How to tackle the challenges for seed system changes?

An international multi-stakeholder workshop on Seed Systems Development was held at ILRI Addis Ababa campus, Ethiopia, on 17 May 2019. The meeting report was published on 28 June and is available here on the Dutch Food & Business Knowledge Platform.

Although the workshop was not focused specifically on the private sector, the private sector and public-private partnerships are considered to be an important part of the seed system. The presentation More choice – better access. Seeds2B programme by Ian Barker (Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture) demonstrated how the Syngenta Foundation contributes to developing the seed sector in African countries, in collaboration with local seed enterprises. He considered that the private sector can deliver the improved seeds for some crops, while for subsistence crops is it difficult to get private sector on board. A PPP approach is required for progress for less commercial crops. Companies can introduce new varieties, they negotiate with the public breeders to take a seed to the market, realizing high levels of investment may be required. And Ian Barker concluded:

We remain committed to work with CGIAR, NARS and other colleagues to share and co-develop best practice in seed technology-transfer.

A few remarks from participants followed, which stressed the need for incentives ‘to get big companies on the ground in our countries’ and the importance of looking at the local level.

In the interactive panel, one of the main themes was focused on the private sector, namely how varieties from public breeding programmes should be multiplied under exclusive user right agreements with private seed companies. The conclusions of this panel were:

1. Private companies play a key role in making seed varieties available to farmers; they are reducing the financial burden of public breeding programmes.
2. For a number of specific crops exclusive licensing is important to encourage private companies to take up the varieties in their portfolio for seed production, giving them a competitive advantage in the seed market;
3. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) frameworks include exception clauses that may be applied to make sure poor farmers’ access to seeds is not compromised.
4. Private companies are not interested in multiplying seeds of subsistence crops; this means that these type of agreements wouldn’t necessarily help improving access to seeds for crops that are key for household food and nutrition security;
5. Women often use the informal system. If you work only through the formal system, you may risk to exclude them;
6. Currently, community seed systems are playing an integral role in supplying quality seed for farmers, thus multiplication should not be limited to private seed companies. There may be a risk that community based seed systems cannot compete with these protected varieties.

Immediately prior to the workshop, the kick-off meeting of nine NWO-WOTRO Seed System Development Research projects took place. The nine awarded project consortia consist of Dutch research institutes, CGIAR research centers (through CGIAR research programmes or platforms), and (local) partners from the public and private sector. Specific seed systems addressed are cassava, maize, groundnut, vegetables, cocoa, forage seed, tilapia and chicken, while some projects have a more general focus on improving the functioning and inclusiveness of seed systems and (actors in) markets.

The workshop was organized by CGIAR, the government of the Netherlands, USAID, Integrated Seed Sector Development - Africa (ISSD-Africa), NWO-WOTRO, Food & Business Knowledge Platform and AgriProFocus, subsequent to the CGIAR systems council meeting and an internal meeting on Seed Systems Development with research teams. The objective of the workshop was to create interest among key international and regional agri-food sector actors and investors to collaborate in further enabling and scaling genetic improvement and propagation materials (seeds). The workshop gathered around 90 local and international experts to explore how to jointly tackle major bottlenecks at systematic level in the functioning of seed systems.