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This article explores the informal seed business, focusing on the yellow bean in Tanzania. The yellow bean is a major bean type traded, yet little is known about the seed supply that fuels it. The survey research in 2019 encompassed larger grain traders, informal seed traders, and retailers, covered major production, distribution and sale hubs, and was complemented by GIS mapping of seed and grain flows and DNA fingerprinting of yellow bean samples. Results showed that traders buy and sell grain and informal seed: it is not one business or the other, but both. Informal seed is an important moneymaker, representing between 15 and 40% of trader business in non-sowing and sowing periods, respectively. In the year monitored, 100% of the yellow bean seed was drawn from the informal sector, amounting to $US 4.35 million just among those sampled. Nevertheless, the informal and formal sectors are clearly linked, as over 60% of the beans sampled derived from modern varieties. Informal traders prove key for: sustaining the grain business, serving the core of the seed business, and moving varieties at scale. More explicit efforts are needed to link the informal sector to formal research and development partners in order to achieve even broader impacts.

Traditional African vegetables have recently received considerable attention for their contribution to food and nutrition security and opportunities for enhancing smallholder livelihoods. Promoting the production and consumption of traditional vegetables is expected to enhance household nutrition among urban and rural households. The Good Seed Initiative (GSI) program promoted production and consumption of nutrient-dense traditional African vegetables in Arusha region in Tanzania to reduce malnutrition through diet diversification. This study estimated the impact of the program on households, women of childbearing age, and children’s dietary diversity. The study used cross-sectional data from 258 program participants and 242 non-participants households and applied matching techniques to control for problems associated with unobserved heterogeneity, which could otherwise bias the outcome estimates. We compared our findings with the inverse probability of treatment weighting to correct for selection bias. We found that households participating in traditional vegetable promotion program had significantly higher dietary diversity of children under five and women in reproductive age. We found no significant impact of promotion program on households’ dietary diversity. The policy implication is that scaling up promotional activities to encourage consumers to grow and eat traditional vegetables would be an important element in initiatives to increase dietary diversity, particularly for children under five and women of childbearing age in Tanzania.

Farmers need access to certified seed stocks for efficient production of traditional African vegetable seed. However, access to quality certified seed is constrained by several factors. Primary data from four selected regions of Tanzania was analyzed to examine the causal linkages among traditional African vegetable farmers’ decisions to participate in farmer-led seed enterprises and their access to quality certified seeds. The effect of farmers’ access to certified traditional African vegetable seed on revenue generated from their seed sales in the study locale was assessed. This study concludes that farmers’ revenue from traditional vegetable seed sales is positively and significantly influenced by access to certified seed. Indeed, access to certified seed can be increased, if farmers participate in farmer-led seed enterprises, and if they have more frequent contact with village extensionists. Relevant policy actions and recommendations for improving farmer-led seed enterprises are offered., The IFAMR is published quarterly by the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association (www.ifama.org)