Seed system security assessment: new methods for understanding farming system resilience

For additional information contact l.sperling@cgiar.org or see website http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/africa/seeds.htm

Louise Sperling (International Center for Tropical Agriculture)IMPROVED BEANS FOR THE DEVELOPING WORLD

Exploding basic (and dangerous) myths

Decision-making trees for linking targeted assessment to targeted action

http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/africa/practice_briefs.htm

Why seed system security assessment

Source: Sperling, 2008

Disaster

Seed System Security Assessment (SSSA) for situations of acute and chronic stress

Pre-disaster Post-disasterPreparedness:Determine normal status of crop and seed systemsIdentify chronic system needs and development opportunities

Describe the effects of disaster

Set goals for relief and recovery

Determine short-term seed security. Are seed channels functioning?

Identify longer-term chronic stress and/or emerging opportunities

Lay out action plan

Timingmonths/seasons before the disaster immediately after

the disasteras soon as possible after the disaster; at least one or two months before the next growing season

Adapted from Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Select References

McGuire, S. and L. Sperling (2008 ) . Leveraging farmers’ strategies for coping with stress: seed aid in Ethiopia. Global Environmental Change , 18(4):679-688, October 2008.

Sperling, L. ( 2008) When disaster strikes: a guide for assessing seed security. Cali: CIAT.

Sperling, L. H.D. Cooper and T. Remington (2008), Moving towards more effective seed aid. Journal of Development Studies, 44(4):573-600, April 2008.

Sperling, L. Osborn, T. and Cooper, H.D. (2004) Towards effective and sustainable seed relief activities, Workshop on Effective and Sustainable Seed Relief Activities, 26-28 May 2003, FAO Plant Production and Protection Paper 181, Rome: FAO.

Partners

Scores of partners have been involved at different phases of this work, all receiving due recognition on published volumes. Listed below are collaborators who have contributed to multiple products and processes.

CIAT Scientists: R. Buruchara, R. Chirwa, J.C. Rubyogo, L. Sperling

Other CG Centers/Networks (especially in Seeds of Hope): IITA, ICRISAT, WARDA, CIMMYT, CIP, Bioversity , PRAPACE

NARS: Ethiopia, Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Tanz., DRC

Africa Regional organizations: SADCC-Seed Security Network

UN Agencies: FAO

NGOs: CRS, CARE, SC-USA, World Vision ,International and Ethiopia, Concern International, Action Aid, ODI, REST.

Universities: University of East Anglia, Wageningen University., Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

Donors: Special recognition for Laura Powers, Julie March and Eric Witte of USAID and Wardie Leppan of IDRC.

Creating International Public Goods (IPGs)

Facilitating Policy Change (new UN Guidelines)

Conducting basic case study research

Refining technical advice (over 50,000 downloads)

Pioneering new types of assessments

A production shortfall does not necessarily equal a seed shortfall

The most common justification given for seed aid is a decline in crop harvests due to drought, floods, low-level conflict, or other shock. The logic is that a drop in crop production translates directly into less (or no) seed for the following season. The assumed linkage between crop production and seed availability is so embedded that funding proposals, particularly in Southern Africa, often cite ‘drought’ as the reason seed aid is needed. This simple and apparently innocent error can lead to unnecessary expenditure of millions of dollars, and can result in more harm than good. However, simple calculations show that a production shortfall is not necessarily equal to a seed shortfall. Take a case from eastern Ethiopia, (table below). Even in very poor seasons, when production is more than 80% below that of good seasons, farmers would need only 5% of that low harvest to re-sow their fields. For many crops analyzed in African contexts e.g., common bean, fava bean, maize, sorghum, wheat, tef , harvests can drop as much as 80-90%, and enough seed is potentially available. We add the qualifier ‘potentially’ as the quality of seed harvested has to be adequate

Sowing needs in relations to harvests (by household): example from Ethiopia

  

Crop SorghumChiro (highland)

SorghumMiesso (Lowland)

Surface Area per Household 1/2 ha. 3/4 ha

Sowing needs (kg– for area) 7-8 11-12

Harvest/yield (good year) 1250 kg 1600 kg

Per cent of harvest needed for seed : good year 0.56 to 0.64 0.75

Harvest/yield (bad year) 400 kg 260 kg

Per cent of harvest needed for seed : bad year 2.0 4.6

Decision trees help stimulate thinking about which specific options for action are most appropriate for which types of problems.

For example, a problem of access arises when the desired seed is available locally but farmers lack the means to buy it , barter for it , or otherwise obtain it. Access problems due to constraints on market functioning, such as a lack of security that restricts human movement, occur much less frequently .

Emergency seed aid interventions are steeply on the rise. For instance, the FAO alone managed 400 such projects between 2003 and 2005 , and in response to the current food crisis has seed aid plans for 48 countries. As such humanitarian actions unfold among vulnerable populations and often in more marginal contexts, they include arenas in which public sector research particularly has the mandate to serve.

Intervening in seed systems is serious business. Seed is an input at the heart of agricultural production and determines what farmers grow and if they will harvest. Also, as seed is often replanted, even short-term seed-related interventions can have effects over many seasons. Further, designing emergency aid is very challenging as such programs are context-specific and, following a disaster, time may be short for assessing needs of the next season. Despite the need for well-conceived technical advice, seed security assessments, to guide precise responses, are rarely , if ever, effected. Determinations of seed security are simply based on food security assessments. Evaluators assess food needs and then extrapolate seed requirements as part of the aid package. So standard seed assessment practice is simply wrong and standard practice can do harm ---as when blanket solutions (‘give emergency seed’) start to undermine local and formal seed markets, create dependencies and change basic crop profiles.

In 2008, CIAT published the first ever Seed System Security Assessment Guide. The Guide helps research, development and relief agencies decide if seed-related interventions are warranted and, if so, to tailor a strategy toward strengthening vulnerable farming systems.

Calculating seed needs from harvests

For a given crop (and variety) and area to be planted, it’s easy to calculate the amount of seed a farmer will need for sowing, as well as the size of harvest to be expected.

Let PA be the area to be planted by a farmer, in hectares. Let SR be the seeding rate, that is the amount of seed, in kilograms, that needs to be sown for each hectare of the crop and variety in question. Let MR be the multiplication rate of that crop or variety, namely the ratio of harvestable grain to seed sown. Using these three variables, we can determine sowing needs (SN) and the expected harvest (H) with a few simple formulas:

A simple calculator, in Microsoft ® Office Excel format, can be downloaded from www.ciat.cgiar.org/Africa/seed_manual.htm

Forging technically-smart practical tools

SN = PA x SRH = PA x SR x MRThus, H = SN x MR

A note of caution: The formula for SN assumes a crop is sown only once. However, sometimes, especially in marginal areas, seeds of an initial sowing may fail to germinate. So farmers may end up planting a crop two or even three times, thus doubling or tripling their sowing needs.