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In the past three years there has been considerable interest in regional initiatives to assist seed sector development, and particularly so in Africa. The reason for this can be traced to the increasing emphasis being given to the role of the private sector in national seed programs. In the past when governments were the major players in seed supply, they naturally concentrated all their efforts on the national seed requirement in which seed security and self-sufficiency were major concerns. With economic liberalisation and policy reform, governments are withdrawing from production in many countries and the private sector is becoming more active in the commercial functions of production and marketing. However company operations are seldom defined by national boundaries, they seek to maximise the market for their products wherever opportunities exist.
Unfortunately, the regulations developed by each country independently in the past often do not help this process. National variety release systems often took no account of results from an adjoining country with similar climatic conditions. Similarly, seed regulations were often incompatible causing bureaucratic delays in the preparation or movement of consignments. These experiences have prompted moves to facilitate the movement of seeds and varieties across national borders, thus allowing a growth in regional trade. In regions prone to climatic instability, there is a strong seed security dimension in this for it is clearly helpful if seed can be moved quickly into areas where there has been a crop failure.
The key word in this process is harmonisation of regulations to minimise these barriers and there are two main targets in view. For variety registration, the ultimate goal would be a regional variety list, composed of the lists of all the contributing countries, an approach which was adopted by the European Union many years ago by means of the 'Common Catalogue'. For seed movement, a regional seed certification scheme with common standards and procedures would be very beneficial. A third area is phytosanitary regulations and this is potentially the most difficult, but there is a general trend to revise these regulations now in order to reflect a real 'risk assessment'.
One obvious problem with such efforts is to define the geographical scope of the region and the participating countries. It should naturally start with a grouping which have similar agro-ecology and traditional commercial or transport links. Two such initiatives have been unfolding in Africa over the past two years. One is based in East Africa under the aegis of ASARECA - the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa. It currently involves Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, who are currently rebuilding the economic partnership of the former East African Community, but expansion to other neighbouring countries is already being discussed. The other is in Southern Africa with Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe as the first participants under the umbrella of SADC - the Southern Africa Development Council. This is a product of the Sub-Saharan Seed Initiative (SSASI) of the World Bank. A detailed account of both these regional initiatives will appear in the next issue of Seed Info.
Two other Africa-wide developments should also be noted here. One is the establishment of the African Seed Trade Association (AFSTA) whose first Annual Congress in Cairo in March 2001 was reported in the last Seed Info. This Association represents the commercial sector which will actively support the harmonisation agenda. The other is the African Seed Network, which was established at the first FAO regional seed meeting in Abidjan in November 1998. This has a defined coordinating structure and a large framework program of activities for all of Sub-Saharan Africa, but to date little funding has been secured to implement them. However, in the summer of 2001, the Government of France has committed a sum of $250,000 to supporting one component of the Network, again concerned with harmonisation of seed regulations.
It is clear from all these activities that harmonisation is now high on the seed agenda. It is not an easy topic, having both technical and political dimensions, but it is one new front to which donor funds are being directed, with both commercial and seed security objectives in view. This reflects yet again the increasing role of policies as a tool to shape seed program development, now that the era of major capital projects is past. We look forward to further activities of this kind in the WANA region also. Michael Turner, Seed Unit, ICARDA, P.O. Box 5466, Aleppo, Syria; E-mail: M.Turner@cgiar.org
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