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The Community of Practice of Seed Security Assessments for the Horn of Africa

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From:
"Okidi, Joseph (FAOKE)" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
The Community of Practice of Seed Security Assessments for the Horn of Africa <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 30 May 2014 08:31:35 +0300
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Dear Mary,



This is well summarized. It provides us with some lessons on approach than can be replicated where in the region.  I highly appreciate your contribution.



Cheers,



Joseph



From: Mary. K [mailto:[log in to unmask]]

Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2014 6:47 PM

To: Okidi, Joseph (FAOKE)

Cc: The Community of Practice of Seed Security Assessments for the Horn of Africa

Subject: Re: Seed Security Assessment (SSA) - Community of Practice (CoP) Notification. - "ORPHAN CROPS IN KENYA"



Dear Joseph,







1.      The programme works closely with KARI in seed bulking where they have formed seed development units  mainly in eastern region of Kenya. The groups produce seed under the KARI license while KEPHIS does the seed certification. The seed bulking groups are common interest groups, social groups with a common interest. A common interest group (CIG) is a self-managed, independent group of farmers with a common shared goal and interest. The members work together to achieve this goal jointly developing an enterprise development plan, learning together but individually implementing the lessons learnt, they then pool their produce in order to market/process together but the resulting benefits are individual. Once the seed is bulked it's processed by KARI and packaged for sale. Most seed bulking farmers who make about 2500 groups have benefited immensely from the venture.





2.      Under the THVC program. the seed is also distributed to resource poor farmers who are competitively identified by stakeholder fora after meeting set criteria. They also form CIG to produce for household food security and nutrition and to generate income from sale of extra seed. The farmers are given seed on a loan basis where they retrieve twice what they receive for onward distribution to secondary beneficiary. The groups go through series of trainings on good agricultural practices, seed bulking and production as well as seed bulking and commercialization of these crops.  They are also linked to markets e.g. Schools where they pay fees using the produce, super markets, EABL among others. Amalgamation of CIGs coupled with the expansion in scope of the CIG activities leads to the realization of a producer group ( organization/commercial village).







3.      The counties and sub counties have stakeholder forums that are involved in the identification of the beneficiaries. There are also local committees at the ward level that ensure that the beneficiaries retrieve seed issued and support the groups in establishing seed banks although this is not viable when there is severe drought in two to three subsequent dry seasons and the farmers go back to whatever seed is available when the rains come. This is the major challenge of the drought tolerant crops that a fund has to be available to give seed for recovery every so often. This made worse by the fact that most farmers sell their produce immediately after harvest to avoid post harvest losses and to meet their immediate family financial needs. Once the beneficiaries are identified, their details are put down by the MOA staff who takes down the name of farmer, identity number, location, type of crop to be issued, acreage and the farmer commits him/her self to give back twice what they receive. The very resource poor benefit from the retrieved seed as they may not retrieve any seed, they may end up consuming or selling any balances. The groups signs  committal form that is endorsed by the administration officer of the area.  All beneficiaries receive capacity Building during the distribution of the seed, in the farmers demonstration plots, during field days, seed fairs and exhibitions.







4.      To ensure sustainability of the program, a lot of capacity building has been done, especially on seed bulking, a team of officers were trained, 4 Agricultural trainings conducted. Centers supported to produce drought tolerant seed as a business venture ther by availing seed near the farmers. KARI has been supported on seed production. Farmers now know how to aggregate their money for bulk purchase of their seed through capacity building.  These seeds were not available in the seed companies but have some seed companies such as the Kenya seed company, fReshco seed company, Dryland seed company and leldet seed company among others now selling drought tolerant seed in eastern region and other regions. This ensures farmers can walk into an Argo dealers shop and procure the seeds unlike previously. Some of the counties, since devolution came into place is already committing funds for purchase of these seeds and even supporting the commercial villages in seed bulking. However there is need to take stock of the impact of the program since 2006 as this has not been done to get clear lessons learnt, what worked well, what did not work and why? What is the way forward for the seed bulking groups who have a wealth of knowledge on seed bulking in ASAL areas. Must the farmers continue going back to research to buy the breeders seed? Could this farmers be supported to operate function seed banks? With designed standard structures and with clear food safety and quality standards being observed? How could we strengthen the local quality seed systems?



Joseph, I hope this makes sense, it's too long could have gone off the line.



Regards,



Mary Karanja

Sent from my iPad



On May 23, 2014, at 9:28 AM, "Okidi, Joseph (FAOKE)" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:

Dear Mary,



I would like to appreciate your contribution and sharing with us what the government of Kenya has been doing in trying to address drought problem and putting into consideration  ‘orphan crops” of which some are normally not the preferred crops for multiplication by “big seed companies” in the region. Just to a little bit understand your approach;





a)      Are these seed bulking groups formed by your program? How?



b)      What kind of support do you provide to the seed bulking?



c)      What  distribution mechanism have you put in place to ensure that the resource poor famers in ASAL are assisted?



d)     What have you put in place to ensure sustainability of such program?



Regards,



Joseph



From: mary karanja [mailto:[log in to unmask]]

Sent: Friday, May 23, 2014 8:57 AM

To: The Community of Practice of Seed Security Assessments for the Horn of Africa

Subject: Re: Seed Security Assessment (SSA) - Community of Practice (CoP) Notification.



Dear Joseph,

I am pleased to be part of this activity on seed systems assessment. Have been contributing to food security, mitigation to climate change and adaptation through the promotion of traditional high value crops programme previously known as 'orphan crops' of the ministry of agriculture, livestock and fisheries, state department of agriculture in distribution of these crops seeds.

Through this program the drought tolerant crops, beans, green grams, cow peas, pigeon peas, dolichos, sorghum, millets, cassava and sweet potatoes are bulked by KARI on their farms and through identified seed bulking farmer groups. The seeds are distributed to resource poor farmers in ASALs since 2006.

This programme has had a great impact on food security and nutrition, social protection, income generation and also resilience after droughts and during floods as well as availing seed closer to farmers.

The seed security assessment exercise will inform on what has worked, what has not worked and the lessons learnt to advise Government on policy on seed systems development and promotion for food security and nutrition.

Regards,

Mary



On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 7:08 AM, Okidi, Joseph (FAOKE) <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:

Dear Colleague



You are receiving this email message due to your current or past involvement in activities or meetings related to Seed Security Assessments.



As you probably know, FAO has received funding from ECHO to build capacity in African eight countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Somalia and South-Sudan) for food and nutrition security programming in emergency and rehabilitation contexts on different aspects, including on seed security assessment (see more about the Project at http://www.fao.org/in-action/food-security-capacity-building/home/en/ ).



From the seed security point of view, one way of developing this capacity is to respond to the assessed need of improving knowledge exchange, broadening participation, providing accessible informational resources among the practitioners, and seeking technical support from among a pool of practitioners. The ECHO project is therefore supporting and promoting a new Community of Practice on Seed Security Assessment in four target countries of the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South-Sudan) to allow seed security practitioners to connect and learn from each other. A similar initiative, in French, is ongoing in the Sahel region for Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Niger.



This new Community of Practice is composed of food security programming officers, practitioners and policy makers at the district, national, regional and global level who are active in the humanitarian or seed sector support and development.



The Community of Practice on Seed Security Assessment is email based; you can participate by sending a message to the email address [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> that every member of the Community of Practice will receive. The discussions will be initiated, guided and moderated by me.



A first round of discussions will be initiated on today, and will run until July 2014. I will shortly be sending you the initial topic for discussion. You are warmly invited to participate by providing your views on the discussed topic, provide inputs on a specific argument, or raising a question or a need.



We highly value your inputs that will contribute towards a stronger and more skilled community of committed professionals. This is ultimately up to each of us!



Joseph Okidi

Seed System Security Specialist

Horn of Africa (Nairobi)

[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>





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