This presentation explores different framings of seed policy in Africa

1. Analysing and Understanding
Seed R&D Pathways and
Policy Processes in Africa
Dr John Thompson (j.thompson@ids.ac.uk)
Future Agricultures Consortium (www.future-agricultures.org)
Institute of Development Studies, UK
Future Agricultures-Tegemeo Institute Regional Dialogue on
Strengthening African Seed Systems
14-15 July 2014

2. Presentation
• Future Agricultures Consortium – a
focus on agricultural policy processes
in Africa
• Innovation pathways – opening up
and broadening out
• Changing views on policy & policy
processes
• Lessons from the FAC Policy
Processes approach
• Case study: Political Economy of
Cereal Seed Systems
• Reflections on Seed R&D Pathways
and Policy Processes Analysis

3. Future Agricultures Consortium
Established in 2005… to encourage
dialogue and the sharing of good practice
by policy makers and opinion formers in
Africa on the role of agriculture in broad
based growth
Why FAC?... the lack of attention to the
political economy of policy processes is
leading to inappropriate policy formulation
and implementation failures in African
agriculture

4. 10 Themes, 1 Common Focus
1. Policy processes
2. Social protection
3. Commercialisations
4. Science, technology &
innovation
5. Young people & agri-food
6. Pastoralism
7. Land
8. Climate change
9. Brazil and China in Africa
10. Gender & social difference
Assuming that effectiveness of
policy is a major determinant
of agricultural performance in
Africa…
• Which policies get
implemented in different
contexts – and who decides?
• What political interests are
driving or constraining the
implementation of a pro-poor
policy?
• Why might a particular policy
prescription lead to different
outcomes for different people
in different contexts?

5. Pathways Definition
• Pathway  a self-reinforcing trajectory of change
(social, technological, environmental)
• Some pathways are ‘dominant’  supported by powerful
incumbent interests and investments, and reinforced by
policy and practice
• These are the ‘motorways’  they channel current
mainstream R&D efforts in particular directions
• Others are ‘alternative’ or ‘suppressed’  these define and
respond to different goals, values and forms of knowledge
• These are the ‘bush paths’ they may be important to
poor and vulnerable people, but neglected by authority

6. Linear view of agriculture
science and technology
Past
Future
‘Progress’
• Notions of ‘progress’ pervade
debates about food and agricultural
futures
• Policy makers speak of ‘the way
forward’ often without saying
which way
• Agricultural development is viewed
as a ‘race to advance science and
technology’ – without stating the
particular direction

7. But innovation is a social choice…
Seed innovation as branching
evolutionary process
open source
sharing
industrial hybrids
cisgenics
marker assisted
participatory breeding
apomixis
e.g. innovation for seed R&D
transgenicssynthetic biology

8. And social choice gets socially
‘closed down’
TINA –
“There is no
alternative …”
‘Path dependence’ or technological ‘lock in’
industrial hybrids transgenicssynthetic biology
open source
sharing
cisgenics
marker assisted
participatory breeding
apomixis

9. ‘Opening Up’ Pathways
Questions about future
pathways are often
restricted to:
• ‘yes or no?’
• ‘how much?’
• ‘how fast?’
• ‘who leads?’
More searching questions
are neglected:
• ‘which way?’
• ‘what alternatives?’
• ‘who says?’
• ‘who benefits?’
• ‘why?’

10. ‘Opening Up’ Pathways: the ‘3-Ds’
• Directionality – of pathways towards specific pro-poor
and pro-sustainability objectives
• Distribution – more equitable distribution of benefits,
costs and risks associated with innovation
• Diversity – in seed systems, in order to build robust
and resilient systems, mitigate ‘lock-in’ and cater for
seemingly irreconcilable perspectives on value and
sustainability

11. narrow inputs
e.g.: Sophisticated cost-benefit
analysis focuses on ranking
monetary ‘externalities’
or:
Selective participatory
process delivers prescriptive
recommendations
1: NARROW - CLOSED
POSSIBLE
PATHWAYS
SOCIAL
APPRAISAL
‘closed down’ outputs
Opening Up, Closing Down
POLICY AND
GOVERNANCE
COMMITMENTS

12. narrow inputs
e.g.: Risk assessment
results expressed to
policy making using
sensitivity analysis
2: NARROW - OPEN
POSSIBLE
PATHWAYS
POLICY AND
GOVERNANCE
COMMITMENTS
SOCIAL
APPRAISAL
‘opened up’ outputs
Opening Up, Closing Down

13. ‘closed down’ outputsbroad inputs
3: BROAD - CLOSED
POSSIBLE
PATHWAYS
SOCIAL
APPRAISAL
e.g.: broadly constituted
participatory appraisal,
multiple contending
expert and stakeholder
witnesses, aimed at
consensus statement
POLICY AND
GOVERNANCE
COMMITMENTS
Opening Up, Closing Down

14. ‘opened up’ outputsbroad inputs
e.g.: Inclusive
participatory appraisal,
expert and stakeholder
engagement, focus on
uncertainties, full
transparency on dissenting
views
4: BROAD - OPEN
POSSIBLE
PATHWAYS
SOCIAL
APPRAISAL
POLICY AND
GOVERNANCE
COMMITMENTS
Opening Up, Closing Down

15. Policy and Pathways
Policy and pathways to sustainable seed R&D
systems are intimately intertwined in two ways:
1. Seed policy challenges are open to a variety of
competing ‘framings’ or ‘narratives’ about problems
and potential solutions  each suggesting a
particular pathway to a particular future
2. Seed policy processes are often key factors
implicated in these framings and in which pathways
are opened up or closed down

16. Policy:
Clearly central to development,
but difficult to pin down...
‘Policy is rather like the elephant - you know it
when you see it, but you cannot easily define it’
(G. Cunningham, 1963: 229; cited in M. Hill, 1997: 6)

17. Policy: A Textbook Definition
• Policy comes from the Middle English word
‘policie’, meaning ‘art of government’, ‘civil
organisation’
• Standard definition of policy is: ‘a plan or
course of action, as of a government, political
party, or business, intended to influence and
determine decisions, actions, and other
matters’ – West’s Dictionary of American Law

18. Conventional View of Policy
• Series of well-defined steps:
 Determining the policy issue or problem
 Exploring possible options for resolving the problem
 Weighing up the costs and benefits of each option
 Making a rational choice about ‘best option’
 Implementing the policy
 Evaluating the outcome
• Bureaucratic approach  separation of ‘value’ and ‘fact’
• The political nature of the policy is hidden by the use of
technical language  ‘Evidence-based policy-making’

19. An Alternative View of Policy
• “...policies appear to be mere
instruments for promoting
efficiency and effectiveness.
This masking of the political
under the cloak of neutrality is
a feature of modern power.”
Shore, C. and Wright, S. (1997): Anthropology of Policy: Critical
Perspectives on Governance and Power. London: Routledge; p. 8
• Policies = Political phenomena/processes

20. Value of a Policy Process Approach
• What is a political economist?
‘Someone who comes and explains why your
programme hasn’t worked’ – Alex Duncan
• But a policy process approach can also
identify what can work in particular contexts
 i.e. what is both technically viable and
politically feasible

21. Politics/
Interests
Actors/
Networks/
Practices
Discourses/
Narratives
A Simplified Framework
Keeley, J. and Scoones, I. (2003) Understanding Environmental Policy Processes: Cases from Africa. London: Earthscan.
Understanding policy
processes comes as a
result of looking at
the intersection of
these 3 overlapping
elements.

22. Policy Narratives
• Policy narratives ‘frame’ a problem; explain how
it comes about; and show what needs to be
done to put it right
• These narratives – storylines – frequently
simplify complex issues
–Many are ‘crisis narratives’, demanding
urgent policy action
–Others are ‘success stories’, suggesting a clear
way forward
Discourses/
Narratives

23. Actors, Networks, Practices
• Actors and networks define and perpetuate
certain policy narratives
• These are coalitions and alliances of people with
shared beliefs, visions and patterns of behaviour
• They often link state institutions with private
sector, donors and civil society interests, spanning
local-global levels
• Diverse stakeholders engage in practices that can
reinforce – or sometimes challenge – the
prevailing narratives
Actors/
Networks/
Practices

24. Politics and Interests
• Competition exists between groups in society, based
on their differing interests (e.g. over allocation of
resources; economic vs. social priorities)
• The political context is moulded by the interests
of particular authorities who seek to remain in power
• It is a country’s political system that generates the
incentives (strong or weak) for the state to take
action to invest in agricultural R&D policy
• The political system also influences the type of
agricultural R&D promoted (i.e. the pathways
pursued)
Politics/
Interests

25. Technical Expertise and Patronage Politics
1. Good technocratic policies with no ‘appeal’ to patronage politics simply
don't make it
2. Policies driven by patronage politics, but which make no plausible
contribution to stated public policy goals, may lead to anti-poor outcomes
3. Partial alignment: patronage politics distort well-intentioned technocratic
policies, undermining impact
4. ‘Success stories’: some alignment between technocratic policies and the
exigencies of patronage politics leads to effective implementation
Technocratic Support
No Yes
Political
Backing
No X 1. Inertia
Yes
2. Anti-poor
policy
3. Distorted policy
4. Success stories

26. Policy Spaces
• ‘Policy spaces’ define the policy-maker's scope of
action  ‘room to manoeuvre’
• Strong pressures to adopt a particular policy
position can limit this space  ‘closing down’
• Reduction of such pressure may provide
opportunities to develop consensus among
stakeholders  involves negotiating trade-offs
• But consensus needs to be negotiated genuinely;
otherwise, the policy process may fall apart during
implementation  ‘implementation failure’
Politics/
Interests

27. Political Economy of Cereal Seed
Systems in Africa
• Focus: Particular configurations of
powerful public and private actor-
networks are shaping the way cereal
seed systems operate in Africa, which
is influencing the way the ‘new Green
Revolution’ agenda is playing out in
different countries
• Framing: ‘market-led technology
adoption’
Thompson, J. and Scoones, I. (2012) ‘The Political Economy of Cereal Seed Systems in Africa’s Green Revolution’,
FAC Policy Brief 44,.

28. L. Sperling et al 2008. JDS

29. Planting
breeding, PBR,
priority setting
Seed aid
and relief
Regulation and
certification
Governance
of seed/
innovation
systems
Economics of
seed production
and distribution
Political economy of policy processes
Politics of
national and
global agri-food
systems
Seed systems
Seeds and
livelihoods:
social-cultural
dimensions

30. Research Questions
• How do seed policies get created, and by
whom?
• How do narratives about what makes a
‘good seed policy’ change over time?
• How are seed problems and solutions
‘framed’ – and how does this affect policy
processes?
• Whose voices are taken into account in the
seed policy process – and whose are
excluded?
• What spaces exist for new ideas, actors and
networks? How can these be opened up?

31. Country Studies
1. Ethiopia (Dawit Alemu)– liberalisation under state control:
the politics of the emergent private sector seed industry
2. Ghana (Kojo Amanor) – Green Revolution narratives and
local-level realities: how a technocratic approach
overwhelms alternative perspectives on breeds and seeds
3. Kenya (Hannington Odame and Elijah Muange) – agro-
dealers and the market solution: politics, interests and who
wins and loses from the new Green Revolution?
4. Malawi (Blessings Chinsinga) – the politics of maize and
input subsidy programmes: how diverse interests converge
around a particular technical-economic trajectory
5. Zimbabwe (Charity Mutonodzo and Douglas Magunda) –
rebuilding the seed system post ‘collapse’: why top-down
government/aid programmes may make things worse

32. Opening Up Seed R&D
Pathways
• There are many possible seed R&D
pathways  each looks preferable to
different actors and interests
• We can avoid generalised policy
responses to complex seed system
challenges by nurturing diverse seed
innovation pathways
• To do this, it is essential to:
- question the dominant narratives that lead to
technological ‘lock in’
- highlight the ‘3-Ds’ – Direction, Distribution and
Diversity  to spark debate on priorities

33. Engaging with Seed Policy Processes
• Seed R&D policy must be understood as a political
process, as much as an analytical or technical one
• They are a complex interplay of narratives
+ actor-networks + political interests
• Seed policy change requires understanding these
interactions in order to identify:
– ‘policy spaces’ to increase room to
manoeuvre, negotiate trade-offs
and create synergies
– incentives for getting political
commitment to deliver public goods
Technocratic Support
No Yes
Political
Backing
No X
1. Inertia
Yes
2. Anti-poor
policy
3. Distorted policy
4. Success stories

34. Thank You
John Thompson
Future Agricultures Consortium
www.future-agricultures.org