Dear Joseph.
In Uganda that is expected because there is rampant inappropriate use of chemicals by farmers especially herbicides. I have witnessed farmers using herbicides to shorten the maturity period of beans. The beans are sprayed with herbicides before they reach to maturity, this quickens the drying and post -harvesting(threshing) processes. All these things are done this way because the farmers need to maximize profits during scarcity of beans in the market. Normally the beans handled in this way are wrinkled, small and have low germination rate and there is also high chance that these farmers also supply the seed companies with these kind of seeds which in turn supply the same seeds to other farmers. It is good that people have started realizing these tricks employed by unscrupulous farmers by carrying out germination tests. Recently I conducted germination test in Maban South Sudan for seven different types of seeds which samples were provided by our potential supplier and beans and groundnuts were the very seeds that completely failed to germinate. So people should always be careful with seed suppliers by always conducting germination test before and after delivery of seeds, this can also be strengthened by having binding payment agreements with seed suppliers.
Thanks
Stephen Mawadri
ACTED South Sudan
Dear Joseph
Thank you for alerting on poor seeds from Uganda we shall have percussion on this
Regards
Henry
From: The Community of Practice of Seed Security Assessments for the Horn of Africa [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Okidi, Joseph (FAOKE)
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2015 11:18 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Poor Quality Seeds being Distriibuted in Uganda
Dear all,
We must all rise up to fight this vice.
Regards,
Joseph Okidi