Some African scientists, and experts in biosafety and the seed industry say, the Africa’s goal of achieving zero hunger by 2030 will not be feasible if farmers do not have access to quality seeds for farming. 

They argued that farmers faced many challenges with farm inputs coupled with negative climate change greatly affecting them and threatening food security, and seed production was no exception. 

“For us to put food on the table, it starts with the seed production and there is the need for us to focus on seed production to ensure that farmers get the quality of seeds they need for quality food production.”  

Speaking the three-day consultative meeting on seeds systems regulatory support in Nairobi, Kenya, participants agreed that farmers in Africa needed quality seeds that could withstand droughts and fight pests. 

The meeting, organized by the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD (AUDA-NEPAD) was aimed at engaging stakeholders to identify gaps and opportunities within national and regional seed systems towards ensuring functional seed regulatory systems that would enable access to approved biotech seeds.  

Participants made up of biosafety experts, communication experts, seed experts, legal practitioners and agriculture specialists from Ghana, Malawi, Kenya, Zambia, and Nigeria. 

The meeting also discussed elements of instruments that would facilitate the conduct of a landscape assessment of seed sector actors and role, outlined a complementary implementation approach with the Africa Seed and Biotechnology Partnership Programme (ASBPP) as well as foster new strategic linkages with new partners and institutions.  

Participants deliberated on planned knowledge-based advisory support and technical advice from AUDA-NEPAD in 2024, including communication support, that would enable African countries to benchmark their policies, regulatory, and investment frameworks, and in alignment with the AU Agenda 2063. 

Mr Sam Timpo head of the AUDA-NEPAD/ABNE said there were multiple seed systems with unique strengths and limitations, which included farmers own savings, local seed supplier, national and international seed companies and there was the need to give greater attention to the often overlooked or marginalized political economy factors that hindered progress in the seed industry. 

“The seed interventions must cover the broad spectrum of the seed value chain,” he added.  

He expressed the concern of the gap of capacity building in the areas of outreach and communication and called for the need to address them to cover agri-industry, market trade, farmers economic growth, food security, improved nutrition, research, and development as well as technology and biosafety. 

Mr Timpo explained that for the communication gap to be identified, science technology and innovation required an advance global agricultural sustainability goal and transform society. 

Dr Clement Ajorlolo, Principal Programme Officer, Africa Union Commission of AUDA-NEPAD who took participants through African Seed and Biotechnology Program 10 year’s Action plan noted that it was important that issues with seed were tackled to address food security issues on the continent.” 

 Dr Adjorlolo explained that the draft plan, which started in 2020 and expected to end in 2030, had not been able to achieve much and called on stakeholders to speed up efforts and ensure that implementation of agreed regulatory framework were achieved by the targeted date. 

According to the framework, all the concerned legal frameworks would have been harmonized with the Regional Economic Communities and aligned to the continental integration vision by 2030 

Dr Adjorlolo said guidelines for the domestication of seeds have been developed, benchmarking tools and indicators have developed, regional/continental level biosafety risk assessment mechanism have already been established. 

Among other things he said by 2030, there should have Increased youth and women participation in the seed sector as indicated in the action plan, reports on increased women and youth participation and benefits. 

Dr Adjorlolo said the action plan required that countries prepared national seed compendiums, and review and verify compendium information to support establishment of integrated policies for seed system development, including germplasm conservation, characterization, utilization and improvement, application of biotechnologies, variety release and seed production and distribution. 

The Action plan also required the establishment of a policy and regulatory framework to facilitate the establishment of small seed enterprises and called for the need enhance communication to for public education and flow of information pertaining to the seed industry in the continent. 

 The meeting discussed elements of instruments that would facilitate the conduct of a landscape assessment of seed sector actors and role, outlined a complementary implementation approach with the Africa Seed and Biotechnology Partnership Programme (ASBPP) and foster new strategic linkages with new partners and institutions.  

Additionally, the meeting discussed planned knowledge-based advisory support and technical advice from AUDA-NEPAD in 2024, including communication support, to enable African countries to benchmark their policies, regulatory, and investment frameworks, and in alignment with the AU Agenda 2063. 

Source: GNA