Review of Community Seed Production Practices in Africa Part 2: Lessons Learnt and Future Perspective

Within the context of the case studies presented, there are clear lessons learned and the second section of the review (Part 2) draws out those lessons in looking at seed and variety, description of community seed production, the support role of public, private, and civil society actors, the role of subsidies and technical support, farm level impact, and sustainability. A general theme running through all of these case studies is improving farmers’ access to quality seed of desired varieties. Topics include varietal identification, seed production, seed quality, seed policy, and seed marketing. The main conclusions are: Community seed production is necessary to improve formal and farmer seed system links; community seed production objectives should be explicit and include coherent activities for closing out, transitioning into commercial entities, or linking with publicly funded programs; community seed production is more effective when there is strong collaboration between the public sector, the commercial sector, and civil society/NGOs; The lack of standard ex-ante seed system diagnostics, including economic analysis to justify the scale and scope of interventions, significantly limits the capacity of donors and seed practitioners to make rational investments and intervention design decisions