiness support for G8 proposal is a sales pitch for their products'
The battle lines over the G8 nations' New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition were very quickly drawn after the announcement of the initiative.
On one side mainly American and European companies had their press releases gushingly supporting the plan all ready, complete with how many millions they were going to generously throw at the Africans. The wording was such that one would initially think these businesses had become philanthropists, as if they had suddenly decided that it was not politically correct to be seen to be looking for business opportunities.
But it was not hard to see the reason for their enthusiasm. The G8 plan puts the 'donor' countries' agribusiness corporations at its center. Is that necessarily bad? After all, there are arguably few people in the world today who do not regularly consume one or another product made by global agribusiness.
The problem is that there is very little linkage between the business model of American and European agribusiness and the reality of small scale African farmers, who are ostensibly the target beneficiaries of the G8 plan. The 'investment' that agribusiness will obviously be most interested in is simply and primarily to increase their market share in Africa, which is perfectly understandable. But not everyone accepts that this would coincide with the best interests of African farmers.
Certainly, making millions of African farmers new and bigger customers of U.S.and European agribusiness would help explain the salivating eagerness of these companies to support the G8 plan.
So a suspicion amongst cynics is that it is another aid programme, but mainly for Western agribusiness to get a bigger foothold in African agriculture, rather than primarily to assist African farmers to improve their lot.
That is the gist of an article by Julian Oram, 'Sustainable Intensification in Africa Feeds the Greedy Agribusiness.' Oram works for Greenpeace.
June 06, 2012
Zimbabwean seed company targets Nigerian market
Zimbabwe-based Seedco is due to sell its first pack of seed in the Nigerian market during the 2013 — 2014 season.
May 31, 2012
Rust-resistant Zimbabwean soya bean varieties raise interest in Brazil, US
The dominant narrative in many media about Zimbabwe and farming is that it is the country that went from 'regional breadbasket to basket case.' This is attributed to a controversial land reform exercise that dispossessed the country's once-dominant white farmers and parcelled out the land to (take your pick depending on your point of view) (a) hundreds of thousands of established and aspiring black farmers from whose fore bearers the land had been grabbed a hundred years ago by colonial governments or (b) 'Mugabe's cronies,' who can't tell a pick from a shovel, or a grain of seed from a grain of fertilizer.
All of this is simplistic and incomplete nonsense, but so many people all over find the mere mention of the word 'Zimbabwe' such a blood pressure-raising subject that few are interested in doing anything more than venting their spleen on the issue.
What is not widely known is that part of Zimbabwe's agricultural success invloved a sophisticated research capability, and that portions of it have endured the ten years of general economic and political upheaval from about 2000 to 2010.
The production of soya beans, used in pressing for oil and as an important part of livestock feed, suffered tremendously and is still battling to recover. Nevertheless, research in soya production has produced much sought-after rust-resistant soya bean varieties that have attracted interest as far as Brazil and the US, both countries soya research and production powerhouses, according to Zimbabwe's agriculture minister.
"We are the largest producers of rust-resistant soya bean," Joseph Made boasted at a Harare conference in April. "That material (soya bean) we are now sending to Brazil and the US (is) developed in our own seed houses," he said, while emphasising government's long-held position against the importation of genetically
modified grains.
Despite this success, the many problems still plaguing agriculture mean that the new in-country developed rust-resistant soya varieties have not led to the recovery of Zimbabwe's soya bean self-sufficiency.
The Financial Gazette (20 April 2012) reports that local 'cooking oil processing industries have been spending US$180 million year on imports to make up for Zimbabwe's soya production shortfall. An industry executive said the country imported 60,000 tonnes of soya seed oil from South Africa annually, valued at US$90 million. 144,000 tonnes of soya meal are also annually imported from India.
''We have the ability of sending US$180 million per year to India and South Africa for these two products; (but) our farmers require US$120 million per year to produce them. Why not give our farmers the money and save US$60 million?" asked the executive.
Banks in Zimbabwe are as chicken about agricultural lending as anywhere else, a fear compounded by the lingering after-effects of the still unresolved discussion over post land reform farm property rights and security of tenure/collateral issues.
African Agriculture
February 16, 2012
Ugandan entrepreneur flourishes in seed business by helping farmers sell their produce
by Edgar R. Batte
As an employee at a seed company, Eva Kabejja Luwerekera (33) she knew she was not going to report to someone forever, so she was motivated to identify opportunities.
So she studied the way her employer did business. Her idea was to work with the farmer in a partnership in which her end of the bargain was to train and market their produce.
“We work with over 2000 farmers in groups. When I was working for the seed company,
many farmers kept asking if we would buy their produce after selling them seed, but unfortunately, seed companies mostly cared about selling their seed than buying produce,” narrating how she nurtured her business idea. “So I decided to come up with a model that would complete the entire value chain, where farmers would get everything they needed.
Luwerekera is now the Managing Director of Kiva Agro Supplies Ltd says. She is a graduate who majored in Chemistry and Biology, qualifying as a high school Chemistry teacher.
How did she end up in agriculture?
“I taught for a short while but realized that I was not utilizing my potential to the full. So I left teaching and got a small job in a seed company as a sales representative. That’s where I came into close contact with farmers and developed a longing to be part of the solutions to their problems,” she recollects.
Ms Kabejja has grown Kiva from nothing to an agro company with an annual turnover of Shs900 million. “I just had very insignificant savings, but built the foundation on honesty and quality,” she shares.
Those values in addition to her good marketing skills set her off. She would walk into people’s offices, market her company, promise quality, and get people to like her personally.
“…then they would offer me what I would call small sympathy deals, which I would execute to their satisfaction. At that time, I did everything myself because I didn’t have a single office employee,” she recounts.
Gradually, people noticed the difference between her services and other seemingly big companies and entrusted her with bigger contracts.
Challenges are part of running business. “At times I receive poor quality produce from farmers, less capital to execute large contracts and very unrealistic deadlines. But with repeated training, poor quality produce is becoming less, and I have always encouraged my clients to advance a percentage of the payments to help me finish the contract,” she explains.
Her best day in business was, “The day I received my first over Shs400-million contract. I realized that, ‘yes I can.’.
Her other career highlight was winning at the Young Achievers’ Awards for her innovation. “Receiving the Younger Achievers Award in the presence of two Heads of State was big for me,” she says.
The Monitor
February 12, 2012
‘Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa is a major assault on seed sovereignty’
Poor rain, access to inputs and finance may slow Zimbabwe agriculture recovery in 2012
Uganda: help save farmer-saved seed from GMOs onslaught
January 07, 2012
South Africa: benefits of Pioneer-Pannar seed companies' merger over-stated
by Amanda Visser
The benefits and improved efficiency from a merger by seed breeders Pannar Seed and Pioneer Hi-Bred were overstated and not sufficient to offset the harm if the merger was allowed, South Africa's Competition Tribunal has said.
However, the parties said yesterday they disagreed with the tribunal’s reasons for prohibiting their deal, saying they believed the transaction would bring farmers more product choice and better products faster.
They will continue their appeal process and will study the tribunal’s reasons to amend or supplement their documents before the Competition Appeal Court.
The tribunal last week for the first time set out its reasons for prohibiting the transaction that would have led to a permanent change to the market structure by reducing the number of major competitors in the maize seed market from three to two.
The transaction would have resulted in a duopoly, with the three largest players, Monsanto, Pioneer and Pannar, being reduced to two players.
The three together hold 95% of SA’s national hybrid maize seed market. The Competition Commission, which has the jurisdiction to decide on intermediate mergers such as the one between Pannar and Pioneer, prohibited the transaction early this year, saying it would substantially lessen or prevent competition in the hybrid maize seed market.
The parties then took the commission’s decision on review to the tribunal, which in October also prohibited it after a public hearing that lasted three weeks.
In a statement, the parties said they were closely reviewing the tribunal’s reasons. "Pioneer and Pannar disagree with the tribunal’s decision, but it would be inappropriate to comment on specific points or any future actions by Pioneer and Pannar until we’ve had time for a thorough review."
However, they said they remained confident that their transaction "would increase the pace and scope of research and innovation, bringing farmers in SA and throughout Africa more product choices and better products faster and more efficiently than either company could do on its own".
The transaction was approved by several other authorities, including in Kenya, Malawi, Namibia and Zambia.
The tribunal said the proposed merger was likely to give rise to "very significant anticompetitive unilateral price increases" in the overall South African hybrid maize seed market.
"The efficiencies claimed by the merging parties, namely cost savings by Pannar from accessing Pioneer’s global licensing agreements, and dynamic efficiencies from merging their genetic pools and breeding technologies, were overstated," the tribunal said.
The parties suggested capping prices, but the tribunal found this was not a workable remedy as it was of limited duration and only related to Pannar’s products.
Business Day
January 06, 2012
SADC establishes seed center
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has established a centre to address seed supply challenges in the region.
The SADC Seed Centre is aimed at facilitating the co-ordination and implementation of the regional Harmonised Seed Regulatory System (HSRS).
The centre is housed at the SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre in Lusaka, Zambia, and is financially supported by the Swedish Development Co-operation (SDC) and United States Agency for International Development (USAid).
The HSRS, which was endorsed at the 2007 SADC Council of Ministers meeting, aims to increase the number of available seed varieties to farmers, promote investment in the seed sector, and make it easier and cheaper for seed companies to introduce seed varieties in other SADC member states.
In a statement issued last week, SADC Seed Centre interim co-ordinator, Kalipochi Kawonga, explained that the seed supply systems in the region are currently weak and the movement of seeds from one country to another is problematic due to fragmented regulatory frameworks.
"Access and availability of quality seeds to farmers continue to impede agricultural productivity in the region, despite agriculture being one of the most important sectors for economic development," he said.
Programme officer for cereal production at the SADC Secretariat, Simon Mwale, said the use of improved seeds amongst small-scale farmers is low and rarely exceeds ten per cent in most SADC member states, and yet these farmers produce up to 80 per cent of the key staple food crops in the region.
"If the regional HSRS is successfully implemented, both national and regional seed suppliers will find SADC a more attractive market with lower costs and simpler administration of seed trade," he said.
Overall benefits will include increased investments in the seed sector, increased seed production, access to more varieties, and increased competition.
Farmers will eventually be offered access to a wider portfolio of quality seed products at a more affordable price.
The SADC HSRS comprises three components, namely the SADC Crop Variety Release System; the SADC Seed Certification and Quality Assurance System, and SADC Quarantine and Phytosanitary Measures for Seed.
The SADC Variety Release System provides for a shorter period of testing and releasing on new varieties instead of the current system of testing new varieties for two to four years in each member state.
Under the HSRS, a variety ought to be released in two member states and thereafter that variety will qualify to be marketed in the entire SADC region where the agro-ecological conditions suitable for that specific variety are similar.
"This is an improvement to the current scenario where seed markets are segregated, small, and difficult to access. In each country a new variety must go through lengthy variety testing and release procedures before seed can be marketed," said Mwale.
In addition, seed companies are compelled to select only a few countries in which to invest in variety testing and release. However, this denies or delays farmers' access to new products.
The SADC Seed Certification and Quality Assurance System introduces the use of common terminologies, standards, procedures, seals, labels and a certification scheme in order to guarantee the production and sale of high quality seed throughout the region, while the SADC Phytosanitary Measures for Seed System promotes the safe movement of seed with respect to pests and diseases.
Mwale said the existing variations in national standards for seed certification and quality control and in quarantine and phytosanitary measures for seeds also complicate the trading of seed between countries and cause difficulties for the efficient movement of emergency seed consignments.
The HSRS seeks to address the aforementioned problems by integrating smaller and isolated national seed markets into one larger SADC market for seeds.
This, in turn, will promote the entry of new improved varieties in the region and ease the movement of quality seed from countries with surplus to countries in need of seed.
December 06, 2011
Agricultural crop adaptation not on agenda at Durban climate change talkshop
by Peter Guest
As policymakers head to Durban for another round of high-level sparring on emissions reduction, it is unlikely there will be much talk of yams or sorghum, or of soil acidity and tillage.
Finding a way to meld the macro-level diplomacy of the Conference of the Parties summit with the practical, micro-level solutions needed to protect agricultural communities and their crops from the effects of climate change is, many experts say, crucial to translating consensus and goodwill into meaningful action.
Farmers face new and extreme climatic conditions, and must adapt their practices and crops to allow for sudden, temporary shifts in weather patterns.
This needs a focus on the crops themselves, experts say, and action in the near term to make sure that, whether mitigation efforts curtail the worst effects of anthropogenic climate change or not, there are plant varieties capable of withstanding the shifting weather.
As Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, says: "I don't think that people have begun to grapple with the enormity of the problem… agricultural crop adaptation really isn't even on the agenda. All our efforts at the macro-level are clearly going to fail as the crops die in the field."
Mari Tefre/ Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the
Arctic island of Spitsbergen
Mr. Fowler is the architect of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, an underground facility on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen, funded by the Norwegian government. The vault is designed to house a gene bank, containing seed samples from around the world, to prevent the diversity of crop types from being lost.
These different varieties could contain traits that will be critical to solving many of the challenging new conditions that farmers face. Breeding useful characteristics—such as drought or flood tolerance—into crops is an ancient science, but it takes time.
Without sufficient focus on these micro-level issues, however, there is a danger, Mr. Fowler believes, that real crops in real fields don't get adapted. "I'm sorry to say but we're really going to have to get our hands dirty," he says. "This is getting us out of the realm of policy and big intergovernmental meetings, we're going to have to… figure out what it's going to take to help the crops adapt."
The entire pipeline, from finding and indexing traits, to storing them, making them available to researchers and getting them into the breeding system needs to be developed. "I guess what we find alarming is the assumption that that's just going to happen by itself, without planning and without investment," Mr. Fowler says. "That doesn't happen overnight. It's a 10-year process."
The 20th-century heralded the transformative effects of new varieties and is a century often hailed as an exemplar for development actors looking to boost Africa's agricultural output. The Green Revolution in South Asia in the 1970s, for example, was in part driven by a major investment in new, high-yielding varieties of rice, developed with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation—as well as through significant expenditure on infrastructure and fertilizers.
Hailed in some quarters as a 21st-century iteration of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding research into crop science innovations that could simultaneously improve productivity and protect against climatic shifts. Lawrence Kent, who heads the foundation's research and development program on agricultural development, says that he must first establish what crops are most important to people. "That leads us towards the staple crops, like maize and sorghum, cassava, rice, even some of the tubers and legumes. We try to focus our research on those crops," he says.
The practical challenges are not dissimilar from the perennial question of how to improve food security in the developing world. There has always been a pipeline of improvements that could be made. What has changed today is the urgency with which that pipeline has to flow. "Now, because of climate change and the additional, accelerated levels of threats that are coming on the abiotic side—things like drought and flooding and higher levels of heat—it becomes even more important to accelerate the crop improvement process," Mr. Kent says.
The Gates Foundation's programs have already led to innovations that may have profound affects. The Stress Tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia, or Strasa project, which works on developing rice that can resist droughts, prolonged flooding and mineral contamination has been adopted by large numbers of farmers in India, and should be rolled out to Africa over the next few years.
A program at the Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo in Mexico, has led to the development of more than 80 drought-tolerant varieties of maize, which could allow farmers to boost harvests by 30% in drought conditions.
However, experts warn that time is short. Bruce Campbell, a veteran South African climate and agricultural expert who now heads the climate change, agriculture and food security program at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, doubts that any one innovation will emerge. It will take hard graft and a lot of ground-level research.
"If you think about African agricultural systems, they are so diverse that even a fantastic rice breakthrough is not going to do anything for the granite sands of Zimbabwe," he says. "I think there have to be lots of breakthroughs, but it's not going to be this big silver bullet that takes off everywhere."
Even so, Mr. Campbell remains optimistic. "I think if you put all of [the developments] together, in two decades time we could be seeing an entirely different scenario in Africa, potentially."
Wall Street Journal
November 30, 2011
Nigerian government, banks to fund fertilizer, seeds supply
by Sunday William & Olayemi R. Ibrahim
The Nigerian federal ministries of finance and agriculture on 29 Nvember signed a 30 billion Naira (1 US$ = 161.71 NGN; December 8 2011) worth Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with commercial banks in the country for the supply of fertilizers and seeds to farmers in the coming 2012 farming season.
Speaking at the signing of the tripartite MoU between the ministries and the banks, Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo Nweala said the objective was to grow agriculture so that Nigerians could have cheap food on their tables, provide jobs for millions of young people and also achieve food security which is becoming increasingly important in today’s world.
Okonjo-Iweala gave a breakdown of the loan indicating that N22.6 billion is earmarked for financing fertilizer, N2.7 billion for seeds procurement and the balance for agro-dealers in which each of them would be entitled to N3 million.
She added that the loan shall be made available to registered agriculture input dealers across the six geo political zones at a subsidized interest rate of 7 percent per annum with the Ministry of Finance guaranteeing 70 percent of the loan principal payment.
It is envisaged that the partnership will ensure that at least 500, 000 farmers would have access to the agriculture input and the initiative to create about 3,500 jobs and also generate 20 million metric tons of food.
The minister said the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) programme, which is private sector driven and being supported under the financing arrangement with the government guarantee covering 70 percent of the total loan (about N17 billion of the loan amount) replacing the old inefficient fertilizer system that was led by the government.
The Minister of agriculture Akinwumi Adesina said the role of the government was to provide enabling environment for farmers and not to procure and distribute fertilizers adding that the federal government believes that agriculture is not a government development project but a business.
“Fertilizer is like other commodities in the market, if you can get coca-cola in the market you can also get fertilizer without any problem,” he said.
The chairman of bankers association of Nigeria, Aigbojie Aig-Imoukhuede said the loan will be available over the next 30 days.
Daily Trust
November 11, 2011
Controlling seeds, first link in food-chain: U.S.aid policy mandates use of GM technologies
by Nidhi Tandon
Thanks to the US’s 2009 Global Food Security Act, food aid policy for the first time mandates the use of genetic modification technologies. Nidhi Tandon looks at how this legislation helps biotechnology companies monopolise the seed industry at the expense of farmers, and explores some of the dubious links between these corporations, the Gates Foundation and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.
In March 2009, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed its Global Food Security Act (SB 384). The legislation, known as the Lugar-Casey Act, aims to focus on longer-term agricultural development, and restructure aid agencies to better respond to crises. Funding for agricultural development – some US$7.7 billion worth – would be directed in large part to genetically modified crop research.[1] In other words, food aid policy for the first time mandates the use of genetic modification technologies. Engineered crops will need engineered seeds – seeds that are no longer a result of natural cross-pollination.
full article...Pambazuka
November 10, 2011
Zimbabwe distributes free inputs to vulnerable farmers
by Jonga Kandemiiri
The Zimbabwean government says it is printing more than one million vouchers to be distributed to farmers through offices of the Agricultural, Technical and Extension Services to provide access to vulnerable growers to Grain Marketing Board planting inputs.
Agritex Principal Director Joseph Gondo said the vouchers, with special security features, should be available for distribution by his office by the end of the week.
Under the US$45 million agricultural inputs subsidy scheme, each farmer considered to be vulnerable is to receive 10 kilograms of maize seed, one 50-kilogram bag of compound D and one 50 kilogram bag of ammonium nitrate fertilizer.
Agronomist Thomas Nherera said that this is a welcome move as the small farmers being targeted produce most of the country's staple maize.
VOA
November 03, 2011
Kenya tackles the challenges of growing seed maize
by Emman Omari and Lucas Barasa
Trans Nzoia is the leading producer of maize, Kenya's staple food. Last year it produced 4.5 million bags.
In pre-independence Kenya, this crop was grown on large land holdings by white farmers, mainly from the United Kingdom and South Africa. Today, the offspring of some of these white farmers still remain in the county but Africans are the majority land owners.
Although, the size of land is fast diminishing due to population growth, it is still common in this county to get farmers owning 800 acres of land.
But the future of this crucial cash and food crop is at a crossroads. A combination of factors, including climate change, expensive inputs and inadequate seed supply have all led to a drop in production.
Farmers for this year's crop had many problems as Kenya Seed, the company that supplies seed, which is naturally located in Trans Nzoia, was unable to satisfy demand for its popular varieties in the region.
The falling yields have seen prices rise sharply in the county and elsewhere in the country.
A 90kg bag of maize is currently selling at Sh2,600, nearly four times its normal cost during harvesting time.
There have been suggestions that growing genetically modified maize is one way of addressing this problem.
But this has led to a big debate between the pro and anti-GM crusaders. Growing this maize will start from the seed availability and Kenya Seed, which supplies Kenyan farmers with nearly all their seed needs, is not keen on the matter, at least for the moment.
With the shortage of seed maize experienced earlier this year and the ever rising population, should the company on which the entire country depends go GM?
"We will not close our eyes on GM, but for now we are not on it as we have sufficient capacity to meet farmers' needs," said Mr Alfred Busolo, the parastatal's deputy managing director.
According to him, the US is 90 per cent behind GM seeds while the European Union has resisted its introduction for same reasons Kenyans fear.
"The EU fears genetically modified food will puff up their bodies in the same way chicken broilers do," he said.
The hybrid, he said, which was researched and introduced in 1965 has equally good yields that could provide future foods.
Mzee Wilson Tallam of Toro Farm in Saboti, who has grown maize since 1972, agrees.
For him the danger lies in the sub-division of land into uneconomical portions due to population pressure, expensive inputs and poor prices for producers.
"For instance last year we sold our maize at Sh900 to Sh1,000 per bag only for the price to shoot later to more than Sh4,000 for the same amount," Mzee Tallam said. This year, he put 60 acres of his farm under maize up from the usual 20 acres. However, he said production in the county had been falling due to increased population.
Trans Nzoia is the most densely populated county in Rift Valley with 328 people per square kilometre. The land sizes are becoming smaller and smaller as the population grows compromising production.
Mzee Tallam said he was not ready to switch to GM seed to yield more bags of maize per acre.
"The seeds we are getting from Kenya Seed are good. For instance my harvest stands at 80 bags of unshelled maize per acre. The harvest is good. There is no need for GMOs," he said.
Production will drop further as more small scale farmers switch to higher income alternative cash crops.
Mr Titus Imayah of Wehoya Farm said growing of bananas and other short-term crops was picking up fast.
Kenya Seed's Busolo said people should end over reliance on maize. "They should diversify to eat other ugali like from millet and sorghum whose seeds we have," he said. However, he said, the company's research teams were ready to go should the Government make a final decision on the GM issue.
Mr Tony Mills, one of the three remaining white farmers in the county, is opposed to GM.
"The GM seeds are not good, they will be harmful to our environment," he said at his farm in Lokitela.
Mr Mills, 66, who has 874 acres, has 130 of them under maize, the third biggest individual supplier of seed maize to Kenya Seed.
But Mr Wilberforce Kisiero, who owns 790 acres with 230 under maize, commented, "The country has no alternative but to introduce GM seeds in the future because we have failed to control population that is ever on the rise."
He thinks that is the only way Kenya will feed its people because GM seeds have a higher yield.
Naivasha MP John Mututho has been leading a crusade against importing GM foods.
And what is Kenya Seed's strategy for avoiding future shortages of seed?
Mr Busolo acknowledged that land sub-division is a threat to both seed production and food.
Other than the Agricultural Development Corporation which has the biggest farms, it was unrealistic for the dwindling acreages to do seed farming.
Seed required 200 metres around the crop to avoid polluted pollination from other crops.
To solve this, the company introduced "Seed Villages" where a group of farmers in the same locality jointly grow seed maize. That way, no farmer lost buffer zone land. Since its introduction, the village acreage has grown from 22,000 acres to 37,000.
The company has also introduced irrigation farming, growing seed maize beyond Trans Nzoia which relies on rain. It has 5,000 acres in Bura (Tana River), Malindi (Kilifi) and Ahero (in Kisumu) which will increase to 9,000 next year.
"We can increase this acreage if the Government invests heavily in irrigation in the Highlands rivers and not in lower ones which sometimes run dry," the company's deputy MD Alfred Busolo said.
To help ease pressure on Kenyan seed in the region, the company has satellite stations in Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.
Studies are underway to open other stations in South Sudan, Puntland and Bandundu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"From the lessons we have learnt, our new strategy is that never, and never again shall we have seed shortage in our country," he said.
The Daily Nation
October 24, 2011
Zimbabwe in seed maize surplus, export ban lifted
Agriculture, Permanent Secretary Cde Ngoni Masoka said government lifted the suspension following clear indications that seed producers could meet local demand.
He said his ministry had invited the producers to apply for export permits, but none had come forward.
Government suspended maize seed exports five years ago after high demand for the product resulted in shortages. Some seed houses then opened branches in countries such as Zambia, Malawi, Kenya and Tanzania ostensibly to circumvent the measures.
However, seed output shot up to 70 000 tonnes this season against a demand of 55 000 tonnes.
Seed Co managing director Mr Dennis Zaranyika said his company alone had produced 45 000 tonnes. He said Seed Co welcomed the lifting of the ban, saying had so far supplied 750 tonnes of the seed to the Mozambican market.
“We have managed to reach the country’s targeted requirement of seed with surplus piled up in our warehouses. We hope to export this consignment once we get export permits,’’ he said.
Pioneer Hi-Breed Zimbabwe regional agronomist Mr Simba Gotosa said his company produced more than 10 000 tonnes of seed. He said it would soon apply for an export permit.
October 17, 2011
South African competion regulator turns down Pioneer-Pannar merger
South Africa’s Competition Tribunal has prohibited the merger between the US multinational Pioneer Hi-Bred International, and SA's Pannar Seed.
October 03, 2011
Traditional vs hybrid seed debate looms large in proposed Pioneer take over of South Africa's Pannar Seeds
(1) Old-style seed keeps farmers poor, says Pioneer head
by Hopewell Radebe
The call by nongovernmental organisations for small- scale farmers to have access to open pollination variety seeds is misplaced, and likely to condemn them to subsistence farming methods and poverty in the 21st century, says Paul Schickler, president of Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a subsidiary of US-based DuPont.
He says while it is farmers’ choice to opt for old-fashioned and low-yielding open pollination seeds, which they can sun- dry and save for the next season, Pioneer’s experience worldwide is that farmers want access to "good quality and high- yielding seed" to prosper.
Mariam Mayet, director of the African Centre for Biosafety, says the centre has intervened in the Competition Tribunal hearing on the merger between Pioneer and Pannar Seeds, which produces open pollination variety seeds among others, to raise concern about "the imbalances in the food chain and the need for protecting small-scale food producers and consumers from the abuse of corporate power".
Represented by Legal Aid SA advocates Steven Budlender and Isabel Goodman, the centre has argued the merger could affect pricing and "the availability of alternative products", particularly open pollination maize seed. There is concern only more lucrative, high- yielding or genetically modified varieties may be made available.
Another concern is the effect on food production and food security, particularly in the light of Pannar’s extensive maize germplasm inventory and the opportunities that it presents for development.
Mr Schickler says Pioneer wants to bring in better genetics and combine this with Pannar’s expertise and understanding of local conditions. However, to secure the merger, Pioneer and Pannar have pledged to keep producing the open pollination variety at the same price for three years and thereafter to increase the price according to inflation.
Mr Schickler says in China, where about 30-million hectares is farmed by 130-million maize farmers exclusively, Pioneer supplies proximately 5-million maize farmers.
While Chinese farmers tend to be crop-specific, in India farmers have a mix of, for example, maize, rice, sorghum and sunflower. Pioneer supplies about 2-million farmers in India. "Our goal is to convince small- scale farmers to get good seed to improve their yields and grow economically as we continue to do in Asia," he says.
"I disagree with interveners who want us to continue to produce open pollination variety to sustain the status quo … this simply sentences a black farmer to subsistence farming for life and they would never get out of the circle of poverty of living one year and barely to the next.
"Instead we can teach them to use better seed, get better results and sell to neighbours and markets, which would get them out of poverty and grow their business like their peers in countries such as China, India, Brazil and Indonesia," Mr Schickler says.
SA has 2,5-million hectares of maize in SA, and with 8-million hectares in southern and east Africa, there are many different climatic zones that need to be understood and properly researched.
He believes it would take more than 20 years to reach the objective of servicing Africa to be as productive as Brazil.
At the moment, Africa’s harvest average one to two tons a hectare, compared with Brazil’s eight tons and 10 tons in the US. SA alone has an average of 4,8 tons per hectare, while its irrigated areas have an average of 15 tons per hectare.
If we are going to help deal with food security issues, nutrition and poverty, Africa’s agricultural revolution must happen, he says.
In Asia and the Pacific about 578- million people are facing starvation — with 239-million of those in sub- Saharan Africa, and 53-million in Latin America and the Caribbean. The near East and north Africa have 37-million starving people, and developed countries 19-million.
It is not just seeds, he says. Pioneer also provides services and education in managing the seed carefully to ensure it delivers better yields.
Africa is the next area in the world that must develop its agricultural production areas holistically with the same vigour as Brazil.
This kind of revolution is now also occurring in eastern Europe, particularly in countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Georgia, Mr Schickler says.
Business Day
(2) Hybrid and GM seed are out of reach for small farmers – African Centre for Biosafety
by Ann Crotty
The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) warned yesterday that effective use of hybrid and genetically modified (GM) seed relied on a package of inputs that cost money and were not available to the majority of small-scale food producers in South Africa.
Mariam Mayet of ACB said hybrid and GM seed could not be saved from season to season, and was unable to adapt over time to the natural environment.
“Hybrid and GM seed are unstable and the traits they were bred for disintegrate after one season. We need ‘old-style’ seed – the open pollinated varieties (OPVs) – to adapt effectively to the challenges of food production into the future.”
Mayet was reacting to comments by Pioneer Hi-Bred International that non-governmental organisations, such as ACB, were focusing on ensuring continued access by small-scale farmers to OPV seed rather than helping to provide them with access to “good-quality” and high-yielding hybrid seed.
The comments were made in the context of the Competition Tribunal’s hearing into the proposed merger between South African-based Pannar Seeds and Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a subsidiary of US-based Du Pont.
The tribunal is hearing closing arguments today in a case that has raised concerns about food security as well as about the rights of a company – Pannar – to determine its future.
Earlier this week ACB, which has been granted intervention status by the tribunal, presented a set of proposed remedies aimed at addressing some of the concerns about the proposed merger.
These proposals were in response to proposed remedies that the merging parties had earlier presented to the tribunal.
Both sets of remedies appear to focus on dealing with the impact the merger will have on small-scale and developing farmers.
The merging parties undertake in their proposed remedies not to increase, for three years after the effective date of the merger, the price of hybrid maize seeds Pannar ordinarily sells to developing farmers; and for an additional three years the price increases will be limited to the increase in the consumer price index.
The merging parties have also undertaken to keep in place these products in sufficient commercial quantities to meet demand from developing farmers.
Pioneer will establish an international research and technology hub in South Africa by 2016. The merging parties have also undertaken “to foster and work with the government to establish further community programmes and partnerships in the interest of developing farmers”.
In response, ACB has called for a set of remedies that will help build smallholder farmers’ capacity to produce seed for themselves and so make them less reliant on large seed companies.
ACB also wants black smallholder farmers to have access to plant material and germ plasm for cultivation to advance their opportunities for production.
To this end, ACB has called for the merging parties to establish a programme to improve maize OPVs and establish a fund that can be drawn on for building seed-production capacity among smallholder farmers.
Mayet said the use of hybrid and GM seed sold by the companies involved not only the purchase of seeds, but also of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, which were often produced by the same companies. The seed also required irrigation and established marketing channels.
“The majority of small-scale food producers in South Africa do not have any hope of gaining sustained access to this package of inputs. They don’t have the resources, and will never have them until there is a fundamental redistribution of wealth in our society as a whole.”
IOL
September 26, 2011
Kenya Seed Company to increase output
by Allan Odhiambo
The Kenya Seed Company plans to lease land to increase its output to match a sharp rise in demand for certified maize seeds both locally and in the region.
Managing director Willy Bett said the parcels offered for lease should be in Trans Nzoia and Uasin Gishu, measure at least 100 acres, be within a seed production block and be detached by 200 metres from commercial fields.
The company invited individual landowners, companies or co-operative societies with proof of ownership to take the opportunity on a renewable one-year contract. They only need to show prove of ownership.
Most farmers in the Rift Valley maize growing areas had to endure high prices for the limited available stocks of certified seed while others opted for ordinary low-yielding material for planting.
Demand for certified seeds in East and Central Africa is high owing to ongoing reforms to boost food production. However, most countries in the region now depend on Kenya after the previous main supplier, Zimbabwe cut its output against the backdrop of an economic crisis.
The shortage of seed in April was also blamed on the drought that hit the country in the 2008 and 2009 and adversely affected the seed production.
The Kenya Seed Company has recently increased the number of farmers contracted to grow maize seeds at the Bura and Hola irrigation schemes, where total land stands at 9,000 acres. Other farmers under contract are in Baringo, Taita Taveta, Ahero, Trans Nzoia and Wei Wei.
The Ministry of Agriculture said last week it expects a marginal surplus of about 2.2 million 90kg bags of maize by the end of this year supported by enhanced harvests from the long and short rainy seasons and a steady flow of duty-free imports. It projected that the country would harvest 6.8 million bags of maize from the ended long rainy season between March and May and boost supplies.
Business Daily Africa
August 22, 2011
East African institutes researching new food crop seed varieties
by Nyongesa Wandera
A consortium of East African institutes is researching new seed varieties better suited to dry areas to combat the effects of climate change in the region.
The partnership, comprising seven universities and institutes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, will also disseminate technical knowledge to agricultural extension services and farmers, and promote new insurance and financing schemes for building resilience to climate change.
Heather Grady, a vice-president of the Rockefeller Foundation, said it is part of a US$150 million package for climate change and food security initiatives across Africa in the next four years.
Speaking at a meeting with researchers at Makerere University in Uganda on 4 July, Grady said, "In May, through our grantees, more than a dozen varieties of four crop species — cassava, peanut, cowpea and sorghum — were released, most of them coming from Uganda, and the result of original breeding that made use of local germplasm plus specific traits contributed by material from the group institutions."
The partners will also offer technical training in germplasm, seed selection and climatology, and will disseminate knowledge on climate change. Researchers will work with farmers from mid-2012, engaging them in research developments and the creation and expansion of insurance schemes.
Banks such as the Centenary Rural Development Bank in Uganda will offer insurance against crop failure and loans to farmers. Under the project, the poorest farmers will pay their insurance premiums by providing labour for disaster reduction and resilience-building on their land, while more prosperous farmers will pay the premiums in cash.
Other options will be in place, such as farmers selling their livestock when drought sets in and buying later as the weather improves.
Members of the partnership are Makerere University and the National Agricultural Research Organisation in Uganda; the University of Dar es Salaam and Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania; and the Tegemeo Institute of Agricultural Policy and Development and the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute in Kenya.
SciDev
