This FAC Working Paper is part of the first phase of a collaborative
research project of the Science, Technology and
Innovation (STI) Theme of the Future Agricultures
Consortium (FAC). It was funded through a grant from
the UK Department for International Development
(DFID). The project explored the political economy of
cereal seed systems across five distinct country contexts
– Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Ghana and Zimbabwe – during
2009-10. The evolution of seed research and development
programmes and processes has varied greatly
across these countries. In each case, a unique set of public
and private actors and interests has been involved in
defining priorities in seed policy and implementing projects,
each seeking to influence those agendas to their
advantage. Moreover, each country has a different reliance
on ‘modern’ hybrid (or sometimes biotech) varieties
and associated R&D and supply systems and an independent
informal sector, involving networks of farmer
experimenters and seed bulkers and suppliers, with
varying degrees of capacity.
As calls for a ‘Uniquely African Green Revolution’ gain
momentum, the focus on seeds and seed systems is rising
up the agricultural policy agenda. Much of the debate
stresses the technological or market dimensions, with
substantial investments being made in seed improvement
and the development of both public and private
sector delivery systems. But there is currently much less
emphasis on the wider policy dimensions – and particularly
the political economy of policymaking in these
diverse agricultural contexts.
Experience tells us it is these factors that often make
or break even the best designed and most well intentioned
intervention. And since investment in seed
improvement and supply was last emphasised as a major
priority in agriculture (in the 1970s and 80s), contexts
have changed dramatically. The collapse of national
public sector breeding systems has been dramatic, and
this has only partially been compensated for by the selective
entry of the private sector. Large multinational seed
and agricultural supply companies are increasingly dominating
the global scene, and there are many claims made
about the promises of new technologies (notably transgenics)
transforming the seed sector through a technological
revolution. While informal breeding and seed
supply systems continue to exist, and indeed have been
extensively supported through NGOs and other civil
society groups, they are often under pressure, as drought,
corruption and conflict take their toll and economic
transformation and livelihood change continues apace,
or they are ignored or excluded from policy circles.
The focus on cereal seed systems allowed this project
to concentrate on a similar set of crops across the five
study countries with a key influence on food security at
household and national levels. Given the political reverberations
of the ‘food crisis’ of 2007-08, this enabled
timely analysis of the implications of the policy processes
shaping the breeding, production, marketing and distribution
of cereal seeds. As this FAC Working Paper shows,
whether grown for local subsistence or traded commercially,
the significance of cereal crops to national politics
(and therefore arguments about food security and sovereignty),
commercial interests and local livelihoods is
profound.
To gain clear insights into the policy actors, networks,
interests and narratives at play, this project sought to
test the hypothesis that contrasting politics and different
configurations of interests will affect the way cereal seed
systems operate and shape how a ‘New Green Revolution’
will ultimately play out. As such, the five country studies
analysed their respective national seed policy processes
by asking:
•• How do seed policies get created, and by whom?
•• How do ideas about what makes a ‘good seed policy’
change over time?
•• How are boundaries drawn around seed problems and
policy ‘storylines’ elaborated?
••Whose voices are taken into account in the seed policy
process? And whose are excluded?
••What spaces exist for new ideas, actors and networks?
How can these be opened up?
The underlying implication in all these cases is that
politics matter and that by engaging critically with seed
policy processes, we can begin to define and then deliberate
among different framings and interests to shift the
focus of the debate beyond the usual technical/market
fix.
John Thompson and Ian Scoones, Project Co-ordinators
(August 2010)