June 18, 2014
As farmers in Mozambique slowly take up improved and hybrid maize varieties, AGRA has warned that without a robust investment in irrigation systems to speed up seed production and multiplication, there will be no enough seed to guarantee a green revolution in the country any soon.
The country, according to surveys has the poorest hybrid maize coverage in the South African region, with only less than four per cent of land under maize being hybrid varieties. This compares poorly with neighboring countries such as Zimbabwe, whose hybrid maize coverage is over 60 percent, Malawi over 50 percent and South Africa over 80 percent.
“The geography of the country is a bit complicated; divided between highlands and law-lands. This means that we need different seeds for different locations. And with a totally different ecology, it also means that we cannot easily import seeds from different ecologies of different countries to Mozambique,” said Joe DeVries, the Director – AGRA’s Program for Africa’s Seed System (PASS).
“If only the government (of Mozambique) came in with a change in policy, to also allow the private seed companies to be suppliers of the foundation seed, then we are looking at a span of five years to realize a real change,” he said.
Joe observes that the government also needs to invest in irrigation, to allow seed companies produce seed at least two times a year instead of waiting for the rain season in order to produce seed.
AGRA has joined other nongovernmental organizations in Mozambique through breeders from the Instituto de Investigação Agrária de Moçambique (IIAM), translated as the Mozambique's Institute of Agricultural Research, which runs under the Ministry of Agriculture to breed new hybrid maize varieties suitable for different parts of the country.
The organization, which works directly with government agricultural institutions, is supporting Mozambique in two folds; development of appropriate hybrid varieties and support for new seed companies so as to enable the improved seeds get out to the farmers on the ground.
“We know we can do the breeding very well within the public sector, but to get that seed multiplied and given out to farmers in rural areas all around the country, we really need to engage with the private sector. This is because Mozambique does not have a very strong history in agro-business in the private sector. We have to build this industry from the roots up,” said DeVries.
Use of hybrid maize seed in the country is something very new to nearly all Mozambican farmers, according to Dr Pedro Fato, a maize breeder at IIAM.
“But from the year 2000, we have seen AGRA support small seed companies which we believe will fill the gap. These are the same companies we are working with to put the improved hybrid seed in the market,” said Dr Fato.
According to José Ricardo, another breeder from the country, the government also needs to invest in extension services as a way of building capacities of smallholder farmers to accept hybrid maize seeds.
“The farmers have very little knowledge of hybrid maize. And the only way to let them understand the advantages of planting hybrid maize seed is by sending them extension service providers, and putting demos on their farms,” said the sweet potato breeder from the International Potato Center in Mozambique.
Kenya for example, has been depicted a maize “success story” in Sub-Saharan Africa, known for rates of hybrid maize adoption during the 1960s and 70s through aggressive services from agricultural extension officers at the district, zonal and even village levels.
Evidences from different countries in Africa and abroad have shown that adoption of hybridized maize varieties has a direct impact on food security, poverty reduction and is a step towards a green revolution.
However, studies have shown that in the past, maize breeders developed hybrid varieties mainly targeting high yields, and maybe resistance to pests and diseases. But with the emergence of climate change, and more so in a country like Mozambique which has varied ecological zones, plant breeders are paying much attention to adaptability of different varieties to particular climatic conditions.
Through support from AGRA, Mozambican breeders have already released three hybrid varieties which Dr Fato says are performing very well in the fields. “We have several other materials in the trial fields which are very promising, and we expect to release them to the farmers as soon as possible,” he said.
DeVries says that AGRA is still searching for more seed companies to work with in the country. “We have got a long way to go. We still need to build up the distribution system with more agro-dealers at the village and rural town levels, and we still need more seed companies,” he said.
“We still send out calls for interest every year, to see if there are any entrepreneurs out there interested in building seed companies,” said DeVries.
So far, AGRA has trained 30 breeders in Mozambique and is already supporting eight of them.
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