Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-05T13:03:22.106Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

UNDERSTANDING AND STRENGTHENING INFORMAL SEED MARKETS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2010

LOUISE SPERLING  and
SHAWN MCGUIRE
LOUISE SPERLING*
Affiliation:
International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), c/o ‘Le Ginestre’, Lucio Volumnio 37, 00178 Rome, Italy
SHAWN MCGUIRE
Affiliation:
School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK
*
‡Corresponding author. [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Informal markets receive little attention from governments and researchers, despite their centrality to farmers' seed security. This paper documents the importance of informal markets for supplying seed and restocking critical plant genetic resources in normal and stress periods. It analyses farmers' rationales for using such markets and their strategic actions in selecting out seed from grain. Conceptual aids for differentiating among market goods – grain, ‘implicit seed’ and seed – are presented, including tracing of agro-ecological seed sources, traders’ seed management behaviour and seed/grain price patterns. Ethiopian case material gives rare insight into how different scales of traders manage the seed/grain divide. Better understanding of informal markets is an important precursor to strengthening them as such markets have unrealized potential to deliver more and higher quality seed, and a greater range of modern and local varieties. Support for informal seed markets could usefully feature in rural livelihood and social protection programmes, but this will require basic shifts in interventions and further refinements in market analysis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Agriculture , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , April 2010 , pp. 119 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aw-Hassan, A., Mazid, A. and Salahieh, H. (2008). The role of informal farmer-to-farmer seed distribution in diffusion of new barley varieties in Syria. Experimental Agriculture 44: 413–431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Badstue, L. B., Bellon, M. R., Berthaud, J., Juárez, X., Manual Rosas, I., Solano, A. M. and Ramírez, A. (2006). Examining the role of collective action in an informal seed system: a case study from the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico. Human Ecology 34: 249–273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bellon, M. R. (2004). Conceptualizing interventions to support on-farm genetic resource conservation. World Development 32: 159–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byerlee, D., Spielman, D. J., Alemu, D. and Gautam, M. (2007). Policies to promote cereal intensification in Ethiopia: a review of evidence and experience. IFPRI Discussion Paper No. 707.Google Scholar
CIAT (1991). Comparisons of seed quality, from bean seed obtained from range of formal and informal sources. In Annual Report Bean Program, 1991, 310–312. Cali: CIAT.Google Scholar
Cooper, D. (1993). Plant genetic diversity and small farmers: Issues and options for IFAD. Staff Working Paper No. 13. Rome: International Fund for Agricultural Development.Google Scholar
Cromwell, E. (1996). Governments, Farmers and Seeds in a Changing Africa. Wallingford, UK: CABI.Google Scholar
CRS and Partners. (2006). Seed system security assessment (SSSA) Douentza, northern Mali. Bamako: CRS/Mali. Final Report.Google Scholar
Dalton, , Timothy, J., Lipper, L. and Cavatassi, R. (2010). Seed systems, household welfare and crop genetic diversity in three woredas of Ethiopia: household and plot-level descriptive statistics, ESA working paper. http://www.fao.org/economic/esa/seed2d/outputs5/it.Google Scholar
David, S. and Sperling, L. (1999). Improving technology delivery mechanisms: lessons from bean seed systems research in Eastern and Central Africa. Agriculture and Human Values 16: 381–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FEWS Net. (2009). Nigeria Food security update USAID and Famine Early Warning System. Available online at: www.fews.net/docs/Publications/Nigeria_fsu_May%202009.pdf [Accessed 29 December 2009].Google Scholar
Lipper, L., Anderson, L. and Dalton, T. J. (eds.). (2009). Seed Trade in Rural Markets: Implications for crop diversity and agricultural development. London: Earthscan.Google Scholar
Longley, C., Jones, R., Ahmed, M. H. and Audi, P. (2001). Supporting local seed systems in southern Somalia: A developmental approach to agricultural rehabilitation in emergency situations. AgREN Paper No. 115. London: ODI.Google Scholar
McGuire, S. J. (2007). Vulnerability in farmer seed systems: Farmer practices for coping with seed insecurity for sorghum in Eastern Ethiopia. Economic Botany 61: 211–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGuire, S. J. (2008). Securing access to seed: Social relations and sorghum seed exchange in eastern Ethiopia. Human Ecology 36: 217–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGuire, S. J. and Sperling, L. (2008). Leveraging farmers' strategies for coping with stress: seed aid in Ethiopia. Global Environmental Change 18: 679–688.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ndjeunga, J. (2002). Local village seed systems and pearl millet seed quality in Niger. Experimental Agriculture 38: 149–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Otsyula, R., Rachier, G., Ambitsi, N. R. J., Ndiya, C., Buruchara, R. and Sperling, L. (2004). The use of informal seed producer groups for diffusing root rot resistant varieties during period of acute stress. In Addressing Seed Security in Disaster Response: Linking relief with development, 69–89 (Eds. Sperling, L., Remington, T., Haugen, J. and Nagoda, S.). Cali: CIAT.Google Scholar
Republic of Kenya. (2005). Draft National Seed Policy. Nairobi: Ministry of Agriculture. Available online at: www.ecabren.org/pdfs/nationalseedpolicy2005.pdf [Accessed 29 December 2009].Google Scholar
Rubyogo, J. C., Sperling, L., Muthoni, R. and Buruchara, R. (forthcoming). Bean seed delivery for small farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa: the power of partnerships. Society and Natural Resources.Google Scholar
Smale, M., Diakité, L., Dembélé, B., Traoré, I. S., Guindo, O. and Konta, B. (2008). Trading millet and sorghum genetic resources: women vendors in the village fairs of San and Douentza, Mali. IFPRI Discussion Paper No. 746. IFRPI: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Sperling, L. (1994). Summary Report. Analysis of bean seed channels in the Great Lakes Region: South Kivu, Zaire, Southern Rwanda, and select bean-growing zones of Burundi. Butare, CIAT African Occasional Publications series No. 13. Rwanda: CIAT/RESAPAC.Google Scholar
Sperling, L. (1997). War and crop diversity. AgREN Paper No. 75. London: ODI.Google Scholar
Sperling, L. (2002). Emergency seed aid in Kenya. Some case study insights from lessons learned. Disasters 26: 329–342.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sperling, L., Scheidegger, U. and Buruchara, R. (1996). Designing seed systems with small farmers: principles derived from bean research in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. AgREN Paper No. 60. London: ODI.Google Scholar
Sperling, L., Deressa, A., Assefa, S., Assefa, T., McGuire, S. J., Amsalu, B., Negusse, G., Asfaw, A., Mulugeta, W., Dagne, B., Hailemariam, G., Tenaye, A., Teferra, B., Anchala, C., Admassu, H., Tsehaye, H., Geta, E., Dauro, D. and Molla, Y. (2007). Long-term seed aid in Ethiopia: Past, present and future perspectives. Final Project Report prepared for IDRC and USAID-OFDA. Addis Ababa and Rome: EIAR, CIAT and ODG. Available online at: http://flar.org/webciat/africa/pdf/long_term_seed_aid_Eth07_full.pdf [Accessed 29 December 2009].Google Scholar