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Sifelani Tsiko Agric, Environment & Innovations Editor
A total of 46 varieties were released in the country between 2019 and 2021 demonstrating the vibrancy of Zimbabwe crop breeding sector, the African Seed Access Index (TASAI) Zimbabwe country study has shown.
Presenting the findings of the 2022 TASAI study, Dr Patience Nyakanda, a member of the research team told participants at the launch that the latest statistics represents an increase from the 41 varieties released in the three years preceding the previous study (2014-2016).
The new releases comprised 30 maize varieties, six bean varieties, four soya bean varieties and six sorghum varieties.
The launch was organised by TASAI in partnership with the Zimbabwe Seed Association (ZSA).
“It is quite pleasing to see that our plant breeders are responding to the demands of the stakeholders,” Dr Nyakanda said. “A total of 24 out of the 46 varieties released had some special traits.
“The new varieties carried desirable traits such as climate stress resilience, disease – pest resistance and nutrition-enhancements.”
However, she said six of the maize varieties were adopted from the COMESA catalogue, having met the listing requirements.
Plant breeders say the number of varieties released is a good measure of the functioning of the variety development and release system.
“A functioning seed system needs vibrant public and private breeding programs to develop improved varieties that respond to farmer and consumer needs. The number of active breeders is indicative of the level of investment in seed research and development,” the researchers noted in the latest report.
According to the new report, there were a total of 33 breeders working on the focus crops between 2016 and 2021.
Of the 33 breeders, most 49 percent worked on maize, followed by soya bean 21 percent, bean (15 percent and sorghum 15 percent.
Zimbabwe has more private breeders (28) than public breeders (5).
Prof Edward Mabaya, chief scientific advisor for TASAI, said that seed security was a key factor for African agriculture with smallholder farmers as the backbone.
“It is the seed sector that is going to transform the rural landscape in Zimbabwe and Africa,” he said.
“Seed is the software. To adapt to climate change, farmers need seed software. Seed is such a very powerful software. It is so powerful in a way that could help smallholder farmers to mitigate against the effect of climate change.”
He said it was important for African countries to build a seed delivery system that is strong with no bottlenecks along the value chain.
“In Africa there is a lack of information on the seed sector value chain. We need a unified system that collects information about the sector. We need to have a system that can help us identify choke points in the seed sector,” Prof Mabaya said.
The African Seed Access Index (TASAI) initiative was established to help improve smallholder farmers’ access to a wider array of modern, more productive food crop varieties.
TASAI monitors the state of the continent’s seed sector and highlights problems that prevent seeds reaching farmers.
The findings of the initiative help to encourage public policymakers and development agencies to create and maintain enabling environments that will accelerate the development of competitive formal seed systems serving smallholder farmers in Africa.
Online Reporter