- What Goes Down Must Come Up: Global Food Prices Reach New Heights
- Commentary: Toward a New Global Governance System for Agriculture, Food, and Nutrition: What Are the Options?
- Prevention More Effective than Treatment
- Scientific Breakthrough Targets Vitamin A Deficiency in Africa
- Promoting Seed-Sector Reform in Mali
- Lessons to Be Learned from the Dragon and the Elephant
- Interview with R. K. Pachauri, Director General of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi, and Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
- Commentary: Reinvigorating Africa's Agricultural Sector
- Insert: 18th Annual Martin J. Forman Memorial Lecture
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IFPRI ForumIn Mali, grain markets have been liberalized with measurable success, but the liberalization of seed markets for sorghum and millet—the staple crops—has proven to be more difficult, as reported in two recent IFPRI discussion papers.
Despite continuous progress by scientists in breeding well-adapted, high-yielding commercial seed varieties, only an estimated 10 percent of Mali's millet area and less than 20 percent of its sorghum area has been planted with certified seed. This is because many smallholders have limited or no access to certified seed and because they have also been long accustomed to generating their own seed or supplying each other with seed according to clan or ethnolinguistic group. Traditionally, these informal seed systems work quite well, but researchers were surprised to discover that in areas subject to harsh agroclimatic conditions, successive crop failures have caused village seed systems to break down, and local grain markets have become important sources of seed.
This finding led IFPRI researchers to examine seed transactions in a dozen weekly markets in the Sahel region of Mali. They found that no certified seed is available in these markets, but that grain suitable for seed is being sold by primarily female vendors who are also farmers. Because the vendors bring unmixed seed directly from their granaries, the purchasers know the provenance and can depend on its quality—which is especially important in harsh environments where the range of adaptability is very limited.
The first discussion paper, Seed Value Chains for Sorghum and Millet in Mali: A State-Based System in Transition, suggests several initial steps that could be taken to promote more widespread use of certified, high-yielding seeds, such as shortening the certification process, encouraging sales by local agrodealers and traders, and enlisting the help of farmers' associations in testing and promoting demand for certified seed.
On a basic level, seed-sector reform needs to encourage the monetized flow of seed among farmers. The second discussion paper, Trading Millet and Sorghum Genetic Resources: Women Vendors in the Village Fairs of San and Douentza, Mali, indicates that one way may simply be to allow the sale of local seed varieties (which could be protected through less stringent "village" certification) in addition to certified ones. This has the added benefit of not jeopardizing the livelihoods of the female seed vendors in informal rural markets, who may otherwise find themselves displaced by formal markets offering certified seeds.