Back to Search
Start Over
Informal Seed Traders: The Backbone of Seed Business and African Smallholder Seed Supply
- Source :
- Sustainability, Volume 12, Issue 17, Sustainability, Vol 12, Iss 7074, p 7074 (2020)
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2020.
-
Abstract
- To work well and be sustainable, seed systems have to offer a range of crops and varieties of good quality seed and these products have to reach farmers, no matter how remote or poor they may be. Formal seed sector interventions alone are not delivering the crop portfolio or achieving the social and geographic breadth needed, and the paper argues for focus on informal seed channels and particularly on traders who move &lsquo<br />potential seed&rsquo<br />(informal or local seed) even to high stress areas. This paper provides the first in-depth analysis on potential seed trader types and actions, drawing on data collected on 287 traders working in 10 African countries. The research delves into four themes: the types and hierarchies of traders<br />the technical ways traders manage seed using 11 core practices<br />the price differential of +50% of potential (local) seed over grain, and the pivotal roles which traders play in remote and crisis contexts. Traders are the backbone of smallholder seed security and need to be engaged, not ignored, in development and relief efforts. An action framework for leveraging seed trader skills is presented, with the paper addressing possible legal and donor constraints for engaging such market actors more fully.
- Subjects :
- local markets
050204 development studies
media_common.quotation_subject
lcsh:TJ807-830
Geography, Planning and Development
lcsh:Renewable energy sources
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
traders
last mile delivery
0502 economics and business
Quality (business)
Marketing
Price differential
lcsh:Environmental sciences
media_common
lcsh:GE1-350
sustainable seed systems
Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
lcsh:Environmental effects of industries and plants
05 social sciences
04 agricultural and veterinary sciences
potential/local seed
smallholders
High stress
lcsh:TD194-195
Work (electrical)
Sustainability
Africa
040103 agronomy & agriculture
0401 agriculture, forestry, and fisheries
Portfolio
high stress contexts
Business
informal seed sector
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20711050
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Sustainability
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....5289be09b57197228f51d47edf5aa875
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.3390/su12177074