The impacts of the El Niño-induced drought on seed security in Southern Africa: implications for humanitarian response and food security

As part of a strategy to address the effects of the recent El Niño and its impact on the agriculture sector, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) undertook a seed and other agricultural inputs assessment in Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe, with funding support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). South Africa was also assessed even if it was not one of the focus countries, to determine the potential of seed and other input (e.g. fertilizer) exports to other countries in the region. The assessment was conducted by International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in collaboration with Southern African Development Community (SADC) Seed Centre, Governments, Non-governmental Organizations (Catholic Relief Services(CRS) and OXFAM)), National Agricultural Marketing Council of South Africa (NAMAC), the Feed the Future Seed Trade Project and private sector actors. The objectives of the assessment were (i) to assess current seed security situation in drought affected areas to understand constraints and opportunities for intervention (ii) to guide short and long-term field programming and (iii) to build the capacity of national stakeholders to mainstream seed security assessments in national processes..