Abstract
Research conducted in the informal sweetpotato seed (vines) supply system in the Gulu region, northern Uganda (2013–2015) revealed a diverse set of actors using private enterprise in a range of selling and marketing channels. The different channels offer an efficient and effective marketing system, providing different services and conveniences for farmers at different prices. The actors include local vine multipliers, traders, dry season root farmers, transporters and town sellers. The local multipliers and dry season root farmers grow crops during the dry season in swampy areas and sell the vines in the following rainy season to the many farmers who lack access to such areas and therefore lack vines to plant. The presentation and discussion of this case study adds to an expanding argument in the literature for increased attention to support actors in informal food crop sectors who are providing sustainable production and marketing systems on a platform of beneficial and innovative private enterprise. Through their commercial operations, vine multipliers and other actors can effectively meet the demand of customers and at the right time and place. With suitable dissemination programmes installed, these actors could also offer access to new varieties otherwise unavailable to the majority of farmers.
Highlights
Agriculture is a critical sector for most developing economies; commercial agriculture can drive economic development, improvements in incomes and livelihoods, and boost food security (IFAD 2003; DFID 2015)
This paper describes an informal sweetpotato seed system in Uganda, telling how the few farmers who have sweetpotato crops in lowlands during the dry season sold the vines onfarm, at local markets or through intermediaries including traders and sellers
& Multipliers with irrigation growing a relatively large area (>0.5 ha) of mainly modern OFSP varieties primarily to sell the vines to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) projects (Table 1a), referred to as ‘NGO multipliers’
Summary
Agriculture is a critical sector for most developing economies; commercial agriculture can drive economic development, improvements in incomes and livelihoods, and boost food security (IFAD 2003; DFID 2015). Most studies of seed systems of vegetatively propagated crops have involved cassava and potato They have mostly been anthropological (Boster 1986; Elias et al 2001; Salick et al 1997; Sambatti et al 2001). This paper describes an informal sweetpotato seed system in Uganda, telling how the few farmers who have sweetpotato crops in lowlands during the dry season sold the vines onfarm, at local markets or through intermediaries including traders (middlemen) and sellers. It documents prices along supply chains, how much was traded and when, where and who purchased the vines.
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