IntroductionExternal conditionalities have shaped public policy development in borrowing nations. This has been through top-down policy support programs, an example being the policy reforms under the structural adjustment program. Under the seed sector reforms Malawi committed to the Southern Africa Development Community and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa harmonized seed regulations technical agreements.MethodsTo contribute to the debate, we analyzed the Malawi seed sector policy process by investigating three questions: What were the leading events? Who were the stakeholders involved, and their roles? Which factors influenced the policy process? Qualitative tools were employed based on policy process theory using the Kaleidoscope Model. We used stakeholder inception, planning, feedback workshops, and key informant interviews (N = 17). This data was complemented by grey literature as secondary information. Snowball sampling was used to identify key informant interview participants based on the saturation principle. Narrative analysis focusing on content, structure, and dialogic context was used.ResultsOur results show a strong external influence on the seed sector policy process. This began after independence when development partners supported the establishment of the public agricultural research system to improve production for food security and export. Failure to achieve the earlier objectives resulted in economic reforms aimed at private sector-led seed sector development based on market-oriented policies. The increase in the private sector's role called for adopting and enacting regulatory policies and legislation that used policy transfer theory. International financial institutions, multinational companies, and regional economic communities led this process. Our evidence suggests that the civil society community in Malawi contested the policies for not recognizing farmers' rights. This affected the domestication process of the harmonized seed regulations technical agreements.DiscussionTherefore, we recommend critical consideration and embracing of existing domestic social, political, and technical conditions to support economic policy reforms. This would help reduce unintended consequences and improve inclusivity. Governments may need to play an interlocutory role for the various actors in the policy domain during the domestication process.

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At $1.5 billion the African seed sector accounts for 3.5 per cent of the global seed market. The growth is attributed to economic reforms and African countries adopting market-oriented policies promoting the private sector role and regional integration. However, smallholder farmers have reported poor quality certified seeds on the market. Therefore, this feasibility study sought to prove the existence of counterfeit hybrid maize seeds on the market in Malawi. Using the mystery shopper approach 37 hybrid maize seed samples were bought from agro-dealers and eight reference seed samples from the parent seed companies in three districts of Mchinji, Dowa, and Lilongwe. The agro-dealers were categorised whether licenced or not using the Seed Trade Association database. This was followed by quality and genetic purity using simple sequence repeat (SSR) tests. Results show that only 34% of the agro-dealers where the seed samples were procured were licensed by the government. Quality tests showed that the seeds were within the acceptable range for germination, moisture content, and purity percentage. However, genetic variation results showed that only one of the 37 samples matched the reference seed sample and the rest of the samples exhibited heterozygosity traits not matching the reference samples or similar lines.

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