Grants 2005

Project Abstract

Project Description

Project Activities

Project Outputs

Photo Gallery

Collaborators

a) CIMMYT Maize OPVs registered and produced in South Africa

Kingstone Mashingaidze, Dries Fourie and Jeffrey Mkhari

Agricultural Research Council’s Grain Crops Institute (ARC-GCI)

	Photographs showing the Crown Seeds initiatives in producing, packaging and promoting maize OPV seed, derived from CIMMYT and facilitated by basic seed production by ARC-GCI in South Africa.

Many rural communities in South Africa had no access to improved maize varieties until recently. The Agricultural Research Council’s Grain Crops Institute (ARC-GCI) has been testing and registering CIMMYT maize varieties, and promoting their use among farmers through community-based seed production schemes and small private seed companies. One such example is Crown Seeds, a new seed company operating amongst smallholder farmers in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces. During the 2005/6 season, Crown Seeds produced 300 tons of certified seed of ZM521. In the 2006/7 season, about 100 hectares of each of ZM521, ZM423, ZM523 and ZM623 have been planted by Crown Seeds for certified seed production, administered by SANSOR, the national seed certifying agency. The company supplied certified seed of ZM521 to smallholder farmers through community-based stockists, who also act as crop advisors.  

ARC-GCI’s principal role is to register, maintain and produce pre-basic seed of the CIMMYT OPVs. The following CIMMYT varieties have been registered by the ARC-GCI in South Africa: ZM421, ZM521, ZM423, ZM523, ZM623 and Obatanpa-SR. Approximately two tones of pre-basic seed per season is produced for each variety and distributed to smallholder farmers and seed companies for Basic and Certified seed production. ARC-GCI also provides technical support to the seed producers and communities. The identification of adapted varieties is made possible by on-farm Mother-Baby and VEVO Trials where farmers evaluate varieties under their own farming conditions.

b) Posters Promoting Certified Seed Stimulates Seed Sales in Zambia

Zambia National Coordinating Unit (NCU)

In 2006, the Zambia National Coordinating Unit (NCU), funded by NSIMA, produced two sets of posters promoting certified seed. The one poster was directed at farmers and highlighted the potential benefits of purchasing and planting certified seed. The second poster was aimed at stimulating rural traders to stock and sell certified seed. A total of 4000 posters were distributed through NGOs, extension staff, the seed traders, and displayed at agriculture shows and field days.

The national seed trade association reported that in 2006 there were more rural entrepreneurs joining in retail seed trade from the countryside than before. Furthermore, the effective seed market in Zambia for hybrid maize seed registered growth in 2006. Marx Mbunji, the Chairperson of the Zambian NCU, estimates that the national seed trade market grew from 6000 t in 2003/04 to 7000 t (2004/05) to 12 000 t in 2005/6), excluding Government and NGO tenders. This indicates that significantly increasing numbers of farmers are purchasing improved maize varieties, which should have a direct impact on national maize production and household food security. This positive development may be somehow attributed to the poster campaign.

The seed trade in Zambia is becoming increasingly diverse. On the one hand there are the national seed companies, such as Zamseeds, MRI and Kamanos Seeds, while on the other, there are large multi-national companies, such as Pannar, Pioneer and Afgri Seeds, who have established operations in Zambia. Notwithstanding these, there are a number of local community based seed businesses, such as World Vision (Mongu, Sinazongwe and Choma), Harvest Held, Oxfam, GTZ Choma and Henwood Foundation (Choma and Mansa). The established seed companies have taken up CIMMYT varieties for production and marketing in Zambia, producing over 3000 t of ZM521 in 2006 alone. The community-based seed production schemes have relied on National Programme and CIMMYT varieties, drawing foundation seed from the NSIMA-supported Zambia Agriculture Research Institute activities based at Golden Valley Research Trust Farm. Dr Catherine Mungoma, head of this research, reported that in the 2005/6 season over 4 t of foundation seed was distributed to these organisations for multiplication (Table 1). This quantity of seed is sufficient to plant about 170 ha of seed production, which could translate into 500 t of seed for farmers’ use in 2007, which is a significant amount of seed for smallholders.

c) CIMMYT QPM Hybrid and Normal OPVs registered by Tanseed in Tanzania

Tanseed International is a small seed company in Tanzania that registers, produces and markets improved maize varieties to smallholder farmers. The company recently became the first indigenous seed company to register three maize varieties, normal maize OPVs (TAN250 and TAN254) and a QPM hybrid (TAN H611). These varieties were provided by CIMMYT, evaluated in the Regional Trials, entered into the SARI National Variety Trials and released by the Tanzania National Variety Release Committee. The registration of these varieties gives Tanseed the ability to market improved maize varieties under their own brand name.

Tanseed has put considerable effort into promoting QPM in Tanzania, holding the following events in 2006:

1. Demonstration and field day, held at Dumila village, Kilosa District, Morogoro region on 14 July 2006.

2. Participation at ‘Nane Nane’ national agriculture exhibition in Morogoro.

3. The national World food day celebrations held in Morogoro.

4. UN Exhibitions that took part National museum, Dar es Salam.

5. The SIDO EZ exhibition ‘the 5 small industries festival’ ran at Jamhuri stadium, Morogoro, 26-31 October 2006.

These events not only attracted many farmers and consumers, but also caught the eye of former Tanzanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon. Dr. Asha Rose Migro, now the Deputy Secretary General of the UN.

With the publicity created around Tanseed, farmers and consumers expect to observe the varieties in farmers’ fields. Tanseed needs to scale up production of the new varieties and establish them in the market. NSIMA is producing breeders’ seed of the varieties in Zimbabwe for delivery to Tanseed in 2007 to assist in this effort.

d) Zimbabwean Farmers Benefiting from MBTs

Karsto Kwazira and B. Neurashe of AREX

	Maize Seed Stockist in Harare displaying ZM521 marketed by AgriSeeds, an emerging seed distributor in the Zimbabwe.
	Introductions and discussions with SDC, AREX and Farmers in Murewa Communal Area, Zimbabwe, October, 2006.

Farmers in the Murewa Communal Area north east of Harare are involved in the Mother-Baby Trials conducted by AREX with NSIMA support. The group of 25 farmers are participating in the programme. The farmers have appreciated MBTs and reported that their field observations have been useful in selecting varieties for  planting. Some of the stockists in the village use information from the trials to determine the varieties to stock in their shops.

The farmers were also pleased with their winter maize fields in “dambos” (areas that retain moisture through the dry winter). The variety under production was ZM521, a CIMMYT OPV that had proved to perform well in the MBTs. Since these small maize fields are grown in winter when there is no other maize in the area, some of the farmers were going to use a portion of the grain produced for planting in the summer and use the remainder for household consumption.