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 Acknowledgements

This book grew out of a 2-year ‘exploration’ conducted by the Food Security theme of
The Rockefeller Foundation focusing on the potential for crop genetic improvement to
contribute to food security among rural populations in Africa. The exploration carried
the authors to ten countries of sub-Saharan Africa and a number of related national,
regional, and international meetings on several continents. Along the way, innumerable
individuals – farmers, researchers, seed merchants, policy experts and others – contrib-
uted their views, comments and experiences related to crop improvement in African
agriculture, and the authors are very grateful for their assistance.
In particular, we would like to thank Foundation colleagues Gordon Conway,
Bob Herdt, John Lynam, John O’Toole and Ruben Puentes for reading through the
manuscript and sharing their views. David Jewell and Gebisa Ejeta also read early drafts
and gave useful comments. In addition, we would like to express our gratitude to the
following individuals who assisted with the study by sharing their views and providing
information: Marianne Banziger, Jeffrey Bennetzen, Malcolm Blackie, Ronnie
Coffman, Joel Cohen, Ken Dashiell, Alfred Dixon, Peter Ewell, John Hartmann, Tom
Hash, Dave Hoisington, Lee House, Justice Imanyowa, Jane Ininda, Saleem Ismael,
Monty Jones, Richard Jones, Bill Kiezzer, Laurie Kitch, Jenny Kling, Dennis Kyetere,
Isaac Minde, Larry Murdoch, Patricia Ngwira, Hannington Obiero, Joseph Ochieng,
Moses Onim, James Otieno, Yvonne Pinto, Kevin Pixley, Fred Rattunde, Darrell
Rosenow, B.B. Singh, B.N. Singh, Elizabeth Sibale, Ida Sithole, Margaret Smith,
Aboubacar Toure, Lamine Traore, Wilberforce Tushemereirwe, Eva Weltzien and John
Whyte. Finally, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to Sarah Dioguardi
and Mulemia Maina, who provided excellent care and technical assistance in preparing
the manuscript.
Inevitably, when attempting to address as broad a range of issues as biotechnology
to seed production in a number of important crops, mistakes and discrepancies will
occur, both in terms of the facts gathered and the assertions made. Although the authors
have tried to avoid these, they apologize in advance for those that remain, and take full
responsibility for them.

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 Executive Summary

Food crops grown under low-input, rain-fed conditions in sub-Saharan Africa are
affected by a wide range of biological and environmental constraints, but remain the
best, if not the only, means of improving food security among the rural poor. To reach
maturity and yield well, crop varieties must be able to resist or tolerate these stress
factors. Due to wide variation in environmental conditions over space and time, the
particular set of constraints which operate in any given area is continually changing.
Moreover, local processing and consumption needs often exert additional quality
requirements in order for improved crop varieties to be adopted by small-scale farmers.
To be successful, breeding programmes for Africa must take into consideration this
variation and relevant varietal preferences of farmers. By analysing these requirements,
selecting appropriate parental materials, and making selections under relevant local
conditions with regular farmer input, new varieties with the right combination of
genetic resistances and tolerances can be produced.
This kind of approach differs significantly from the methodology of selecting for
high yield potential and broad adaptation which continues to give good results in more
stable and more highly modified agricultural environments such as those in developed
countries and the irrigated regions of developing countries. The major implication is a
need for more localized, ‘agro-ecology-based’ breeding programmes, where the principal
objective is to assemble a set of traits that reduce yield losses and thereby confer greater
yield stability. Over time, yield-enhancing genes may still be added and make a signif-
icant contribution to overall performance, but the emphasis during the current phase of
breeding programmes should be placed on critical resistance factors.
The need to develop a range of improved varieties for Africa, each well adapted to
local conditions, argues strongly for giving priority to well-funded and staffed crop
breeding programmes at the national level. Country-level programmes have lower costs
and are able to deploy larger numbers of teams which can operate in close proximity to
the various agro-ecologies that need to be covered by any given programme.

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xiv Executive Summary

International agricultural research centres (IARCs) have a major role to play in

facilitating the development of fully capable national agricultural research systems
(NARSs) able to produce the steady flow of new offerings required by farmers. In
addition, international centres and advanced research institutes should devote
significant resources and attention to the more difficult, ‘intractable’ constraints of crop
production which affect the important crop species of Africa. Such intractable
constraints are numerous and have not been solved despite considerable effort using
conventional techniques. By combining their talent and resources, and drawing on the
strengths of biotechnology, international centres and advanced research institutes may
now be able to overcome many, if not most, of these difficult problems.
Biotechnology remains a highly underdeveloped resource for improved food
production in Africa, largely due to underinvestment by governments and international
donors. Africa already has a number of scientists trained in biotechnology who are
unable to utilize their knowledge owing to lack of facilities and operating funds. Since
this situation may continue for some time to come, development of fully functional
biotechnology capacity in all NARSs is not likely. However, those countries that can
adequately staff both conventional and molecular breeding units should be encouraged
to do so. Tissue culture of clonally propagated crops has already proved its value
to agriculture in Africa. A second application of biotechnology which could prove
cost-effective in the short to medium term is marker-aided selection for a range of traits,
with the primary objective being to combine as many resistance traits as are required to
maximize crop performance under low-input conditions. Finally, as national biosafety
regulations and systems become operational, it will become more logical to invest in
national expertise and facilities for crop genetic engineering, whereby critical resistance
traits may be transferred directly into otherwise well-adapted varieties.
Localized, agro-ecology-based crop improvement schemes need to be supported
by similarly oriented seed enterprises. In Africa, investment in the seed sector has
historically been very low, in part influenced by the poor success record of large seed
companies on the continent. Large, monopolistic seed companies have perceived little
advantage in pursuing the locally directed breeding programmes needed to develop
a range of varieties adapted to the various niches created by environmental variation.
Multinational seed companies that rely solely on their own offshore breeders and gene
banks find it difficult to overcome the adaptation barriers of Africa; and their historical
reluctance to commercialize germplasm under licensing agreements with the public
sector further diminishes the attraction of operating in Africa.
Conversely, smaller entities operating in a competitive environment that ally
themselves to NARS breeding programmes for access to new varieties may perform well
with respect to small farmers’ interests. Their most obvious limitations – size and lack of
capital – can serve as an effective entry point for governments, private investors and
donor agencies. Limited production of foundation seed is one bottleneck to the growth
of this and related models for development of the seed industry. More harmonious
regulatory structures across the region are also needed.
Taken together, the combination of new science, new ways of working with
farmers, new opportunities for private sector seed supply, and a greater appreciation of
Africa’s diverse agro-ecologies represent a new era in crop genetic improvement for
Africa. Old arguments for products already being ‘on the shelf’ lose their meaning in

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Executive Summary xv

view of what scientists and farmers can achieve today, if the needed effort and resources
are put forward.
In this context, the importance of responsive, relevant public policy in the further-
ance of a healthy, functional germplasm sector in Africa can hardly be overestimated.
Public policy makers need to be committed to solving the problem of food insecurity on
the continent, and to employing relevant, up-to-date policy that can strengthen the
breeding and seed sectors. The worldwide biotechnology debate has provided the latest
opportunity to put African agriculture in the spotlight and emphasize the need to move
policy structures forward rapidly and responsibly. A major tenet of these changes must
be to encourage private investment of all kinds in the seed sector. Another is the
reinforcement of public sector capacity in crop improvement, using both conventional
and molecular techniques. The establishment of an effective set of biosafety regulations
is also critical to taking advantage of recent advancements in crop improvement.
In spite of its potential, genetic improvement of crops will always face limitations
with regard to what it can offer to farmers in regards to their levels of productivity. No
matter what efficiencies genetic enhancement is able to build into crop plants, they will
always draw their nutrition from external sources, and this places enormous importance
on the investments that can be made in the soils of Africa. Overall improvements in agri-
cultural productivity are likely to move in tandem with improvements made in the man-
agement of soil nutrients by African farmers. Shortfalls in the level of nutrient supply
that are possible through the uses of organic methods must be complemented by making
fertilizer broadly more accessible to small-scale farmers. Because of the need to demon-
strate the potential of the combined effects of genetic improvement and improved soil
fertility, crop improvement initiatives and soil fertility management programmes should
operate in similar environments and test their results on the same or similar sites.
These policy and technology innovations can combine well with the revolution in
farmer participation in agricultural research. One very critical entry point for farmer
participation is the need to understand better the various agro-ecologies that can be
targeted by public breeding programmes. Farmers are the best source of information
regarding the number and prioritization of production constraints, as well as the spatial
distribution of differing agro-ecologies. In view of the importance and complexity of
their preferences for processing, taste, growth habit, and multiple uses of crop plants,
farmers also need to be made part of the process of varietal selection. While there is no
set procedure for farmer participation in breeding schemes in Africa, it seems obvious
that breeding programmes which operate in close proximity to farmers and their base of
knowledge will have definite advantages over those which do not involve farmers.
Within this rapidly evolving professional context, crop genetic improvement can be
viewed as a highly underexploited resource for improving food security among Africa’s
majority, rural populations. Indeed, with late-maturing, low-yielding crop varieties
dominating the farming systems of much of Africa, crop genetic improvement still
has the potential to play an important role in the development of more productive agri-
cultural systems throughout the continent.
A new paradigm for germplasm improvement in Africa, and indeed in other regions
of the developing world, can be envisioned. It is a paradigm driven first and foremost by
the urgent need for food security in Africa among a growing population of very poor,
rural people who have been left behind by globalization and the interests of the private

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xvi Executive Summary

sector. The impetus for understanding the details of their needs in terms of better, more
resilient crops leads directly to the application of an enriched set of technologies for
crop improvement, including conventional, field-based selection and laboratory-based
modification and enhancement of the germplasm. Public sector technology develop-
ment in this paradigm is linked directly to a broad interface of private initiative through
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), farmers’ associations and private business.
And, it is backed up by the commitment to serving the peoples’ needs through seed
distribution by an efficient seed sector.
Providing the crop varieties needed to improve food security across the vast conti-
nent of Africa is an enormous challenge. No donor or national government acting alone
would be able to mobilize the commitment and resources necessary to make a major
change in this area. Novertheless, there is very little likelihood that Africa will be food
secure without an intensive, long-term programme of investment in crop improvement
which takes advantage of the full range of approaches now available.
While it would be going too far to declare that improved food security through
higher-performing crops throughout Africa is readily ‘do-able’, it is at least possible to
break down the process into conceivable steps as follows:
1. Constructing the breeding teams within NARSs supported by IARCs.
2. Delineating and classifying the agro-ecologies which merit targeting.
3. Determining farmer preferences for new varieties.
4. Employing appropriate parental materials and breeding methods aimed to produce
new varieties within an acceptable time frame.
5. Getting seed to farmers via public and private means.
Running concurrently with the process above, biotechnology studies aimed at
developing solutions to intractable problems can be initiated at any time. Products of
those studies feed into step 4. In view of the recent, negative trend in food availability
and child nutrition in sub-Saharan Africa, food security in Africa is one of the most
critical challenges facing humankind today. The record of private investment during the
post-structural adjustment era does not present a convincing argument that growth in
the private sector alone will lead Africa out of poverty and food insecurity. The public
sector still plays an enormously important role in offering hope to the poor and excluded
throughout the continent. And within this grouping, public sector capacity in the
genetic improvement of food crops presents an exciting opportunity to make real
progress.

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 Foreword

One of the many outcomes of the global media debate on biotechnology has been a
heightened level of awareness, and – one wants to believe – interest in how the food crops
that provide our nutrition are developed, grown, and eventually end up on our tables.
This is a positive outcome for several reasons. First, because agriculture in the developed
world, although playing a huge role in the way we live, tends to remain out of sight and
out of mind for nearly all of us except the 2 or 3% who are farmers and farm workers.
Second, because it has reminded us that food security is never a resolved issue. One way
or another, we have to keep on producing enough food for 6 billion people today and 8
billion by 2025, or there could be mass starvation. Finally, the debate on biotechnology
has provided spokespersons of the agricultural community with the opportunity of
explaining to the rest of the world just how dependent we already are, with or without
biotechnology, on genetic improvement of food crops and on inputs such as fertilizer.
As the one remaining major world region where agriculture has yet to be trans-
formed from subsistence, low-yield systems dependent on shifting cultivation to
efficient, modern systems capable of producing regular surpluses, the question of crop
improvement is especially important to Africa. Africa is also the sole world region where
many indices of food security have shown a serious decline in recent years. In the context
of continued high population growth and an increased emphasis on keeping Africa’s
unique natural environment intact, it is clear that crop yields must be substantially and
sustainably increased. As they have in all other parts of the world, more efficient,
better-performing crop varieties can play an important role in achieving this goal.
This book came about as part of a major restructuring of The Rockefeller Founda-
tion which has resulted in a renewed commitment to the poor and excluded of the
world, who have largely been left behind by globalization and economic growth. The
study’s Africa focus reflects a greater emphasis being placed by our Food Security
Programme on that part of the world bypassed by the ‘Green Revolution’. Its attention
to issues ranging from frontier research in biotechnology to participatory methods of

xi

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xii Foreword

seed dissemination via farmers’ groups reflects a greater concern with the application of
science to the needs of the poor that result in real, positive changes in their lives and
livelihoods.
The title of Part I of this book, Biotechnology, Breeding, and Seed Systems for African
Crops: Re-thinking a 10,000-year-old Challenge, reflects what is an ambitious attempt by
the authors to encapsulate in a brief format our current understanding of the nature of
the task of extending better-performing crop varieties to Africa’s farmers. While it is
clear that any one group can only focus on selected portions of this process, it is hoped
that the opportunities identified can mobilize additional resources and generate new
partnerships which cover the full scope of the challenge ahead.
It has been of particular interest to me to note the important roles the authors fore-
see for gaining a greater understanding of agro-ecologies in Africa and for the application
of participatory methods as well as biotechnology. By generating new crop varieties with
greater yield stability, greater productivity and greater local acceptability, and by getting
the new genetic resources into farmers’ hands through more responsive seed systems,
they believe increased food security can be attained.

Gordon Conway

New York
January 2001

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I Biotechnology, Breeding,
and Seed Systems for
African Crops: Re-thinking
a 10,000-year-old Challenge

1
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1 Introduction and Summary

Introduction
The final decades of the 20th century achieved the fastest growth of the global economy
ever recorded over a similar period. Rapid scientific and technological innovation,
coupled with the opening up of economies throughout the world, permitted more
people to improve their well-being than had ever been possible before over such a
relatively brief period of time. Globalization, as the phenomenon of capital mobility
and global distribution of technology came to be called, brought employment and
opportunity to innumerable groups of people who only one generation previously were
unable to imagine such changes.
For many of the world’s poor, the most immediate effect of global economic
growth meant simply eating better and enjoying the many subtle but influential benefits
of adequate nutrition and improved health. World food prices fell dramatically, while
life expectancy rose sharply. As living standards rose, greater numbers of children were
also able to attend school.
At the century’s close, however, it became apparent that not all the world’s
population was equally swept along in the positive trend. A significant portion of
the world’s population had failed to benefit from globalization. Furthermore, the
widespread rolling back of social services within the public sector, coupled with the
widespread belief that in the new world order everyone’s needs would be adequately met
through the marketplace, meant that many members of this group had less chances of
escaping poverty than ever before.
The inability of a large segment of the world’s population to benefit from the
current socio-economic advances presents the world with intellectual and moral
challenges that cannot be ignored. Africa, it is widely accepted, lies at the core of this
challenge. While home to fewer total numbers of this ‘left-behind’ group than Asia, it
also embodies fewer of the factors necessary for inclusion in the growth-led process of
globalization. In Africa, large portions of the population do not have access to sufficient
food. Economies are not growing at rates required to generate new opportunities for

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4 Chapter 1

growing populations. The ensuing widespread frustration felt by local populations is

proving a fertile ground for civil conflict and regional wars.
With upwards of 70% of Africa’s workforce engaged in farming, agriculture
represents an important channel for extending new opportunities for improving the
well-being of hundreds of millions of people throughout the continent. Unfortunately,
continued reliance on technologies and practices designed for a previous era means that
agriculture has largely become a trap for Africa’s rural population, guaranteeing a life of
poverty and isolation.
It does not have to be this way. The arrival of the information age, combined with
new biological technologies, and new ways of linking people to them, means that
peoples’ lives can be improved in a relatively brief period of time. This book explores the
ways to take advantage of the new capacity for global knowledge sharing and increased
public and private capital gains from the past decades, and direct them at one important
group of technologies – crop genetic resources – to broadly improve access to adequate
food and enhance the well-being of Africa’s rural poor.
This book is not intended as an analysis of all the activities ongoing in crop genetic
improvement in Africa. Rather, it is intended as a collection of observations obtained
from a wide range of geographical locations, as well as institutions involved in making
crop genetic resources more valuable and more useful to African farmers. In making
those observations, the authors also attempt to understand what has worked in Africa,
what has not, and how the lessons learned might be grouped together to provide some
guiding principles for crop genetic improvement (the term is used to imply all methods
available, including biotechnology, conventional breeding, and seed dissemination)
work in the future. Nevertheless, they are the first to recognize that much needs to be
learned in Africa, and that the views of many qualified people must yet be sought.
Improved food security, led by increased productivity among Africa’s many small-
scale farmers, has been the aim of significant national and international effort in recent
decades. However, the relatively underdeveloped, non-globalized state of African
agriculture presents scientists, farmers and development agents with challenges at a
number of levels. African agriculture at the close of the 20th century remains by and
large an organic, living system, where biophysical signals within and between cropping
systems still pulse and exert checks and balances on the levels of success that can be
enjoyed by any single organism within the system. Strategies for increasing crop
productivity which operate within this context must be significantly different from those
applied in modernized, highly manipulated agricultural systems of developed regions of
the world. They must also differ substantially from strategies applied in Asia, previously
cited as a potential model for the challenge in Africa. This book attempts to show why
this is the case, and take a new look at the potential role of crop genetic improvement in
making sustainable improvements in the food security status of poor rural people in
Africa.
Improved varieties of African crops are destined for cultivation in soils that are very
low in fertility and where attacks by pests and diseases and periodic drought often
further reduce yields. These factors have led some to conclude that genetic improvement
of African crops cannot result in major social benefits. Indeed, some popular arguments
contend that increasing food production can do little to stave off hunger.
But crop improvement within this context is not just about raising yield
thresholds, just as efforts aimed at making food more abundant in chronically food

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Introduction and Summary 5

insecure regions may have little impact on national food balances. Increasing the
amounts of food produced among poor farmers is aimed at improving nutrition
and maximizing options among people whose options are few. Better crop varieties
for African farmers also involve increasing yield stability and safeguarding the
meagre investments of some of the world’s most vulnerable people. This book argues
that real gains in food availability for the poor and excluded of Africa are possible
through publicly based, multi-tiered crop improvement strategies which are informed
by farmers’ needs and attuned to the agro-ecologies in which the new varieties will be
used.
The argument put forward in this text does not contend that better varieties alone
are the answer to food insecurity in Africa. Rather, more resilient, higher yielding
varieties are viewed as an important component of a broadly improved and better-
supported African farming environment. Improved varieties will inevitably perform
better on more fertile soils, just as farmers’ efforts at securing the harvest will go much
further within national and international policy environments that support and value
their livelihood.
Nevertheless, this study does recognize and seek to capitalize on the advantages of
seed and other planting materials in situations where, at present, little other assistance
can be offered to farmers. Seeds are animate technologies that can be easily transported
and transferred from one hand to another. Seed is also often the cheapest input available.
Improved varieties, therefore, are frequently the only modernized input used by African
farmers. They are the first step in securing the harvest.
The frame of reference for this study is one which will be very familiar to many field
researchers and development agents working in Africa. It is that of a single mother of
several children whose primary means of income is a 1 ha plot of unimproved land on an
eroded hillside. Depending on which part of the continent she is from, her principal
crop may be maize, sorghum, cassava, millet, rice, or banana. Inevitably, her farm will
contain other crops as well, such as cowpea, common bean, finger millet, groundnut,
and if she is lucky, a few cash crops such as vegetables. From each harvest, she must
provide for virtually all the needs of her family throughout the year, including clothing,
health care, education costs and housing. Because she can afford few purchased inputs,
the yield potential of her farm at the outset of the season is low – she can expect to
harvest a maximum of perhaps 2000 kg of produce. Meagre though it may be, in most
years, through a wise combination of sales, barter and home consumption, she may be
able to cope at this low level of productivity.
Figure 1.1a–d depicts hypothetically her farm’s productivity potential under differ-
ent levels of intervention with adapted, accessible technologies, including better crop
varieties and more fertile soils. During the course of any given season, innumerable
threats to the crops appear on the scene (Fig. 1.1a). In the case of maize, the threats
might be drought, maize streak virus, stem borers, and the parasitic weed, Striga. If she
relies on cassava, the threats to her harvest may include African cassava mosaic virus,
bacterial blight and green mites. Periodic drought during the season has a further,
negative effect on yield. The impact of drought plus whatever combination of pests and
diseases attacks the crop in a given year can often reduce the average harvest on her farm
by perhaps 50–60%, to 1000 kg of harvestable produce. At this level of productivity, the
family is on the edge of survival. If the losses are greater, or if disease enters the home,
some members may not survive.

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A4138

6
6

Chapter 1
Fig. 1.1. Strategies for securing the harvest in marginal farming zones of Africa.
Introduction and Summary 7

The effect of crop varieties which resist and/or tolerate these constraints (Fig. 1.1b)
can reduce such losses and raise her harvest above the theoretical survival line of
1000 kg. Meanwhile, improved soil fertility, shown separately in Fig. 1.1c, could allow
her to raise her initial potential harvest to perhaps 3000 kg, but without better varieties
the harvest is still reduced to some point at or near the survival line by the end of the
season. Improved soil fertility and resilient crops combined (Fig. 1.1d), could provide her
with the kind of productive potential and yield stability necessary to raise her harvest to
perhaps 2000 kg, a major improvement.
As uncomfortable as it may make us feel to contemplate the situation of this woman
and her children, this is the reality of millions of farm families throughout Africa today.
Certainly, they stand in need of development in the broadest sense. They need better
roads, better schools, better health care, and more employment opportunities. But they
also need better crop varieties, and in particular varieties which are resilient to drought,
low nutrient soils, insect pests and the myriad of diseases which attack crops in Africa.
Improving productivity – securing the harvest – in low-input systems where
farmers cannot afford purchased inputs means delivering as many useful traits as
possible within the seed. The end product of these efforts, moreover, must be usable and
acceptable by rural households. On a continent where upwards of 70% of the total
population are engaged in farming, better and more resilient crops which produce a
larger and more dependable harvest can be an effective strategy for delivering more food
and earning potential to those who need it most.
Directing science and technology at the ground-level needs of poor farmers may
not be the most effective way to increase food production on a national level. Better-off
farmers in more favourable farming environments may be quicker to adopt new tech-
nologies and produce higher yields with them once they are in place. Nor are resilient
crop varieties a new idea. But unlike in Asia, rain-fed, marginal farming conditions are
not a secondary focus in Africa, to be targeted once the more favourable areas have
been tapped. The difficult conditions and household scenarios like that faced by our
‘woman on the hill’ and her children are the only target whose solution will bring about
meaningful change in the vast, rural areas of the continent. Recent observations of the
revolution being brought about by globalization indicate they will not be delivered
unless very practical, results-oriented programmes are implemented by agricultural
research and development agencies within the public sector (Flavel, 1999; Persley and
Doyle, 1999). It is an enormous challenge, made more difficult by the very limited
resources currently being put forward to address it. Understanding how the challenge
can be approached – ‘putting together the pieces’, if you will – of some very promising
recent advances in the science and methods of working with the poor would seem a
useful subject to explore.

Summary
Recent years have seen vast improvements in our understanding of the genetic make-up
of crop plants and the techniques available for enhancing them. It is now possible to do
more for the ‘woman on the hill’ than ever before. Indeed, the failure of the Green
Revolution to take root previously in Africa means that, in one form or another, most of
this potential is yet to be realized. Nevertheless, accessing these advances and directing

7
A4138:AMA:DeVries:First Revise:15-Oct-01 Chapter 1
8 Chapter 1

them toward the needs of the poor in an increasingly private sector-driven development
agenda is a major challenge which requires support from many sides.
Crop genetic resources are assets that the poor and excluded can own and
further modify to meet their needs. Experience and observation have shown that African
farmers are intensely interested in questions of crop variety performance. Most are
already engaged in informal variety trials of their own design. Their expertise can be
tapped in the search for resistance genes, in making selections, in growing out progeny
and in adapting varieties to local conditions. Many of them can help deploy and
disseminate the new varieties which result.
African farmers are supported by a group of committed, well-trained scientists and
technicians who understand well the tasks they face. Nevertheless, their numbers are as
yet insufficient to ensure full success. Moreover, their lack of access to operating funds
regularly reduces the rate and extent to which their knowledge can be applied.
Additional training is needed, especially in the newer techniques for genetic improve-
ment and in understanding better Africa’s diverse agro-ecologies; and additional
financial support is required to allow them to put their strategies into action.
Some of the solutions are close at hand. For example, introgressing resistance to
maize streak virus in African maize populations should be a relatively simple task. If
known resistance genes were transferred into locally well adapted genotypes, maize
production across Africa might be increased by several million tonnes (see Plate 1).
Achieving solutions to other constraints will require more complex, high-risk ventures.
Downy mildew disease of millet is controlled by up to 17 genes (Hash et al., 1996), and
the fungal pathogen can rapidly evolve new pathotypes. Resistance in cereal crops to the
parasitic weed, Striga, is so ephemeral a trait that researchers are working at transferring
in more durable resistance genes from wild relatives (Ejeta et al., 2000; Kling et al.,
2000).
This book attempts to consider both the broad context of the role of crop genetic
improvement in improving food security in Africa and the more specific, scientific
challenges inherent to improvement strategies within important crop species. As such, it
is divided into two parts. This first part of the book looks at a range of human and
environmental factors which condition efforts aimed at benefiting farmers through
improved crop varieties, and then focuses on the discrete but interlinked roles of crop
breeding, biotechnology, and seed systems in developing and delivering new products to
farmers. The second part focuses on the challenges of genetic improvement and seed
dissemination for seven crop species of broad importance to African agriculture.

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2 The Challenge

2.1 Overview
The exploration that gave rise to this book tried, to the extent possible, to take a ‘clean
slate approach’ to understanding the role of crop genetic improvement in African agri-
culture, and recognize those factors which seemed most influential in how small scale
farmers take advantage (or fail to take advantage) of improved crop varieties. An impor-
tant sub-theme of this study was to understand why the Green Revolution of Asia and
Latin America did not have a greater level of impact in Africa.
Inevitably, the complexity inherent in the range of factors (farmer income, profita-
bility, infrastructure, education, environmental factors, institutional factors, etc.) which
affect crop improvement in Africa obliged the authors to group some of those factors
which were perceived as less important tinto those which were believed to be of major,
continent-wide importance. The result is a short list of interacting factors which
includes:
● the range and intensity of biophysical constraints to crop growth;
● large agro-ecological variation;
● the under-developed state of seed sectors in most countries;
● the absence of policies which encourage crop improvement; and,
● very low and declining soil fertility in much of Africa.
While depicted here as constraints, the chapter largely tries to communicate a mes-
sage of optimism that previous barriers to raising agricultural productivity in Africa can
be overcome through new knowledge, new science and better methods of working with
farmers.

9
10 Chapter 2

2.2 A Myriad of Production Constraints

The African continent south of the Sahara is dominated by agriculture. Approximately
70% of Africans live in rural areas and an estimated 50 million families derive their
livelihood from farming. The vast majority of these farms cover an area of less than 5 ha
and are hand-tilled. Crops are grown using a minimal amount of purchased inputs
(i.e. seed, fertilizer, etc.) (Wiggins, 2000).
Under these conditions, African crops are threatened by a daunting array of
debilitating production constraints which farmers can do little to change. In this book,
these constraints are loosely categorized as either ‘routine’ or ‘intractable’. ‘Routine’
constraints are those which may be more or less effectively controlled through plant
breeding aimed at raising genetic resistance or tolerance levels through conventional
crossing and selection methods. ‘Intractable’ constraints are those which are difficult or
impossible to control through conventional crop improvement (see Plate 2).
Categorization of a constraint as either intractable or routine is of course dependent
upon the ability of the farmer to alter the growing environment. The very limited invest-
ment capacity of small-scale farmers in Africa means that many potentially routine
production problems are, in fact, intractable. This increases the significance of genetic
crop improvement as a strategy in their potential control. Likewise, the dominance
of production constraints shifts the breeding strategy from one aimed at maximum
yield potential under high input use to one aimed at limiting losses from identified
constraints under low input use.
The potential to manage production constraints through crop genetic improvement
has increased steadily throughout the history of plant breeding, but has been greatly
expanded through the emergence of biotechnology. Although the diverse applications of
biotechnology may eventually make it a useful approach to the control of routine con-
straints to food production in Africa as well, for the purposes of this book, biotechnol-
ogy is considered primarily applicable in the case of ‘intractable’ constraints. An
incomplete, but illustrative short list of intractable constraints to production for seven
crops in significant portions of Africa is given below (Table 2.1).
While constraints to crop production exist throughout the world, they are more
intense in the tropics. Wellman (1968) studied the incidence of diseases on a number of
important food crops and noted far more in the tropics than in temperate areas. Dover
and Talbot (1987) reported that preharvest losses due to pests and diseases are approx-
imately 35–50% in some tropical areas (Table 2.2).
Biophysical constraints in Africa pose a greater threat to increasing agricultural
productivity than in other developing regions of the world. African farmers use vastly
fewer off-farm inputs and largely continue to apply traditional methods of cultivation
(Wiggins, 2000). In contrast, Latin American and Asian farmers have broadly modern-
ized their cultivation methods over the past three decades (Table 2.3).
Table 2.3 indicates the vastly contrasting pace of development in different regions
in the developing world over the previous three decades. The agricultural sectors of Asia
and Latin America, which began the period with higher levels of development in all
categories (irrigation, fertilizer use and mechanization), have developed more rapidly
than Africa’s.
Latin America maintained a fourfold advantage in the percentage of irrigated
agricultural land over Africa. Asia, which began the period with a massive, 24-fold
The Challenge 11

advantage in the percentage of irrigated land, continued to add irrigated land at a rapid
pace, while Africa, continued to grow from a miniscule base.
Significant variations in rates of growth are also noted in fertilizer use and mech-
anization. Asia and Latin America finished the three-decade period with more than
fivefold and threefold increases in fertilizer application rates, respectively, while African

Table 2.1. Examples of intractable constraints to production among small-scale

farmers for seven important African food crops.

Focus crop Intractable traits

Maize Striga, stem borers, phosphorus uptake

Sorghum Striga, anthracnose, phosphorus uptake
Millet Striga, head miner, downy mildew
Rice Gall midge, rice yellow mottle virus
Cowpea Maruca pod borers, bruchids, thrips
Cassava Root rots, green mite
Banana Banana weevil, nematodes, black sigatoka

Table 2.2. Crop disease incidence in tropical compared with temperate zones.

Number of diseases

Crop species Temperate areas Tropics

Sweet potato 15 187

Rice 54 500–600
Beans 52 253–280
Potato 91 175
Maize 85 125

Source: Dover and Talbot (1987) after Wellman (1968).

Table 2.3. Rates of usage of irrigation, fertilizers and mechanical land preparation
in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Irrigated area Fertilizer No. of tractors

(% of total application in use
agricultural land) (kg ha−1)a (× 103)

1970 1997 1970 1997 1970 1997

Sub-Saharan Africa 0.4 0.6 1.2 2.9 84 159

Asian developing
countries 9.6 13.4 9.0 52.5 488 4610
Latin America and
Caribbean 1.5 2.4 4.4 14.6 637 1589

Source: FAO (2000).

aFigures vary. These were calculated by dividing FAO total fertilizer consumption by

total cultivated area.

12 Chapter 2

farmers managed only an increase of between two- and threefold. African farmers now
apply fertilizer at lower rates than Asian and Latin American farmers did three decades
ago. Lower input use in Africa is probably substituted in part by added labour input,
without which, yield levels would be lower. This translates to lower labour productivity,
and an accompanying drag on management capacity within the household, with
resultant negative impacts on factors such as sanitation, education and infant health.
Even more striking differences were noted for mechanical land preparation. In 1998,
Africa had one-third and one-quarter, respectively, the number of tractors in use as Asia
and Latin America in 1970.
All these factors – irrigation, fertilizer and mechanization – exert a homogenizing
force on crop growth conditions when they are present. Irrigation (and drainage) makes
water more uniformly available to the plant throughout the season, allowing for the
plant leaf canopy to remain fully extended over the full growing cycle. Irrigation also
significantly reduces risks associated with other forms of investment, such as fertilizers,
which fail to provide a cost-effective response in the absence of water. Fertilizer applica-
tion, in addition to supplying basic nutrition for the development of vegetative and
reproductive structures, reduces variability of nutrient supply within the field, generally
increasing the value of genetically uniform crop varieties. Tillage performed by tractors
reaches deeper into the soil profile and, over time, reduces localized variation in the
field’s topography.
The effect of input use is both a whole-farm environment that is more favourable
to crop growth than the surrounding, natural environment, and reduced within-farm
variation. It is in part the reduction of this within-farm variation that makes possible the
cultivation of highly uniform varieties of a single crop species possible throughout large
areas of North America, Asia and Latin America. As we will attempt to demonstrate, the
same is not true in Africa.
The preponderance of production constraints among African staple crops calls
for increased funding for research on crop genetic improvement to overcome those
constraints. While biotechnology is not an automatic solution to these constraints,
it should be viewed as a useful tool for improved food security in Africa. Tissue culture
can assist in the rapid multiplication of pathogen-free and true-breeding lines. Geno-
typic analysis through marker-assisted breeding can be used to identify favourable
individual plants with valuable, difficult-to-measure traits. Gene transfer through
genetic engineering can overcome limited genetic variation within a given species.
However, as emphasized throughout this book, biotechnology research should be linked
from the beginning to viable field-based breeding programmes, and, ultimately, to seed
dissemination strategies to prevent their results from remaining ‘on-the-shelf’.

2.3 Africa’s Diverse Cropping Landscape

Africa’s cultivated area is of immense size and has great environmental variation. African
farmers have developed complex cropping systems to fit environments ranging from the
slopes of Mt Kenya to the fringes of the Sahara, each with its unique mix of biotic and
abiotic constraints. For this reason, cropping patterns and dietary staples vary widely
from one end of the continent to another. Moreover, observations of small- compared
with medium- and large-scale farmers in Africa show that small-scale farmers tend to
The Challenge 13

cultivate a wider range of crop species, most likely as a strategy for maintaining house-
hold food security during a maximum portion of the year independent of household
purchasing power. The need for diversification may drive farmers to cultivate a very
wide range of crop and animal species (see Conway (1997) for an example from western
Kenya). In isolated regions of the continent where species diversity is limited, intra-
species (or, varietal) variation may be substituted. Farmers in Sudan’s Bar el Gazahl
region cultivate up to four varieties of sorghum whose morphological and growth habit
differences rival those found among different crop species.
Farmer crop deployment strategies extend to the species and subspecies level
according to complex environmental and social norms. Rice farmers in northern Mali
grow large plots of relatively high-yielding Asiatic (Oryza sativa) rice on upper-level
terraces of their farms on the Niger flood plain for normal consumption during the year.
In lower-lying parts of their farms, they grow preferred, African (O. glaberrima) varieties
for use mainly during special occasions such as religious holidays, weddings, and
baptisms. Farmers in the Bugusera region of Rwanda and Burundi grow different
varieties of sorghum and bananas in the same fields for use in either beer-making or as
weaning foods for infants. Farmers in a wide range of agro-ecologies of eastern and
southern Africa grow small plots of sesame as a source of cooking oil, which otherwise
represents a major household cash expenditure.
The interaction of opportunities and constraints that farmers manage creates the
resultant farming systems that embody the use of all available resources – human,
ecological, genetic, and other – for achieving food security. Researchers have at various
junctures attempted to understand this full picture of the farming system through
extensive interaction with farmers prior to intervening through research initiatives
(Hildebrand, 1981; Merrill-Sands, 1986).
The complexity of farmers’ decision-making environments can be startling. Table
2.4 shows the agricultural calendar prepared by farmers and extension agents in Tete
Province, Mozambique (Buhr, 1990). A tremendous amount of information can be
inferred from the chart, which depicts, for example, what some agricultural economists
have long asserted about African farming systems, namely, that labour is often a
constraint in modifying existing cultivation practices (Barker and Cordova, 1978;
Hildebrand and Poey, 1985). While labour shortages are obviously apt to exist during
the September to November planting period, additional shortages can occur during
much of the rest of the year, as well, including during the time of weeding and harvest,
when certain ‘niche crops’ and second seasons (or ‘relay crops’) of main crops must
be planted. These labour shortages often lead to late planting in large parts of Africa.
This, combined with the existence of a recurrent ‘hunger period’ prior to the main
harvest season, gives rise to the intense interest farmers in Mozambique and
elsewhere have shown in earlier-maturing maize. Early-maturing varieties can also lead
to the introduction of a second ‘relay’ crop, which can be grown on residual moisture,
thus permitting a broad intensification of farming systems (Haugerud and Collinson,
1990).
While such complexity can appear overwhelming to researchers attempting to make
contributions through the transfer of improved technologies, experience suggests that it
is just this level and type of information that is needed in targeting different agro-
ecologies from a limited number of research sites, as in the case of plant breeding. These
principals are explored in greater detail in Chapter 4.
14 Chapter 2
pea
The Challenge 15
pea

Okra
16 Chapter 2

Because small-scale farmers in Africa cultivate largely unimproved (i.e. unterraced,

non-irrigated, and undrained) fields, they have deployed a rich mix of crops, each
bearing an adaptive advantage within some niche on the farm. The implication is that
farmers of a given agro-ecology seeking to improve their overall productivity may be in
need of improved, adapted cultivars of several crop species. Likewise, significantly
improving any one crop may be of great benefit to one group of African farmers but of
little importance to another (see Plate 3).
While household economies and farm-level variability create crop deployment
patterns at one level, large-scale environmental variation on the African continent
creates crop deployment trends on a far wider scale. Understanding these trends can be
of use in devising strategies for agricultural research at national and regional levels.
Figure 2.1 shows the geographical distribution of production of staple crops within the
major climatic zones of Africa.
As would be expected, the distribution of crop species across differing geographical
regions varies considerably. Within a region, however, priorities can be relatively easily
identified. In order to significantly affect household food security status of rural
populations, efforts focusing on a given region obviously must focus on a range of crops
used extensively on farms within that region.

Fig. 2.1. Per capita production (in kg) of primary crops in sub-Saharan Africa. Ma,
maize; R, rice; S, sorghum; Mi, millet; Ca, cassava; B, banana; Co, cowpea. Source:
FAO (2000).
The Challenge 17

● A major impact on food security in Africa’s semi-arid sahelian zone will require
inclusion of drought-tolerant crops such as sorghum, millet and cowpea.
● For humid, lowland regions such as coastal West Africa and the Congo Basin,
strategies should include a focus on cassava, with important, secondary efforts on
maize and rice.
● Sorghum and millets, formerly major crops in eastern and southern Africa, are
losing acreage and would appear to have decreasing importance in this region.
Today, strategies for most rural populations of eastern and southern Africa need to
focus primarily on maize, with important, secondary efforts on cassava, common
bean and banana.
● Grain legumes remain important in the diets of people in all areas except the Congo
Basin, although their inherently lower yield prevents them from competing with
productivity levels of starchy crops. This translates to a focus on cowpea in lowland
areas and common beans in mid-altitude and highland areas.
Dealing with environmental variation requires a strategy which encompasses the genetic
challenge (namely, introgressing target traits useful to a range of crop species into a range
of crop genetic backgrounds) (Buddenhagen and de Ponti, 1983) and the institutional
challenge (working through structures which link differing national programmes facing
similar crop improvement tasks). However, through better understanding of the
prioritization given by farmers to different species and traits within those species, it
should be possible to develop coherent, national strategies for improving the genetic
basis for crop production for a range of species.
Species selection by farmers across various subregions is reflected in consumption
patterns for Africa as a whole. Figures 2.2 and 2.3 show figures for per capita consump-
tion of the principal food crops in Asia and Africa during 1997. The data reveal the use
of a wider range of food crops in Africa. Consumption of only two crops – rice and
wheat – accounts for 70% of non-animal food consumption in Asia. Meanwhile, the
consumption of Africa’s four most important crop-based food products – wheat, maize,
banana/plantain and cassava – accounts for only 67% of its total, with much of the
wheat being imported.
The broad implications for crop improvement strategies in the two regions are
obvious. Whereas Asia’s struggle largely hinged on the ability of researchers and farmers

90
80 Asia
Africa
(kg person−1 year−1)

70
Crop consumption

60
50
40
30
20
10
0
ze

at

t
ille
ic
he

hu
ai

M
M

rg
So

Fig. 2.2. Cereal crop consumption trends in Asia and Africa, 1997.
18 Chapter 2

80
70 Asia
Africa

(kg person−1 year−1)

Crop consumption
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

va

to

es
m
at

ai
ta
sa

ls
Ya

nt
ot
Po

Pu
as

la
tp

/p
C

ee

na
Sw

na
Ba
Fig. 2.3. Consumption trends of selected non-cereal crops in Asia and Africa, 1997.

to devise more productive rice and wheat-based farming systems, in Africa, broad-based
food security will require sustainable productivity increases within its respective agro-
ecological systems based on maize, sorghum, cassava, millet, rice, pulses and bananas,
among other crops. Consequently, this book focuses on seven priority food crops of
sub-Saharan Africa. In Asia, the initial success of modern varieties of irrigated rice and
wheat was followed by success in developing varieties for many rain-fed areas devoted
to these and other crops. Most of Africa, however, is characterized by farming con-
ditions that have reduced or delayed the impact of genetic improvement found in
other parts of the world. While all the major regions of the world include areas
with these sets of conditions, in Africa, they dominate. As indicated by Byerlee (1996),
these include marginal crop production areas, areas with very poor infrastructure, and
areas where quality traits outweigh the yield advantages of improved varieties, among
others.
An observational accounting of land use patterns among small-scale farmers in
Africa’s little-modified agricultural landscape indicates that crops are employed largely
according to their ecological niche. Issues such as temperature, natural drainage, rainfall
patterns, soil fertility, and pest and disease occurrence, to a large extent, govern which
crops can be used where. In the tropics, the temperature regime is mainly influenced by
elevation. Most attempts at classifying cropping systems have focused on this factor. In
the following, an attempt is made to offer descriptions of the trends in agricultural land
use in differing environments in Africa.
Lowlands. Valley bottoms of lowland humid environments are widely sown with rice. In
off-seasons, raised beds often produce sweet potato. In sloping areas, cassava and upland
rice are grown on highly leached soils. As rainfall decreases, soil phosphorus levels
increase and maize can be grown. Semi-arid lowland zones are dominated by sorghum
and millet cultivation. Cowpea is the most important pulse crop grown in all well-
drained lowland environments. Few pulses grow well in poorly drained lowland
environments, and diets often lack this element.
Mid-altitude zones. Mid-altitude zones of Africa are dominated by maize. In higher
rainfall areas, however, maize productivity is reduced by foliar and storage pests and
diseases and reduced sunlight, and cassava and/or bananas are commonly grown.
The Challenge 19

Cassava is also substituted for maize in very high population zones and areas with very
poor soils. In lower rainfall areas, moisture stress reduces yields and sorghum becomes
the dominant crop. Poorly drained mid-altitude environments are planted to rice. Beans
and pigeon pea are the most popular pulses in mid-altitude zones.
Highlands. Areas above 2000 m except Ethiopia are planted to ‘English’ potato and
highland bananas, with interspersed plantings of maize and wheat. In Ethiopia,
highland areas are planted to teff. The dominant pulse of the African highlands is beans.
In the Great Lakes regions, beans also supply a large percentage of carbohydrates.
The result is a rich and resourceful utilization of crop genetic resources which con-
tribute economic advantages, nutrition, and cultural significance to rural households
across the continent. Moreover, this diversity, while presenting its own challenges to
crop improvement, holds the promise that improvements made on crop species can be
used in ecologically sustainable ways. As explored in greater depth later in this book,
both the variety of crops and the importance of their adaptation, in turn, highlight
the need for decentralized breeding operations and the continual involvement of farm-
ers in identifying traits and selecting improved crop varieties for multiplication and
commercialization.
Regional crop improvement programmes have made some attempts at under-
standing the complexity of agro-ecologies in Africa in order to target better their breed-
ing efforts and varietal testing programmes (see Plate 4). The International Center for
Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT), for example, has recognized nine maize
production ‘mega-environments’ in sub-Saharan Africa based on three different altitude
ranges in three different ecologies: lowland tropics, subtropical, and highland tropics
(CIMMYT, 1990). The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) has
recognized 14 ‘bean production environments’ in sub-Saharan Africa based on similar
criteria (Wortmann, 1998). Such groupings of environmental variation into aggregated
geographical units is critical for the targeting of crop genetic resources aimed at
achieving continent-wide coverage. However, the level of resolution achieved by such
efforts to date remains imprecise in comparison with its importance in hitting the target
consistently, throughout Africa. Thus, crop-specific agro-ecological analysis remains a
critical area of untapped potential for broadly improving the impact of crop genetic
improvement.
In most cases, this will be a task taken on by the national agricultural research
systems (NARSs), at times reinforced by ecological and ‘geographic information
systems’ (GIS) studies performed by international agricultural research centres’ (IARCs)
outreach programmes. Progress has been made in several countries. As an example, the
Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) recognizes five maize breeding agro-
ecologies in Kenya which are used to focus breeding efforts, depicted in Fig. 2.4.
Researchers in western Kenya have recognized additional subclassifications within the
‘moist mid-altitude zone’, which can be used to add further precision to crop improve-
ment efforts (Amadou Niang, personal communication). Thus, even cursory inventory
of maize agro-ecologies in Kenya may result in six or more broad ‘families’ of maize
varieties. Kenya represents one of the most intensively studied countries in Africa, and,
perhaps not coincidentally, one where crop genetic improvement has made significant
impact (Gerhart, 1975). Wider and more intensive analysis of agroecologies needs to be
conducted by crop improvement teams in all African countries.
20 Chapter 2

Fig. 2.4. Constraints to maize production in major agro-ecologies (Highlands, Mid-Altitude

Moist, Mid-Altitude Intermediate Moist, Mid-Altitude Dry, Mid-Altitude Intermediate Dry, and
Tropical Lowlands) of Kenya identified by KARI maize breeding teams. DTM, days to maturity.

Trying to make accurate determinations of varietal needs for numerous groups of

African farmers living in widely varied agricultural agro-ecologies is a real challenge.
Without it, however, the chances of success are slim. Experienced crop improvement
specialists in Africa can cite the many new varieties which have been developed for
The Challenge 21

African farmers, but which have never been adopted. Former US Secretary of Agri-
culture, Clayton Yeutter, writing recently on the biotechnology revolution (ISAAA,
2000), stated:
Newer genetic modifications, impressive as they may be in the laboratory and in the pages
of professional journals, are of little real world relevance unless those desirable traits are
transmitted through seeds with good yield characteristics. Otherwise, farmers in the U.S.,
Africa, or anywhere else, simply will not plant those crops.
Unlike Asia, new crop varieties for Africa cannot be developed based on the assumption
that fertilizer will be subsidized and made available through government programmes.
To be adopted in Africa, new varieties need to be well adapted to local conditions and
provide yield advantages with few external inputs. Recent approaches to breeding
focused on selection under low-input African conditions (Bänziger et al., 1997;
Bahia and Lopes, 1998) have proved effective in identifying varieties with superior
performance under drought and low soil nutrient status. Such adaptation to environ-
mental stress needs to be combined with good levels of resistance to foliar diseases, insect
pests and, in some cases, the ability to grow vigorously during early stages of develop-
ment to ‘shade out’ weeds. While landraces will in most cases have reasonable levels of
resistance to all these constraints, for reasons related to co-evolution and the relatively
slow rate of genetic change via mass selection methods performed by farmers, it is
unlikely these levels will match those possible through scientific breeding programmes.
To develop varieties that poor farmers find useful, it is necessary to understand
environmental variation in Africa and listen to farmers’ advice on issues of growing
environments and household utilization, a topic explored more extensively in Chapter
4. In Africa, perhaps more than in any other part of the world, the science of genetic
improvement must be paired with the art of understanding people and the environ-
ment. This will require additional investment in areas which serve to consolidate the
presently diffuse, dispersed base of knowledge on agro-ecologies and crop ‘user systems’
in Africa. Recent initiatives such as the atlases on bean, cassava and maize are a good start
in this direction (Carter et al., 1992; CIAT, 1998).
Household preferences, as well, cannot be overlooked in breeding programmes and
consideration should be given to the overall crop usage environment in which the
adoption must take place. Some crop/user system combinations in developing countries
constitute situations where yield advantages of improved varieties can easily be out-
weighed by the importance of quality traits (Herdt and Capule, 1983). Very poor
farmers often cannot afford to pay for industrial milling services, and must carry out all
processing tasks in the home. Thus, farmer preference for flint-textured maize varieties
among resource-poor farmers in Malawi was key to identifying flint hybrids which
achieved high levels of adoption in the early 1990s (Nhlane, 1990; Smale et al., 1993).
Likewise, food scientists who have analysed sorghum quality characteristics have become
increasingly capable of predicting the acceptability of improved varieties based on the
quality of food products they produce. Studies conducted using sorghum flours from
West, southern and East Africa revealed significant differences in flour texture and total
water content of porridges consumed. Households preferred varieties with high amylose
starch content and low flour lipids and proteins (Fliedel and Aboubacar, 1998). Few
improved varieties have scored high in such tests. Nevertheless, breeders have often
22 Chapter 2

failed to take full advantage of the ability of food scientists or consumers to inform them
of the probable success of their offerings at the household level.
The need to link as much field-based information as possible to crop improvement
programmes argues for a high degree of integration of disciplines and connectivity
between breeders working at international, regional and national levels. Decision-
making matrices that may seem very complicated to breeders may be a relatively simple
matter for farmers who use crops in various forms everyday. Since many aspects of
adaptation and farmer preference do not relate to expertise commonly embodied within
crop research institutes, adequate linkages need to be established with agencies or
individuals who do embody this expertise, including farmers and NGOs.

2.4 A Seed Sector ‘Dominated by Market Failure’

While the trend toward privatization and globalization of the germplasm sector has
undoubtedly resulted in the distribution of better seed-based technologies to farmers in
developed regions of the world, these policy changes will not function to the same extent
in Africa in the short or medium terms. Private seed companies are constrained to
operating in environments where they can make acceptable profits. In Africa, multi-
national seed companies may be motivated to popularize one or even several high-
yielding maize hybrids among better-off farmers in favourable areas, but it is less likely
that they will find it profitable to devote significant resources to developing varieties
with the very specific adaptation advantages required by small-scale, low-input farmers.
Even if such varieties enabled resource-poor farmers to double their yields, this would
often mean an increased harvest of only 1 t ha−1 or less. The share of increased profits a
seed company might capture from such a modest increase is small in comparison with
profits available in developed regions of the world (Tripp, 2000). Additionally, the
degree of complexity involved in designing a full range of varieties required by different
categories of farmers cultivating farms in very different agro-ecologies further limits
potential profitability.
Low effective demand and relatively small profits available from seed in much of
Africa, in comparison with the rest of the world, have delayed the commercialization of
the seed market. Low rates of economic growth forecast for much of Africa are not likely
to attract large-scale investment from outside the continent of the type needed to achieve
broad coverage of farmers’ needs for seed. Rather, indigenous seed companies that oper-
ate closer to local markets and on lower margins should be considered as a solution with
wider potential. To date, however, little international or national assistance has been
directed at this type of company. The strategy put forward in this book places high
importance on the development of Africa’s private seed companies.
Regardless of the strategy employed, given the economic realities in Africa and the
difficulties seed companies face in attracting clientele, growth of the seed sector is likely
to be slow and sporadic. The implication is that public sector-based strategies for seed
dissemination will be critical to realizing the benefits of crop genetic improvement in
Africa for some time to come. In fact, the absence of a sufficient effort by either private
or public sector breeding interests has left an enormous gap in the seed supply offered to
African farmers. While things can be done to encourage such investment, alternative
strategies and continued experimentation are needed (see Chapter 6).
The Challenge 23

Finally, in the absence of investment by private seed companies, the rapid-fire,

signal–response, product-refining process that is the great advantage of distribution
systems conducted via private enterprise will not operate for seed in Africa. Feedback on
performance and preference issues must be gathered through other means. This fact
drastically increases the need for continual participation by farmers in variety refinement
and seed dissemination. It also points to a critical role for research managers who oversee
crop improvement initiatives and are ultimately responsible for ensuring that useful
varieties emerge from such efforts. This challenge is discussed in greater detail below.

2.5 Policies and Institutions are Critical to the Success of Crop

Improvement
Policies that favour food security – like those which favour education and health –
provide a foundation for development and the passing on of these basic human needs
to successive generations (Sen, 1981). Of these three commonly cited priorities for
development, however, the most basic and immediate is security against hunger. In
Africa, where none of the three needs has as yet been broadly secured for society, equity
arguments can be advanced that food security ranks as the most essential priority. Yet
public and donor funding for agriculture has lagged far behind other priority sectors in
Africa. A recent review of public spending in Uganda showed that agriculture accounted
for just 4% of total expenditures from national and donor agencies’ sources, compared
with 11 and 20%, respectively, for health and education (Uganda Ministry of Finance,
2000).
Few African countries have prioritized food security through development of the
agricultural sector. While speeches made by African leaders are invariably peppered with
references to freedom from hunger and development of the economy through tech-
nological advance, public sector spending on agricultural research and extension in
Africa declined from 1981 to 1991 (Pardey et al., 1997). African governments have
received little real encouragement to develop their agricultural sectors from Western
governments, several of which have de-emphasized the agricultural portfolios of their aid
packages to Africa during the 1990s. The US government made payments to farmers of
$7.3 billion in 1995 and 1996 (USDA, 1998). Meanwhile, the prevailing belief is that
the agricultural sector in Africa should develop itself.
Thus, a fifth challenge is situated within the institutional framework of crop genetic
improvement: how individuals, groups, and institutions are organized to achieve results
in relation to goals which require collaborative arrangements, resulting in a physical
product which is usable by farmers. Overall institutional or departmental performance
influences significantly the output of breeding teams and is generally unrelated to the
academic preparation of the individuals involved. The area of public policies and
institution performance attains greater importance in relation to the many regulatory
issues and intellectual property rights attached to techniques and products of
biotechnology.
At a national level, there is a need for crop-based strategies for genetic improvement
that make use of the full range of scientific capacity which can be applied. National
breeding programmes are the front lines of public sector breeding in Africa. For many of
the self-pollinated crops, and for open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) of cross-pollinated
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