Business
Report Says African Seed Industry Taken Over By Local Companies
From production of 600 tons of seed in its first year in 2006, Maslaha Seeds has grown rapidly over the years producing thousands of tons of seed each year for a wide menu of crop varieties, including high-yield sorghum, millet, and cowpea developed specifically for Nigeria’s growing conditions.
“Nigeria has the potential to become one of the world’s great breadbaskets, and giving our farmers access to certified seed for high-yield crop varieties is crucial to fulfilling that promise,” said Ibrahim Abdullahi, managing director of Maslaha Seeds. The story of Maslaha Seeds is a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit percolating in communities across Africa and to the pent-up demand among Africa’s small-holder farmers for improved, high-yield crop varieties.
A new report released at the Grow Africa Investment Forum alongside the World Economic Forum on Africa by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) reveals 80 small- to medium-size African seed companies in 16 countries are on track to produce over 80,000 metric tons of professionally certified seeds in 2014. Locally-owned African seed companies participating in AGRA’s Program for Africa’s Seed Systems (PASS.) to offer high-yield crop varieties to smallholder farmers across the continent have collectively become the largest seed producers in sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr. Joe DeVries, Director of AGRA’s PAS disclosed that the program was launched in 2007 to inject new energy into Africa’s commercial seed sector, which was failing to provide African farmers with a steady supply of locally-adapted, improved crop varieties–something that farmers elsewhere in the world take for granted.
He stated, “The stagnant state of commercial seed production often is cited as a key reason why yields per hectare in Africa for staple crops like maize are up to 80 percent below what farmers outside of Africa achieve.”According to the report, “Planting the Seeds of a Green Revolution in Africa,” PASS started out working with a handful of companies that together produced about 2,000 metric tons of seed.
Today, seven years later, it is partnering with some 80 companies across the continent that produce professionally certified seed for an array of African staple crops including maize, cassava, millet, rice, sorghum, beans, sweet potato, cowpea, groundnut, soybean and pigeon pea.
These companies, according to DeVries, are focusing on varieties “carefully selected by local crop breeders for their compatibility with specific African agricultural environments.” He explained that when Maslaha Seeds was launched in Nigeria in 2006, it was producing mostly seeds for high-yield rice, such as the popular “New Rice for Africa” (NERICA) developed by the Africa Rice Center, and for a type of high-yield maize known as a “hybrid.”
