Battle for seed: Who should control it?

Who should produce and own the seeds that farmers use in Malawi? Should it be the multinational seed companies or local farmers themselves? EPHRAIM NYONDO tussles with this question in this fourth part of Seed Policy series.

The battle is raging, already. It is a battle between the formal and the informal—sometimes referred to as the tussle between the rise of modern technology and the resilience of ‘traditional’ practices.

Which one, between the two, should define the course of Malawi’s agriculture?

The draft Seed Policy, already, appears to have answered the question. The policy, awaiting to be taken to Cabinet for approval, underlines the superiority of the formal seed sector over the informal one.

For starters, the formal seed system comprises local and multinational seed companies most of which have their own breeding, production and distribution programmes.

On the other hand, the informal seed sector constitutes the major source of seed for the majority of smallholder farmers.

Sources of seed in the informal sector are largely from farm-saved seed, farmer-to-farmer exchange, local markets, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and community-based organisations (CBOs).

However, despite acknowledging that 70 percent of small scale farmers using informal seeds, the draft policy’s skew towards the formal sector has created fear to some stakeholders arguing it will marginalise the critical participation of small scale farmers in the country.

Averaged at 80 percent, small scale farmers, experts note, are the engine of the country’s agriculture. Their needs, adds experts, need to be adhered to or else Malawi’s agro-based economy will be problematic.

Former chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Irrigation and Food Security, Felix Jumbe, who is also a seed expert, argues for the need to have more farmers in the country to graduate to the formal seed sector.

Jumbe, who has just returned from a 21-member delegation from the country’s seed sector appreciated the seed situation in India, underlines that with the rising population, declining land fertility and also the effects of climate change, Malawi’s agriculture has no choice but to turn to the formal seed sector.

“There are two types of farming: Cultural and Commercial. The cultural farming is the one which is pulling Malawi backwards. It consist of farm-saved and shared seeds which, in actual sense, is not seed at all. It is just grain. It does not carry any productive advantage at all,” he says.

Further explains Jumbe: “What we define as seed is that which has a technology advantage, one which is a carrier of genetic advantage. The informal seeds have none of such advantages. Insistence on informal seeds, hence, is just a manifestation of resisting change from cultural to commercial farming.”

He warns that with Malawi’s population growing fast and the land getting smaller, the answer to Malawi’s agriculture relies on moving to commercial farming which needs formal seeds.

He says commercial farming does not always entail 100 hectares. With even a hectare, he says, the use of hybrid seeds can fetch a farmer close to 100 bags unlike the local seeds which, he notes, cannot fetch more than a tonne.

Farmers, advices Jumbe, should, therefore, be encouraged to move to the informal seed sector—to mean, he is in support of the draft policy. However, when asked if there can be a way to ensure that farmers local seeds are improved so that they do not rely on buying from multi-national seed companies, something other experts fault as making farmers dependent on such companies, Jumbe underlines the need to scale up such process.

“This is what is already happening. Our local varieties are important and critical as parent lines. We need to improve them to hybrids if we are to scale up production. Not using them as seeds,” he says.

Despite Jumbe’s argument, a study on a local orange maize variety (mthikinya) by Dr Mangani Katundu of the University of Malawi in collaboration with Dr Trust Beta of University of Manitoba, collaborating partners from Western Universities and Ekwendeni Mission Hospital, has highlighted the importance of local varieties to farmers.

According to one farmer in Dedza, Edwin Kasamba, farmers in Dedza and other parts of Malawi have been producing this maize since time in memorial.

The maize has some highly desirable qualities some of which include high levels of provitamin A, proteins and fats, it is early maturing, gives yields comparable to hybrid varieties even where farmers mainly use manure. It also has desirable sensory properties, says Katundu.

William Chadza, executive director for the Centre of Environmental Policy and Advocacy (Cepa) underlines that farmers should be given a diverse choice regarding seeds according to their lived agricultural realities. Such choices, he adds, need to be recognised, encouraged and supported by policy decisions.

“We cannot have a policy that only encourages farmers to buy and use newly-purchased seed annually from certified seed agencies,” he says.

Such a policy, he warns, encourages dependency more than empowering Malawian farmers.

He, therefore, recommends that policy should respond to needs of smallholder farmers by defining strategies that can help the informal sector players and capacitate them to produce seed with required standards.

“We need a policy that promotes regular interaction amongst farmer’s and other informal players with private and public researchers, seed companies/organisations and development agencies,” he says.

Further, Chadza underlines that the policy should support and promote farmer’s efforts in conservation and management of seeds on-farm through community seed banks, participatory plant breeding, participatory variety selection, community-based seed production, certification and marketing.

“Policy should recognise, strengthen and promote local seed systems that would facilitate access, use and conservation of seeds on-farm rather than restricting. As such, policy should help develop institutional, regulatory and legal framework that supports informal seed systems,” he says.

He does not stop there.

Chadza also notes the importance of having a policy that should recognise inherent rights of farmers to save, reuse, select, exchange, and sell seeds.

“Policy should promote conservation of seeds at local level to ensure availability of seeds to smallholder farmers in case of natural disasters,” he says.

The informal seed sector plays an important role in promotion of agro-biodiversity and food security in Malawi, he says.

The draft Seed Policy, he underlines, is incomplete in scope as it has largely ignored a majority smallholder farmers. Legislative and policy framework must recognise that agriculture in Malawi is characterised by a very large informal sector, he says.

“Therefore, the draft policy needs to be revised and include an integration of formal and informal seed sectors,” he advises. n