ICRISAT Archival Report 2006 - The seedlings of success in the ...

In April 2005 and again in August 2006 ICRISAT - in partnership with the African Seed Trade Association
(AFSTA) - organized an inter-regional workshop to share experiences across the three initiatives, and to identify
areas requiring further support.
Objectives: Work with SADC and other African countries to complete harmonization agreements on:
• seed phytosanitary standards
• seed certification standards
• regional variety release
Methodology: During the past two years, more than 10 workshops have been held bringing together public and
private seed sector stakeholders from all 14 SADC countries to hammer out agreements on phytosanitary
standards, certification standards, regional variety release and plant variety protection. This was supported by
Africa wide efforts for a similar harmonization process in other sub-regions.
Main findings & policy implications: In September 2006, the Permanent Secretaries of Agriculture for the 14
countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) endorsed three major regional agreements
for the harmonization of seed regulations in southern Africa. A Memorandum of Understanding is now being
prepared by SADC to facilitate approval by the Heads of State.
Southern Africa will be the first African region to establish a Regional Variety Release System. This enables the
development of a truly regional seed market by allowing any non-GMO plant variety released in at least two
SADC countries to be sold in any other country in the region. Seed companies no longer have to pursue the time
and budget consuming process of separate variety releases in each of the 14 SADC countries. This agreement
will speed access of farmers to the best new varieties in southern Africa. And the agreement will help seed
companies pursue scale economies in their regional breeding and marketing programs.
The second harmonization agreement establishes a common Seed Certification and Quality Assurance System.
This defines common field and laboratory seed standards for the 13 most traded seed crops in southern Africa.
In order to facilitate the implementation of this agreement, accreditation schemes have been created for each
SADC member state based on detailed procedures manuals. Accreditation allows seed companies to conduct
their own field inspections, sampling and testing, thus reducing the costs of regulatory inspections. Quality
assurance manuals are being drafted for a range of smaller seed companies in order to help them quality for
accreditation and assure the quality of seed they are producing.
The third harmonization agreement establishes a common Seed Quarantine and Phytosanitary System. This
creates a new set of regional quarantine lists governing seed trade within the SADC region, and between SADC
and countries outside the region. In the process, the number of quarantinable pests and diseases has been
significantly reduced. This program has also helped each of the fourteen SADC countries develop their own
seed import and export procedures manuals – based on common procedural standards. Again, this will
contribute to reducing the costs of seed trade, while minimizing the risks of trans-border movement of seed
transmitted crop diseases.
In addition, the Permanent Secretaries concurred that establishing common legislation governing Plant
Breeder’s Rights in all SADC countries would promote greater investment in crop breeding and speed the
development and trade of better varieties. The Permanent Secretaries received a draft of a regional agreement
for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants in the SADC Region, which has been proposed as a basis for each
country’s national legislation.
These agreements serve as an example for related efforts in eastern Africa and western Africa. ICRISAT is
facilitating coordinated discussions about these harmonization efforts across the three African regions.
An important finding from the seed policy harmonization process in Africa is that not all initiatives have been
linked to the political process at the level of regional economic communities, and hence getting political
approval has been impossible. In addition, lack of technical capacity in some regions meant that technical
agreements are incomplete and would be of little benefit even if implemented. This has contributed to the slow
progress in other regions. The new initiative under the project for Sustainable Commercialization of Seeds in
Africa (SCOSA) has aimed to address this problem by pursuing a strategy that adds value to the ongoing
initiatives through cross-fertilization of ideas and existing agreements between regions, and to provide targeted
technical support. AFSTA with support from SCOSA has also started engaging with regional economic
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