Sello Motseta
29th June 2020
Botswana and SADC have concluded a charter establishing the SADC Seed Centre to guide member states on the co-ordination of seed certification and quality assurance thereby improving crop production and food resource diversification whilst preventing genetic erosion in agriculture.
It follows the signing of the SADC memorandum of understanding for the implementation of the SADC harmonized seed regulatory system in February, 2010. This agreement established commonly agreed regulatory standards, rules and procedures related to seed variety release, seed certification and quality assurance and quarantine and phytosanitary measures for seed.
“The rationale for this system is premised on the need to facilitate enhanced seed trade in the region and to increase the availability of high quality seed to farmers through rationalization and removing national regulatory barriers’ for the movement of seed across borders,” said Edwin Gorataone, Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security.
He said, “Seed markets in SADC region are currently fragmented, small and difficult to access. The centre will improve regional seed trade, overall agricultural growth and regional seed security.”
Plant breeding involves improving the characteristics of various food plants by developing new varieties with better yields, resistance, hardiness, taste or other sought for properties. The development of new plant varieties is necessary in order to increase food production and adapt it to a changing climate.
This is a long term work, and it takes many years to develop new varieties. In order to qualify for plant breeders right, a variety must be new, distinct, uniform and stable.
A variety new if it has not been commercialized for more than one year in the country of protection; distinct – if it differs from all other known varieties by one or more important botanical characteristics, such as height, maturity, colour etc; uniform – if the plant characteristics are consistent from plant to plant within the variety; stable – if the plant characteristics are genetically fixed and therefore remain the same from generation to generation, or after a cycle of reproduction in the case of hybrid varieties.
“It should be noted that up to through history, farmers have engaged in plant breeding through selection and cross breeding of plants and they still do so today. PBR has therefore the potential of exponentially increasing the role of farmers in producing new cultivars of plants,” said Pharoah Mosupi, Director of Agricultural research in the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food Security.
According to officials COVID-19 is happening in a context where 43 million of people are food insecure in the region due to drought which in some parts of the region has been the worst for the last 38 years. There are issues of crop pests mainly the African migratory locust in Botswana round the Okavango delta area, Angola, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe that require immediate attention and action.
Restrictions due to COVID-19 are affecting the access to inputs for agriculture like seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, vaccines and agricultural products with impacts to Food and Nutrition Security(FNS) of communities.
This prompted the African Union Commission(AUC) and the Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) of the United Nations to initiate a meeting of African ministers on 16th April 2020 leading to adoption of declaration with a number of recommendations to be implemented by member states, to mitigate the COVID-19 impacts in agriculture and food security and nutrition security including ensuring that farmers have timely access to quality equipment and crop inputs, including seeds and planting material.
It also advocates for working with food and agriculture system traders and transporters and officials in other sectors and local governments to resolve any bottlenecks affecting the safe movement, transport and marketing of essential people, goods and services in the system and keeping the national borders open for food and agriculture commodity trade so as not to disrupt regional and inter-regional trade in food and agriculture products and inputs.
“All the recommendations I have mentioned above are what the documents being signed today would be addressing and securing for all seasons, so the agriculture production, productivity and competitiveness is achieved with direct impacts to FNS of the region,” said Domingos Gove, Director of Food Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR) at the SADC Secretariat.
