Seed Business and Crop Diversity

John MacRobert, 2024

There is a concern amongst some agro-ecologically-minded folk that promotion of seed business in Africa will reduce biodiversity on farms, especially with small-holder farmers. The fact that large-scale commercial farms have little biodiversity is evident from the large fields comprised of few crops and varieties. Likewise, large seed companies generally focus on a few profitable crops and a limited number of varieties in each crop. This is understandable from purely economic and operational perspectives.

Large commercial farms and seed businesses scale few products for efficiencies and simplicity, and the two build complimentary relationships. Although there may be several large seed companies competing in an agro-environment, and while there may be numerous varieties of a crop in the market, the crops remain few, and the varieties are likely to have fairly narrow genetic diversity. This certainly poses a potential risk in the event of climate vagaries or new biotic threats. This was the case in the mid-1990s when Grey Leaf Spot entered the maize crops in southern Africa. Virtually every variety was susceptible to the disease, but seed companies were able to rapidly find resistant varieties and introduce these to farmers who quickly took them up in preference to the use of fungicide applications.

Small holders, on the other hand, generally grow a wide range of crops, such as Bambara nuts, groundnuts, sorghum, millets, cowpeas, rice, cassava, pigeon peas, as well as maize. Many of these crops do not have seed supplies from the formal seed sector. Thus, the varieties grown are usually many, diverse and the seeds are retained and exchanged amongst farmers. Furthermore, for most of the crops listed, breeding programs, if existing, are housed in poorly funded government institutions. And, to top it, for a seed company the margins on the open- or self-pollinated crops are slim, while seed multiplication rates are low and slow.

But, having said that, farmers’ varieties, while diverse and locally adapted, are also often old, low yielding and the seed quality may be poor. Thus, small holder farmers are also vulnerable to the vagaries of climate and biotic threats and may be hindered from achieving higher productivity with the continued use of their unimproved varieties. In the bigger picture of increasing grain markets spurred by urbanization, the desire of wealthier city-dwellers for value added and processed products and the expanding export markets, small holder farmers are likely to be left behind if they cannot meet these market demands for quality, consistency, and quantity of grains. The food industry need the assurance of these supply characteristics to justify investment in value addition and consumer product development.

Solutions to this must be found. First, so that small holder farmers can earn better incomes, second, to maintain crop diversity instead of farmers shifting to the major commodity crops, and third, so that urban consumers can obtain the food they need. Here is where I believe seed business can play a crucial role in producing and making available improved varieties of these diverse opportunity crops.

Over the last few decades, National and International Research Programs have made some investments in breeding improved varieties of some of the crops listed above plus a few other lesser-known crops like amaranth, indigenous vegetables, green gram and sesame. Sadly, however, most of these improved varieties are on the shelf, so to speak, and not in the hands of farmers who could really benefit from them. The only functional way to get these varieties into farmers’ fields is through seed business. This will also stimulate further research and variety development.

Large seed companies are unlikely to pay much attention to these opportunity crops, but locally based small seed businesses may well find their niche and profit in them. I mentioned that many of these crops have low and slow seed multiplication rates, and are not particularly attractive to large scale farmers, either for seed or grain production. Small holder farmers, however, are well skilled and placed to produce seed and grain of diverse crops.

Thus, they may be incorporated into the seed value chain through contract production for local seed companies or be contracted for grain production by aggregators and processors. Seed and grain production may use farmer varieties with defined community benefit sharing or be with improved varieties that are needed to counter climate change, defend against biotic stresses and meet market demands. This is my hope, and it does not necessarily mean there will be an erosion of biodiversity or loss of farmer food and seed sovereignty. Rather, it will lead to improved small holder productivity and livelihoods and create local seed and grain businesses that uplift rural communities.