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C O M M U N I T Y
Seed
Production: Can Farmers Supply
Themselves and Earn a Profit?
“I see children in the classroom who are malnourished, and here we are trying to pump something into their heads! You don’t teach a child who is starving.” Paul Okongo, schoolteacher and farmer in Ochur Village, wanted to assist children and widows in his community. In 1993 he, his wife Joyce, and several village women founded Technology Adoption through Research Organizations (TATRO), a local group whose chief aim is to improve women’s conditions by involving them in agricultural development and small agribusinesses. The association has logged so many accomplishments that Ochur is commonly referred to as “TATRO.”
Their participation in the CIMMYT- Rockefeller seed production project* is one element in a plan that includes crop diversification, seed production and marketing, and information dissemination. TATRO farmers, who are beginning to produce seed of improved maize varieties, hope to supply seed for their own needs and profit by selling the rest to other farmers. An innovation that could help is a communal seed storage bank, which allows participants to deposit and withdraw seed as needed.
Maize in East Africa:
A Litany
of Limitations
Maize is the major staple in Kenya and increasingly important in Uganda. Expanding populations are pushing up the demand for maize by 3% or more each year. “Average per capita consumption is 100 kilograms of maize a year, but one person can eat as much as 200 kilograms,” says Moses Siambi, a researcher seconded to the seed project from the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI). “In a bad year farmers may harvest as little as 180 kilograms of grain per hectare. The average farm family has eight or more members and less than two hectares.”
What keeps yields down? Agriculture is rainfed and conducted within complex, labor-intensive cropping systems beset by frequent droughts, diseases, field and storage pests, weeds, the parasitic flowering plant Striga, and poor soil fertility. As if this were not enough, 65% of Kenya’s populace lives in the Lake Victoria Basin, one of the regions most severely affected by HIV/AIDS worldwide. The disease breaks up households and leaves little labor for fieldwork.
The lack of effective seed production and distribution systems limits the spread of improved maize and farming practices in eastern Africa, according to Stephen Mugo, CIMMYT maize breeder and coordinator of the seed project. “Improved varieties raised yields in the past and could do so again,” he says, “but only about one-fifth of the region’s farmers grow improved varieties.” Even when farmers have cash to spare, they have trouble finding quality seed of varieties that fit their needs, despite the many suppliers.
The project sought to familiarize farmers with the range of improved varieties available. Researchers grew two “mother” trials, each comprising 20 –30 varieties or hybrids, in each participating village; 7–12 farmers per village grew “baby” trials, with each farmer sowing four of the same varieties grown in the mother trial. “The baby trials were laid out in a four-square design, with one variety in each square,” says Siambi. “Farmers could stand in the center of the field and judge performance at a glance. ”The mother trials were sown with and without fertilizer. “The dramatic differences in performance showed farmers the importance of fertilizer,” says Siambi. “This is a major accomplishment, because conventional wisdom in the region is that inorganic fertilizers hurt the soil.”
In 2001, two varieties from CIMMYT’s stress tolerance breeding work for southern Africa—SADVILA and SADVILB—topped the trials in Kenya, beating out even leading hybrids included in the trials for comparison. Farmers in some villages have already begun producing seed of the varieties. The project is increasing foundation seed so others can do the same.
Uganda: Women Propel
Community
Development
“In Uganda improved seed or inputs are not readily available in villages,” says George Bigirwa, head of maize research for the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) and seed project coordinator in Uganda. “But in the last five years farmers have had greater access to credit, inputs can be imported duty-free, and the government has encouraged the establishment of farmer associations.” Governments in both Kenya and Uganda are promoting gender equity to foster development and improve the quality of rural life. Community groups play a key role.
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One such group, the Bakusekamajja Women’s Development Farmers Association in Iganga District in eastern Uganda, participates enthusiastically in the seed project. The association marshals the efforts of more than 450 local farmers. Founder Grace Bakaira first mobilized a handful of women in 1986, organizing training in handicrafts and growing vegetables, but now she catalyzes a range of community and agricultural development activities involving entire families. “People wanted to organize,” she says. “It’s easier to solicit support collectively from NGOs and government agencies."
In an approach like that of TATRO, Bakusekamajja helps women undertake activities that bring money to the family and provide women with some control over resources they generate.
Bakusekamajja began seed production in the mid-1990s. The group has committees for planting, harvesting, and marketing seed. It sells seed of Longe 1 (a cross of Kawanda Composite and CIMMYT population 49) to members at the equivalent of US$0.50 per kilogram—about 20 –40%cheaper than commercial hybrids.
According to CIMMYT maize breeder and seed production expert David Beck, the project gives Bakusekamajja technical support but also learns from the group’s success. “Elements I see include dynamic leadership by Grace Bakaira and her associates, excellent organization, good communication, close partnering with technical organizations such as NARO, good choice of a variety, and careful attention to the details required to produce quality seed,” Beck says. “Last but not least, there is a special bond among members that I can only describe as ‘divine.’ “
Seeking Markets
A common concern voiced by farmers is that of securing markets for grain and, eventually, seed. In its next phase, the project will address the seed market issue. Bakaira recognizes collective organization as a key strategy: “Rather than attempting to sell seed individually, farmers need to pool their seed and seek an external market. ”Quality is crucial: producers of seed must guarantee its genetic purity and ability to germinate. Ensuring purity means separating seed production plots either in distance or time from the pollen of other maize plants. Germination depends in part on proper storage and treatment. “If farmers grow seed properly and harvest and treat it correctly, maybe farmers elsewhere will want to purchase it,” says Bakaira.
Not all farmers have the means or the inclination to produce and market quality seed, but those who do could improve their livelihoods. “We hope the seed reaches farmers who desire quality seed but cannot afford to buy it from companies that operate at high cost,” says Mugo.
Partners in Kenya have included KARI; NGOs such as Catholic Relief Services (CRS) through the Catholic Diocese of Homabay, the Sustainable Community-Oriented Development Programme (SCODP), and CARE-Kenya; many seed companies (Faida Seeds, Lagrotech, Western Seed Company, Kenya Seed Company, Pioneer, and Monsanto); and village schools. In Uganda, the project has worked through NARO, NGOs (IDEA, UNFA), Pannar Seed Co., FICA, Faida Seed, and Western Seed, among others.
* “Strengthening Maize Seed Supply Systems for Small-Scale Farmers in Western Kenya and Uganda.”
For more information:
Stephen
Mugo (s.mugo@cgiar.org)
August, 2004