Abstract
To address climate change (CC) in eastern and southern Africa (ESA) will require accelerated development and dissemination of crop varieties with climate-smart (CS) traits over the coming decades. However, investment in crop improvement and rates of variety turnover are currently extremely low in the region. Smallholder farmers, who generate the bulk of agricultural output in ESA, continue to cultivate old crop varieties that lack CS traits such as drought tolerance and resistance to new and emerging pests and diseases. The emergence of the private seed sector in ESA provides a unique opportunity to complement established public crop improvement programmes, and accelerate development and dissemination of CS crop varieties through scalable, certified seed systems. This chapter will discuss; the growth of the private seed sector since the seed industry in ESA was deregulated, the importance of public-private partnerships in driving genetic gains for CS traits, and the importance of developing a favourable regional regulatory environment that incentivises the private sector to rapidly scale out CS crop varieties (and withdraw obsolete varieties).
Highlights
CC poses a significant risk to crop production across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with ESA vulnerable to the projected changes
In most of ESA, the plant breeding and seed industries were dominated by public institutions until the mid-1990s, when the seed sector was deregulated
Both countries have emerged as leading centers for the seed industry in SSA and serve as important bellwethers of regional trends
Summary
CC poses a significant risk to crop production across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with ESA vulnerable to the projected changes. Smallholder, subsistence farmers constitute over 70% of the population in ESA and account for over 75% of agricultural output (AGRA 2017). They are the group most vulnerable to CC and require urgent, scalable access to CS crop varieties with adaptive characteristics that can tolerate future climes. Smallholder farmers’ adoption of improved crop varieties in SSA is amongst the lowest in the world (estimated to be 20% by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) 2017), yet the formal seed sector has grown significantly following deregulation of the seed industry regionally in the early 1990s. The specific roles and constraints for the private sector in ESA in developing and disseminating improved, CS crop varieties are discussed, with particular emphasis on maize (Zeae maydis), the staple food crop and primary source of daily calorie intake in the region
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