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Central America’s agricultural zones are dotted with some 2 million small family farms covering one hectare or less. In most cases, farmers grow two main crops – beans and maize. These plots rarely produce as much as they should because farmers lack access to a key input – good quality seeds. Seeds are one of the cheapest but most important factors affecting yields. An FAO project to improve farmers’ access to quality seeds has significantly improved the situation by supporting the creation of seed growers’ associations and providing them with training to improve quality and build businesses. As seed quality improved, farmers’ yields also increased.
Farmers have traditionally relied on seeds certified by government agencies—seeds they knew had been tested by independent evaluators to provide the best yield for that variety of cereal. Yet in Central America, few of the seed fields that smallholder farmers rely on are certified. The government simply doesn’t have the capacity to inspect the vast numbers of small plots planted with maize and bean seeds, the region’s main crops.
By contrast, it can be difficult to tell whether a field of corn or beans is being used to grow food or to sow seeds for next year’s crops. However, there is a key difference between the two.
Corn and beans grown for food are rated based on taste or nutritional content. Corn and beans grown for seed are rated based on characteristics such as germination rate, genetic purity and genetic traits that affect how they perform in the field.
Creating a seed growers cooperative
The first step is to get farmers to join seed growers cooperatives and associations. The existence of associations not only makes training more efficient, but also allows growers to have a unified voice to make demands and seek support from government seed management departments.
The training covered production, quality control, business management and marketing aspects of seed enterprises. The training linked the informal seed sector to the formal sector, connecting it to national agricultural research centers and public seed management departments, while working with the national government to improve certification processes and review policies and programs that affect local markets. This has led to the establishment of 29 local enterprises that currently supply high-quality seeds to farmers in their regions.
The utilization rate of high-quality seeds doubled
The project also involved the Ministries of Agriculture and national agricultural research institutes of all Central American countries, working with FAO and its partners to improve seed quality by providing expertise and quality control, as well as supplying basic seeds to smallholder seed enterprises. By the end of the project, the amount of high-quality seeds used in smallholder bean and maize fields in Central America had doubled – from supplying 8 percent to 16 percent of national seed needs. Today, farmers’ associations continue to improve the quality and quantity of seeds they provide to their clients, who are often also their neighbours or government seed assistance programmes and humanitarian agencies.
This progress has also had a major impact on food security. As of December 2012, enterprises supported by the project had produced more than 6,192 tons of high-quality bean seeds and 754 tons of high-quality maize seeds, enough to plant 121,834 hectares of beans and 67,000 hectares of maize. But this is just quantity. The real measure of success is quality, as farmers who planted these seeds have doubled their yields, producing enough beans to feed more than 458,000 families and enough maize to feed more than 188,000 families.
Looking to the future, the government’s recognition of the importance of the smallholder seed sector has laid the foundation for continued improvement of policies to support seed production and improved links with research centers to promote ongoing breeding programs. Today, members of the Seed Producers Association continue to work together with a focus on how to continue to improve seed quality and, in turn, crop yields for the farmers who grow these seeds.
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