Feeding Africa Starts with Quality Seeds

Victoria Chelangat Sabula

Feeding Africa begins with a simple yet transformative truth: the foundation of a thriving agricultural system is quality seeds. In a region where agriculture is a livelihood and lifeline for 65 per cent of the population, the choice of seed can spell the difference between abundance and scarcity.

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 report notes that we are falling significantly short of achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, Zero Hunger. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) warns that if current trends continue, 582 million people will be chronically undernourished by 2030, with half of them in Africa. This projection mirrors the situation in 2015 when the SDGs were set, signalling a troubling lack of progress. Achieving these global targets to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition demands among other measures, accelerating the transformation of agrifood systems. What better place to start than quality seeds??

To enhance their productivity and feed a growing population at affordable prices, farmers require access to improved, high-yielding climate-resilient seed and planting materials, particularly for the 33 million smallholders who produce 70 per cent of the Continent’s food supply. Improving the effectiveness of this bedrock of our food system will increase yields, reduce unit costs and make significant strides toward addressing hunger. It will generate multiple benefits for farmers and nations. For farming households, it means better livelihoods from the sale of surplus, which will help lift communities out of poverty. For economies, it means more jobs, food security and robust value chains, offsetting the Continent’s annual food import bill, projected to surpass the US$100 billion mark by 2030.?

Getting good quality seeds to farmers will also put them on course in the fight against climate change, as plant varieties can be developed to be more tolerant to extreme weather conditions, pests, and diseases. However, the adoption of improved and climate-resilient crop varieties is still low. Only 20-30 per cent of farmers have access to quality seeds. Additionally, only about 2.5 percent of seeds used by smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa come from formal seed companies, indicating the dominance of informal systems that do not always provide reliable seed quality, according to the Access to Seeds Index 2019. Many smallholders recycle low-yielding non-resilient varieties, leading to poor harvests and low-quality grains.

Part of the reason for the limited access to quality seed is deficiencies within the sector. Over 80 per cent of independent seed companies serving Africa’s smallholder markets struggle with producing and maintaining quality foundation seeds. This leads to inconsistent supply and negatively impacts certified seed production. Proper seed production and management at all stages of processing and distribution is critical for quality seed availability.

Moreover, the absence of genotype ownership reduces incentives for innovation and marketing efforts while limited access to long-term affordable debt financing limits infrastructure investments. Market-related uncertainties further compound these challenges, affecting business planning and investment decisions. Overcoming these obstacles requires collaborative efforts from policymakers, financial institutions and industry stakeholders to enhance access to financing, promote exclusive product ownership, improve market predictability and deliver climate-resilient crop varieties tailored to local conditions and farmer needs. When the Continent’s seed system functions well and quality seed gets to farmers, it lays a foundation for a resilient agricultural sector.

Read the full piece on Farming First.