Seed systems in West Africa

Résumé 0

Project Summary To date, there has been little private investment in research and development for pearl millet and sorghum in West Africa, which means both that few improved varieties have been developed, and that seed production and distribution systems have not been widely improved. Those varieties that have been developed and released throughout the first two decades of the 21st century by the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and national agricultural research systems (NARS) partnerships have largely been the result of participatory plant breeding (PPB) efforts. With the shift toward market-oriented agricultural development, governments and donors have since the early 2000s increasingly supported the creation of private enterprises for seed production and distribution. Many of these enterprises focus on seed production and contract out the seed distribution and sales to agro-dealers, who are also often supported by internationally-funded development projects. In places where private enterprises do not yet have market activities, international funding for seed system development has also focused on creating and supporting seed producer organizations and farmer unions. This research project focuses on the impacts of changing seed systems in West Africa, with a particular focus on how investments by international development and research organizations play out on the ground for individual farmers. In each site for this research project, there is a farmer organization or union that anchors ICRISAT’s PPB work, and that is a key partner in the development of seed markets. The organizations are run much like cooperatives and have varying degrees of institutional capacity and geographic reach. All farmer organizations have a network of local farmer-technicians who receive training from the farmer organization in improved techniques and technologies associated with farmer organization activities. Farmer organizations were originally created through a variety of interactions, including support from national governments, international NGOs and ICRISAT funding, and are at various levels of self-sustaining. All of the organizations employ local farmers as technicians to spread new information and now new seeds. The seed systems projects provide marketing and commercialization training to these organizations in an effort to build a local foundation for seed markets. The goal is to build capacity in local and national supply chains, which challenges the classic development critique that capitalism privileges economies of scale (and profit accruing to extra-local actors) over local economic development. This dissertation project built on my master’s thesis research, which was also conducted with ICRISAT-West Africa. I was interested in the ongoing PPB projects and the social implications of them. That initial contact led to the development of a research project that focused on farmers’ and research technicians’ experiences of participation and different types of outcomes that might emerge from the PPB process. The seed system project funded by the McKnight Foundation is jointly coordinated by ICRISAT, the NARS in all three countries, and the farmer organization in each project site. The two objectives of the project are: 1) to increase men and women farmers’ access to seed of new sorghum and pearl millet varieties; and 2) to monitor and improve variety adoption process, and to assess the effectiveness of different activities to improve knowledge and availability of new varieties. Project tasks include conducting initial studies to characterize existing seed systems and to measure changes in the seed systems with project activities. This research project was conducted from 2010 to 2013 in the Sahelian West African countries of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Given the context within which this research project takes place, as well as my specific theoretical approach and interests, I use a mixed-methods approach to ask the following research questions: 1) How do the natural setting and social context influence seed systems in Sahelian West Africa? 2) How and why are farmers incorporating improved variety seeds and seed sales into existing seed systems? 3) Do seed access decisions differ by gender? 4) Do seed access decisions differ by crop? Data Overview I gathered quantitative and qualitative data from the same sampling unit (individual farmer) to provide consistency and the ability to both triangulate and test hypotheses with the data. I used a concurrent mixed-data collection design in order to maximize the limited time in the field and to minimize demands placed on research participants. I conducted semi-structured interviews with farmers who have bought improved varieties of seeds as well as those who received improved variety seeds from others. These interviews asked questions of how farmers perceive their seed networks and markets. In addition, I asked specific questions of changes they have seen in information and seed sources. I also gathered answers to standardized questions to analyze using statistical techniques. In addition to semi-structured interviews, I conducted group meetings to gather qualitative and spatial data about seed networks, agricultural information, and inputs. I used participatory mapping techniques during these group meetings. Finally, I used a GPS unit to record the coordinates of every village I visited, to create maps that depict different aspects of the seed system as well as changes over time. In addition to primary data collection, I used a range of secondary data sources to supplement the quantitative and spatial data. I used the lists of seed buyers kept by farmer unions and seed sellers to provide a description of the context of seed sales. I also used ICRISAT project documents to identify spatial characteristics of the social context, including the distribution of field trials in each area. Finally, I used a database of geographic coordinates for every village in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger that was collected and provided to me by colleagues at ICRISAT. Data Organization Tabular Data: This spreadsheet contains the full set of quantitative variables describing individual farmers' demographic characteristics and decision making about seeds. Focus Groups: These are transcripts from each individual village’s focus group, sorted by country, village, and year groups were conducted. Focus Group Seed Maps: These are photos of the seed maps drawn by participants in each individual village focus group. Individual Interviews: These are transcripts of the individual interviews with each farmer, sorted by country and year interview was conducted.