THE Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) through its specialised agency, the Alliance for Common Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA), has embarked on a programme to ensure smooth flow of seed from surplus to deficit areas by harmonising standards and removing trade barriers that may lead to inhibiting free-flow of seed among member states.

“We want to ensure free movement of seed from one country to another through a harmonised policy so that obstacles to seed trade across our borders are removed with a view that once these trade barriers are removed, the regional markets in eastern and southern Africa will become more attractive,” said Dr Cris Muyunda, chief executive officer for ACTESA.

At afirst-ever technical workshop on “Seed Certification” held in Lusaka recently, aimed at developing a unified COMESA policy and regulatory framework on seed trade among COMESA member states, Dr Muyunda called on the member countries to harmonise the process of seed policy and regulations in the region because seed is key to agricultural productivity among smallholder farmers who constitute about 70 percent of the farming community.

He said the series of technical workshops being organised by ACTESA provided the region an opportunity for eastern and southern Africa agricultural stakeholders and their international partners to discuss a way forward  in creating inclusive policy frameworks and commodity market models for seed policy  and regulation harmonisation.

The objective of the workshop was to harmonise seed certification systems in the COMESA region in terms of seed classes, regional label colours, content and issuing procedures. Others were to streamline the roles and responsibilities of the national seed authorities and regional offices in COMESA and seed certification standards for field inspection and laboratory services for 12 crops, which include beans, maize, rice, groundnuts cotton, wheat, cassava, potatoes, sunflower, sorghum, soya beans and millet.

The seed harmonisation programme in the COMESA region is aimed at improving the seed quality available to small-scale farmers, save time and resources when seed is being traded in the region. The programme is also aimed at improving efficiency in the movement of seed intra-COMESA and beyond and facilitates farmers’ access to improved seed varieties.

The seed industry in eastern and southern Africa is said to be weak. As a result it constrains small-scale farmers from having quality seed and engaging in good agricultural practices needed to increase crop production and productivity.

Some of the factors that inhibit seed development in the region include low agricultural productivity.

For example, maize production among most COMESA member states is about 1.39 tonnes per hectare compared to 4.47 tonnes per hectare in some developed economies. ACTESA envisages that with good quality seed and other improved agricultural practices, the member states would be able to achieve their food requirements.

“Quality seed is vital to increased agricultural productivity as it is a basis for farmers to be engaged in agricultural production. Without quality seed, use of inorganic fertiliser or bio-fertiliser, small-scale farmers’ irrigation, use of plant protection products, good agricultural practices will be rendered useless,” observed Dr Muyunda.

Dr Muyunda said the harmonisation of seed trade in the industry will also enhance farmers’ access to seed through simplified customs procedures and quick seed varietal release procedures in the COMESA region.
Apart from availability of quality seed, the COMESA region also lacks other inputs such as fertilisers, which if available, they are too expensive and beyond most of the small-scale farmers.

Other factors that lead to low access to quality standard seed include insect pests and diseases and lack of a harmonised and rationalised seed trade within the region that can enable the farmers to access seed from countries that have a surplus.

In some cases, seed has not been available due to natural disasters such as floods, drought, hail storm and inadequate parent materials to enable research institutions and seed companies multiply the seed to meet the needs of smallholder farmers within their countries and abroad.

The seed harmonisation programme, which is under Comesa Regional Agro-input Programme (COMRAP) funded by the European Commission (EC), is aimed at resolving the problem of seed inadequacy and inadequate or absence of seed agro-dealers. The programme also aims at enhancing the use of weather indexed insurance so that small-scale farmers have collateral to borrow from the banks.

COMRAP was initiated following the global rises in food prices in some parts of the world and food riots in others. According to COMRAP programme manager Julius Mathende, other reasons that resulted in the formation of COMRAP by COMESA were food inadequacy speculations among stakeholders and investors who were hoarding food commodities resulting in supplies dwindling.

Mr Mathende noted that speculations on these commodities on the international market led to distortions on availability of the commodities, hence increases in prices as well as shortages in some parts of the world.

“Some countries like Brazil had to impose bans on inputs such as fertiliser. This prompted the EU to come up with the programme to contain the impact of food shortages and improve production capacity and supply,” Mr Mathende told journalists from COMESA member states who were attending the Technical Seed Certification workshop in Lusaka.

He said the COMRAP programme is divided into three (3) components which are designed to increase capacity of COMESA member states in agro-dealership, micro-finance support to small-scale farmers and harmonisation of seed regulations/improvements in the availability of quality seed.

Mr Mathende said the programme is within the Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) agenda which is to revive agriculture as an engine of economic growth for Africa. The programme is targeting about three million farmers by the end of 2011.

In order to build the capacity of national seed authorities, COMRAP is in the process of procuring laboratory equipment for all the 19 COMESA member states. The equipment will assist in seed certification, inspections and healthy testing.

“I am sure this will capacitate National Seed Authorities (NSA) to have access to germ-plasm, seed and planting materials, seed processing and promotion/commercialisation of orphan seeds. I am appealing to those member states that have not yet submitted their requirements to do so, so that procurement of lab equipment can be done in good time,” said Dr John Mukuka, ACTESA seed programme manager.

After a week of deliberations, the workshop came up with recommendations for seed standards which were basically adopted from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Organisation for Economic Corporation and Development (OECD) that have already established common policies for their member states. It was noted that COMESA seed standards for certified seed should be in conformity with other regional bodies to which some countries like Zambia are affiliated, so that there are no conflicts with other already existing agreements.

The meeting noted that although there was an “agreed” framework following the first meeting, at the end of the day each country will retain its sovereignty in terms of other seed standards that may not be necessary to local seed except for exported ones to other countries.

Of great concern to some participants, however, was the fear that a harmonised regional seed policy would result in poor small-scale farmers failing to access quality seed due to variations in prices. Some participants also noted that strong economies would kill the seed industry in countries where the industry is still in its infancy.

However, most participants talked to said the policy was aimed at helping the poor woman in the village who has been denied seed in the past to have access to quality seed, which may be cheaper as the number of participants in the industry is likely to increase due to competition and the capacity building programme that ACTESA has put in place.

“The workshop observed that the harmonised policy was not aimed at “killing” the local methods of seed production but rather was striving towards producing seed that would help increase yields for small-scale farmers in the COMESA region.

It is hoped that by July 2011, the harmonised seed agenda will be concluded and the seed industry within the sub-region and COMESA will grow to higher heights. - NAIS.

By CHRIS KAKUNTA, Zambia Daily Mail