January 28, 2025

How certified seeds can transform agriculture

topic:	Food Security
tags:	#Sustainable Agriculture, #future of food
located:	Uganda, Italy, Tanzania, Brazil, Argentina
by:	Michael Keller

Seed quality is one of the biggest determinants of success for farmers. A high-quality seed can help produce stronger, healthier crops that are resistant to diseases, pests and extreme weather. It allows farmers to expect abundant harvests, increase their incomes, and improve their overall food security, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Conversely, counterfeit seeds - often mislabelled or substandard—can devastate farmers’ efforts, leading to poor harvests and undermining their livelihoods.

As global demand for food continues to rise while climate change poses a growing threat to farming, world leaders must ensure and protect the availability of quality seeds through robust frameworks. With the right frameworks both for developing and providing high-quality seeds, farmers can gain the confidence and choices they need for better harvests, and the broader agrifood sector can thrive.

Unfortunately, access to quality seeds is currently low across low- and middle-income countries. Only around 10 per cent of the world’s smallholder farmers - approximately 47 million - have access to high-quality seeds. This gap is exacerbated by the prevalence of counterfeit seeds, which reduces farmers’ trust in the seed market and impacts their productivity.

For instance, in Southern and Eastern Africa, the spread of counterfeit seeds is rising at a rate of 5 per cent every year, causing lower yields averaging less than one-fifth of the potential for food crops like maize in Uganda alone. Meanwhile, in 2008, the illegal reproduction of tomato varieties contributed to the devastating spread of the Pepino Mosaic Virus across tomato farms in Sicily, Italy, stalling production for more than two years.

Quality control and seed certification

For row crops, proper seed certification, consistently applied across borders, offers an effective solution to this widespread and increasingly impactful challenge. A harmonised certification system not only enhances trust in the quality of seeds but also provides farmers with essential safeguards against unscrupulous traders selling poor-quality seed or grain packaged as seed.

A good example is the OECD Seed Schemes, which provides the international framework for seed certification and has streamlined procedures for 62 participating countries. For more than 60 years, OECD seed varietal certification has played a crucial role in facilitating the international trade of high-quality agricultural seeds while protecting farmers from fraudulent practices. For vegetable seeds, other regulation mechanisms are in place.

Recently, efforts have been made to expand these benefits to African farmers through collaboration between the International Seed Federation (ISF), the OECD and G7 agriculture ministers. This initiative aims to integrate up to 14 African countries into the certification scheme within five years, thereby improving seed quality, farmer incomes and food security across the continent.

Tanzania’s experience with the OECD Seed Scheme illustrates the transformative potential of such seed certification frameworks. After joining the schemes for maize and sorghum in 2016, the country achieved remarkable progress in its seed sector.

Over five years, the quantity of locally produced certified seeds rose by an astounding 910 per cent, while certified seeds available to farmers more than doubled. At the same time, maize seed exports grew from just one metric tonne in 2017 to 500 metric tonnes in 2021, and Tanzania also reported a considerable reduction in the number of fraudulent seeds on the market. 

Access to innovation

Equally important to improving the seed market and ensuring farmers’ continuous access to quality seeds that meet their needs is the establishment of science-based, fit-for-purpose regulations that support plant breeding innovations.

Farmers constantly need new and updated varieties that are developed to cope with emerging and changing challenges. Yet inconsistent seed regulations create barriers to plant breeding innovations by discouraging plant breeders from investing in developing and delivering better quality seeds for farmers globally. 

On average, seed companies invest up to 25 per cent of their annual turnover in research and development to improve seeds. However, the lack of clear and predictable regulatory frameworks diminishes the incentive to invest in further innovations. This includes the use of new breeding methods like genome editing, which could yield more resilient and nutritious crop varieties for farmers in a more precise and efficient way.

To address these challenges, seed regulatory frameworks must strike a balance between encouraging innovation and ensuring farmers have equitable access to improved seeds. This includes setting clear, consistent and risk-proportionate seed breeding criteria that protect the intellectual property rights of seed companies while ensuring broad access for farmers. It should also include legal mandates that focus on preserving the commercial interchange of improved seeds and consider improved seeds similarly across regions and countries. 

Brazil and Argentina offer an excellent example in this regard. Their mutual recognition system for genome-edited crops simplifies and harmonises the regulatory process, enabling plant breeders to navigate markets more efficiently. The system allows seed breeding companies to easily deliver advanced seeds to farmers and recoup a return on their investment.

Adopting similar approaches on a global scale could drive further innovation and create a level playing field for plant breeders and farmers alike.

Ultimately, a transparent regulatory framework, properly harmonised across countries, is essential to safeguard farmers from the risks associated with counterfeit seeds and to encourage investments in plant breeding innovations that meet farmers’ evolving needs.

With practical regulatory frameworks supporting a cycle of seed innovation and adoption, breeders can develop and market improved varieties that address pressing challenges, such as climate resilience and food security. For farmers, access to these seeds can mean the difference between subsistence and prosperity, and empower them to feed their communities and build more sustainable livelihoods.

Michael Keller is Secretary General of the International Seed Federation (ISF). 

Image by Dương Trí.