Cross-country push: How few firms dominate African seeds market

This is the second part to our cover story on seeds regulation in Africa.

Africa is now witnessing a continent-wide polarised battle between two seed management systems: Farmer seed systems, which is the dominant informal and indigenous system managed by small farmers, and the industrial seed sector, the formal trade dominated by a handful of multinational corporations along with local subsidiaries.

The newly adopted seed laws cover the formal industrial seed sector. Malawi’s new seed law is the latest development in this push to formalise, or industrialise, the seed sector in Africa, which has seen some 20 countries roll out seed policies in the past five years.

The countries now seek to implement what is called “seed trade harmonisation” to facilitate easy movement of certified seed across the continent.

Since 2005, African countries have been negotiating ways to develop the seed sector. The African Seed and Biotechnology Programme — a continental seed progra-mme steered by the African Union (AU) — came into effect in 2008.

Its focus is to establish effective and efficient seed systems, and enhanced application of biotechnology and methodologies within the seed sector.

Within the continent, there have been several regional economic bloc-specific seed regulation regimes. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), an economic bloc of 21 African nations, adopted COMESA Seed Harmonization Implementation Plan (COMSHIP) in 2014; the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regioal economic and political bloc of 15 nations, passed the ECOWAS Seed Regulations in 2008; and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a security and political bloc of 16 nations, adopted the Harmonized Seed Regulatory System (HSRS) in 2013.

All these regulations govern seed variety releases, seed certifications, and phytosanitary control. So, over these 15-odd years, there have been deliberate efforts to create an institutional mecha-nism to formalise this sector.

The enactment of the new seed law in Malawi comes four years after the launch of the country’s seed policy in 2018. This policy has been driven by HSRS, to which Malawi is a signatory.

HSRS establishes elevated standards for seed production and trade among the member nations, allowing for quick cross-border movement of improved, high-quality seeds.

Under this, the country has to make necessary institutional changes in all three elements of the regional policy: Seed variety release, seed certification and quality assurance, and quarantine and phytosanitary measures for seeds. With Malawi enacting the seed law, it became the second SADC nation after Zambia to fully domesticate HSRS.

COMESA is also spearheading this process in its member countries through COMSHIP, which is steered under its Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA) programme. John Mukuka, chief executive director of ACTESA, said: 

Of the 90 million smallholder farmers, only 20 per cent have access to quality seed. The initiative is to ensure improved seeds to all...It does not prevent one from using indigenous seed. COMESA system embraces both the formal system which involves inspections to make sure that you produce quality seed and the informal seed system where people can use indigenous seed but for their own use.

“Without seed, we cannot grow anything. And if we do not own it, we do not own food as well” — this seems to be the new battle cry in Africa as DTE reporters travel across three countries to take stock of developments. Country after country is adopting laws to regulate the seed markets, ostensibly to help farmers access high-yielding varieties.

Once upon a time, the continent had distinct geographical tags for specific food diversity. Malawi was known for its potato; Zambia produced tasty and nutritious maize; West Africa had millet; and northern Africa was full of rice, grown mostly along the banks of the Nile.

But something happened along the way that is making these indigenous seeds and crops go extinct. Currently very few Africans can boast of growing, let alone enjoying, the continent’s indigenous foods since most countries are now dominated by crops grown from seeds produced by a few companies.

Protests against these laws have also become more vocal. Farmers’ groups across the continent see the laws as culmination of a nexus between the governments and multinational seed corporations to take over the multi-billion dollar trade.

They also see it as an encroachment on their food sovereignty and fear they will soon lose rights over their seeds once they start purchasing them.

Take the case of Zambia, one of the first countries to be a part of the harmonisation of seed initiative under SADC and COMESA.

Under Zambia’s seed laws, a farmer has to get a quality certification for trading in indigenous seeds. The country’s farmer seed system, like elsewhere, is an informal but established network under which seed exchange takes place.

In 2014, the country saw many farmers’ groups and non-profits protest against the seed harmonisation initiatives. They saw a threat to the indigenous crops and knowledge on which farmers still depend. They were of the view that the seed harmonisation programme would prevent indigenous seed from flourishing. And it unfolded exactly that way.

One has to visit the National Plant Resources Centre, housed at the Zambia Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI), to get a sense of the country’s indigenous seed and plant diversity and the absence of demand for the varieties.

The centre is a gene bank that collects, preserves and propagates indigenous seeds and plants from across the country to save them from extinction. According to Sumini Sampa, assistant senior agricultural research officer of the centre, the gene bank currently has over 6,000 indigenous seed and plant varieties, stored in special fridges that operate at -20°C while different plants are grown around the centre.

“All these seeds and plants are given free to anyone who would like to grow them,” Sampa said. However, the centre, on average, receives only about four requests a month, the officer informs.

Chikwangala is a small farmer of Mpemba village in Chongwe, a farming district about 50 km east of Zambia’s capital Lusaka. Chikwangala recalls with nostalgia the “good old days” when farmers could store seeds like maize after harvest in preparation for the next planting season. He says the hybrid seeds “imposed” on farmers are not only expensive but also harmful to the environment.

“Farming has become very difficult and unprofitable as we have to buy seeds at very high cost. These seeds have also destroyed our soils,” Chikwangala said. Barbara Hachipuka Banda, chief executive officer of non-profit Natural Agriculture Development Program Zambia that promotes native crop varieties, tells DTE,

“The seed harmonisation initiative has not taken into consideration the great diversity in our agricultural practices. These laws are a kind of one-size-fits-all model. Every country has a distinct circumstance and landscape. By making the continent one unit, you only help the multinational companies to trade well,” said Banda. Mukuka said: 

It is not COMESA’s mandate to stop those interested in dealing with indigenous seed. Our job is that for those that want to export they can use the harmonised system through SCCI [Seed Control and Certification Institute, Zambia’s seed authority] or other seed companies in countries like Kenya or Zimbabwe.

According to him, it will not affect indigenous knowledge, which will always be there at the gene bank at ZARI.

In November, 2021, various farmers’ organisations in Ghana appealed the Supreme Court against the country’s Plant Variety Protection Act (Act 1050), adopted in 2020. The groups, which included the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, Food Sovereignty Ghana (FSG) and the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development, said the law was designed to strengthen multinational seed companies and would ultimately put Ghanaian seed companies at disadvantage.

Ghana’s parliament had discussed this law some nine years ago and shelved it in 2015 following opposition by civil societies. In a suit filed at the country’s supreme court on November 11, 2021, FSG challenged the constitutionality of the Plant Variety Protection Act.

The appeal in the highest court said that the new law threatened indigenous knowledge and practices of saving, using, multiplying stocking, exchanging or selling seeds and other propagating material.

According to the petitioners, Ghana’s informal seed system accounted for 85 per cent of the total seed market. So, by extension, the new law would also impact the livelihood of a large number of farmers.

This was first published in Down To Earth’s print edition (dated 1-15 May, 2022)

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