Most small-scale Southern African farmers have little or no access to high quality seeds.  Forced to make due with inferior seeds, their productivity suffers.  Poor roads and distribution systems, fragmented national seed policies, inappropriate regulations, and dysfunctional regulatory institutions all conspire to limit the movement of seeds and their availability within and between countries in Southern Africa.

Iowa State University received funding in January 2005 from USAID’s Regional Center for Southern Africa through Higher Education for Development (HED).  The goal of the partnership was to examine existing investments, new approaches, and current programs towards increasing the availability of new seed technologies, stimulating market development, enhancing seed availability, and building a framework for a sustainable seed sector in Southern Africa.  ISU’s main overseas partners in this large-scale endeavor were the Food Agricultural and Natural Resource Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, and the Southern Africa Development Community Seed Security Network.

Originally, the partners intended to limit their engagement to seed companies and the national seed trade associations of five countries (Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia).  But by the end of the HED funding period they had successfully extended their collaborative efforts to the other nine member countries of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) [see map].  All 14 SADC countries, in fact, recently approved agreements for the harmonization of biosafety standards, seed certification standards for 18 seed crops, and regional variety release procedures.

Over the course of this intense, two-year collaboration, the partners also developed SADC-approved seed certification accreditation manuals, a procedures manual for regional seed variety release, and procedures manuals for seed import and export.  Additionally, they strengthened FANRPAN’s governance systems and formal links with related institutions in the region. 

“By bringing about a marked change in the institutional and legal environment in the SADC region, this partnership has helped to increase the efficient development of new seed varieties, ease the flow of seeds across national borders by lowering trade barriers, and facilitate seed distribution to small farmers,” says ISU Prof. Joseph Cortes.  “Getting all 14 SADC countries to agree on the harmonization agreements in such a relatively short period of time was particularly unexpected and remarkable.”