adminDr Gift Mugano Correspondent
Zimbabwe is accelerating the implementation of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset). One of the pillars of Zim-Asset is the Food and Nutrition Cluster which inter- alia seeks to restore the country’s breadbasket case for the region.
Interestingly, the Food and Nutrition Cluster fits well with the regional policy on food security, that is, Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP), which is an African Union programme being implemented by regional trading blocs for member states.
For Zimbabwe, CAADP is being implemented by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). There is no doubt about Government commitment to implement Zim-Asset and CAADP.
However, there has been a fundamental void in the programming of activities and programmes aimed at satisfactorily achieving national goals. Food security is only realised if seed security matters are taken high on the agenda, including strengthening the seed regulatory environment.
One such gap is the lack of capacitating of the seed regulatory environment, in particular the institute mandated for seed certification, variety release and variety protection.
The institute mandated for seed certification, variety release and variety protection is Seed Services.
It is a unit within the Research Services Division of the Department of Agricultural Research and Specialist Services (DR&SS) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development responsible for administration of Seeds Act [Chapter 19:13] of 1971, Seeds Regulations and Seeds (Certification Scheme) Notice 2000, and Plant Breeders’ Act [Chapter 18:16].
The legislation basically regulates production, processing, labelling and marketing of certified seed in Zimbabwe. This legal mechanism was therefore put in place with the main objective of promoting production and use of high quality seed of proven performance for the protection of farmers. The institute runs the Official Seed Testing Laboratory that is accredited to the International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) and conducts purity, germination and moisture tests on agricultural, vegetable, tree and flower seeds.
The Plant Breeders’ Rights (PBRs) Act entails the recognition of varieties and variety protection. Other than issues of safeguarding varieties from bio-piracy and meeting the requirements of WTO, PBRs are a form of Intellectual Property Rights which are important in seed industry development for the encouragement of investment in plant breeding; multiplication of foreign varieties in a country; development of varieties adapted to specific conditions of each country; maintenance of varieties, and protection of own varieties against appropriation.
From start, it is important to note that the provisions given by the Statutory Instrument 213 of 2000 [CAP-19:13] defines Seed Services as a certifying authority for seed certification yet as a matter of fact it operates as a unit within a division of the Department of Agricultural Research and Specialist Services of the Ministry of Agriculture.
This structure in itself obscures the organisation’s ability to achieve its mandate! To make matters worse, at the time of its establishment in 1950 it was meant to service three seed companies and two breeding institutions. To date, the operating environment has changed.
There are more than 40 seed companies excluding multitudes of hardware traders, supermarkets, wholesalers and general agro-dealers for which monitoring their adherence to national and international seed standards is a mammoth task for the Seed Services unit.
Interestingly, the seed producers have not only grown in numbers but also invested heavily into new technologies which has seen increase in variety field crops including cereals (maize, wheat, sorghum, millets and rice); oilseeds (soyabean, sunflower and groundnut); pulse legumes (cowpea, bambara nuts and beans) and a tuber crop (Irish potato) while the Seed Services Unit has remained with stagnant and obsolete technology.
There has been expansion in most seed companies of late and this has led to a lot of acquisition of some seed companies by international companies as an investment venture to allow for effective seed production in view of the liquidity crunch in the country.
Restructuring Seed Services would allow the country to be abreast and possibly be able to match this growing industry in terms of enforcing adherence to quality standards and applying advanced technologies.
In terms of infrastructure, Seed Co is understood to be setting up a state of the art seed molecular laboratory plant, which is incomparable nationwide.
This is a welcome development but obviously create a situation where a rat (certifying agency) has authority over an elephant (certifying authority – Seed Services) which is a serious problem.
There is also a growing concern of ever increasing distribution of adulterated seeds or fake seeds.
The current status of the Seed Services Unit in terms of its monitoring capacity is worrisome.
Ironically, Government is against the trade and growing of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) crops. In the absence of a strengthened Seed Services Institute it will be very difficult to prevent production of GMOs. The Seed Services Unit needs to be restructured to allow for its decentralisation into provinces for effective monitoring of fake seeds and delivery of its services closer to farmers and as a means to augment the successful implementation of the Land Reform Programme.
To make matters worse, at the time of the establishment of the Seed Services, the institute’s mandate was focused on domestic market issues of certifying seeds.
In recent years, the institute was not spared with the forces of globalisation and regionalism.
In terms of effective trade, the institute is required to constantly participate at international level in developing standards and as such is expected to have advanced technologies in order to meet international accreditation.
In addition to its original mandate, the Seed Services is also occupied with the harmonisation of seed policies across the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and COMESA notwithstanding the fact that it is not operating as an authority which under normal circumstances will have enough resources to meet this new additional demand.
What is pivotal and critical for the nation is to be able to flag out Seed Services and capacitate it to a level where compromise on seed quality will not have an edge over the majority of farmers, and in particular smallholder farmers.
Pitching Seed Services will help foster and protect the gains of independence, in particular our sovereign right to seed and food.
The establishment of National Seeds Authority will certainly help in effective implementation and monitoring of compliance to seed quality standards for domestic and international trade.
Our regional counterparts, that is, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa and Zambia, for example, have turned their local Seed Services units into national seed authorities which are managed by chief executive officers/managing directors with expanded scope, that is, dealing with international treaties, seed certification and registration of seeds.
The same countries have enjoyed the growth of their horticultural industries. It has been noted that for Kenya, horticulture has contributed more than two billion dollars, and this can only be realised if backed by a well-structured regulatory institute which support farmers’ access to quality seed of horticultural crops.
For Zimbabwe, Seed Services is still a unit as it was since its creation and the Ministry of Agriculture together with the Public Service Commission need to consider restructuring the institute to meet the growing seed industry and technology advancement. As a country we need to capacitate institutions which are critical in attaining national goals.
Many times, as always the case, the important institutions are always neglected in national planning yet they feed into the national outcomes. As in the demands of food security requirements as pronounced in the Zim-Asset, we need seed to achieve that.
Without seed there is no food security to talk about.
The establishment of the National Seed Authority under Ministry of Agriculture should be an easy task for the Government of Zimbabwe in my humble view since this can be done with minimum resources from the Government.
For starters, the Government can donate a building to house the authority and funding can be mobilised from levies and services rendered to seed companies.
◆ Dr Mugano is an economic advisor, trade and competitiveness expert, and Research Associate at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (SA). Feedback: Email: [email protected], cell: +263 772 541 209.
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