Policies for African seed enterprise development

    Trippa, R and Rohrbach, D D (2001) Policies for African seed enterprise development. Food Policy, 26 (2). pp. 147-161.

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    Abstract

    The commercial seed sector has been slow to develop in sub-Saharan Africa. The paper examines the major impediments and identifies areas in which seed policies can be strengthened. Seed enterprise development has been hampered by regulatory frameworks that favor parastatal enterprises and that inhibit commercial innovation. In addition, government and donor projects provide large amounts of free or subsidized seed that further discourages seed enterprise development. In addition to regulatory reform and the curtailment of many seed distribution projects, there are other policy changes that need to be implemented. National agricultural research institutes need to invest more resources in promoting their varieties and helping to stimulate commercial seed production. Greater emphasis is required on regional strategies for public plant breeding and private seed marketing. National policies need to strengthen input marketing capacity and infrastructure. Finally, donors, governments and NGOs should shift from trying to encourage village-level commercial seed production and instead strengthen farmers’ capacities to assess new varieties and to be effective consumers of commercial inputs

    Item Type: Article
    Divisions: UNSPECIFIED
    CRP: UNSPECIFIED
    Uncontrolled Keywords: Africa; Seed policy; Seed projects; Liberalization
    Subjects: Others
    Depositing User: Ms K Syamalamba
    Date Deposited: 11 Oct 2011 10:59
    Last Modified: 31 Dec 2011 05:45
    URI: http://oar.icrisat.org/id/eprint/2297
    Official URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S...
    Projects: UNSPECIFIED
    Funders: Department for International Development
    Acknowledgement: The authors are grateful to the Competitive Research Facility of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) for supporting some of the research presented in this paper. The comments of two anonymous reviewers were also useful. The conclusions are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of ICRISAT, ODI or DFID.
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