Market‐led options to scale up legume seeds in developing countries: Experiences from the Tropical Legumes Project

Abstract

There are several hurdles to ensure sustainable seed production and consistent flow of improved legume varieties in sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia (SA). The unreliable demand, autogamous nature of most of the grain legumes, and slow variety replacement rate by smallholder farmers do not provide strong incentive for private seed companies to invest in legume seed business. Unless a well thought‐out and comprehensive approach to legume seed delivery is developed, current seed shortages will continue, eroding emerging market opportunities. The experiences reported here are collated through a 10‐year partnership project, the Tropical Legumes in SSA and SA. It fostered innovative public–private partnerships in joint testing of innovative market‐led seed systems, skills and knowledge enhancement, de‐risking private sector initiatives that introduced in new approaches and previously overlooked entities in technology delivery. As new public and private seed companies, individual seed entrepreneurs and farmer organizations emerged, the existing ones enhanced their capacities. This resulted in significant rise in production, availability and accessibility of various seed grades of newly improved and farmer demanded legume varieties in the target countries.

A decade of Tropical Legumes projects: Development and adoption of improved varieties, creation of market‐demand to benefit smallholder farmers and empowerment of national programmes in sub‐Saharan Africa and South Asia

“…This resulted in significant rise in production, availability and accessibility of various seed classes and grades of newly improved and farmer preferred legume varieties in the target countries. These experiences have been documented by Rubyogo et al () in this issue.…”

Advances in Crop Improvement and Delivery Research for Nutritional Quality and Health Benefits of Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.)

“…Market-oriented and/or export-led commercial production is a necessity for sustainable legume value chain (Rubyogo et al, 2019). This is still lacking in many developing countries, where a significant proportion of groundnut production is mostly done by small-scale farmers under rainfed conditions for subsistence (Ojiewo et al, 2018a).…”

Tapping the Economic Potential of Chickpea in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…The trend is reversed for improved technology intervention areas, where 82% of the product is supplied to the market [15]. This transformational process for improved technology intervention areas from subsistence farming to market oriented production system was facilitated by scaling-up of technologies through projects such as the Tropical Legumes projects [35,51,52]. The projects promoted improved varieties with market competitive traits and high yield that stimulated producers to a shift from subsistence to market-oriented farming.…”

“…However, the chickpea seed system in SSA, as for many other legumes, remains weak and far from sustainable. The unreliable demand, autogamous nature, and slow variety replacement rate by smallholder farmers do not provide a strong incentive for private seed companies to invest in the legume seed business [52]. Hence, poor access for farmers to improved seeds with key quality attributes-physical and genetic purity; weed, pest, and diseases free; high germination; etc.…”