From Seed Policy to Practice: Perspectives from Malawi
1. From Seed Policy to Practice:
Perspectives from Malawi
Blessings Chinsinga
FAC Malawi & Centre for Social Research (CSR)
University of Malawi, Chancellor College
P.O Box 278, Zomba, MALAWI
E-mail: kchinsinga@yahoo.co.uk
Regional Seed Dialogue, Jacaranda Hotel, July 14-15
2014, Nairobi, Kenya
2. Outline of Presentation
• Setting the context
• The policy and legislative framework
• Context matters: politics, incentives and
interests
• Concluding remarks
3. Setting the Context
• An attempt to tell a story about how ‘practice’ shaped by context
(politics, incentives and interests) diverges from the cherished
policy ideals
• Viewed in totality, the seed policy and legislative framework
including pending reforms, seek to establish a seed system that is
pluralistic, inclusive and responsive to the needs of the Malawian
farmer
• The underlying goal of the Malawi’s seed system is to ensure
consistency and reliability in the supply of quality seed to farmers
and support the government to achieve food security, self
sufficiency and decent export revenue
• The ‘practice’ on the ground is, however, different shaped by the
liberalization of the seed industry in the 1990s and the
implementation of successful input support programmes notably
the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP)
4. Setting the Context Cont’d
• These developments have ultimately led to the development of a seed
industry:
– That is narrowly focused in terms of product portfolio privileging
multinational seed companies
– Supported by donors principally as a strategy to promote private sector
development in the agricultural sector
– Captured by a wide range of elites through inter alia, agro-dealership and
seed production
– And marginally serving the interests of the farmer
• The main argument of this presentation is that context (politics, incentives
and interests) matter a great deal in determining whether reforms in the
seed sector succeed or not
• The Malawi experience suggests that often the interests and incentives of
domestic elites and international agencies coalesce to produce
stagnation especially if reforms are introduced as signals that ensure
that developing countries attain and retain support and legitimacy
• The implication is that effective policy processes must be grounded in an
understanding of economic, social, political and institutional factors that
drive or block pro-poor change through a problem driven iterative
adaptation (PDIA), an approach rooted in a focus on context specific
understanding of problems as an entry point for change
5. Policy and Legislative Framework
• Seed industry in Malawi is relatively young compared to countries
like Kenya and Zimbabwe
• Attributed to the fact that Malawi did not experience a deeply
entrenched white settler community that demanded high yielding
crop varieties
• Depended largely on seed imports from Zimbabwe until 1978 when
the National Seed Company of Malawi (NSCM) was established at
the behest of the World Bank and FAO
• Estate farmers did not demand improvements in crop varieties
especially maize especially because they grew it mainly for
purposes of feeding tenants
• Establishment of NSCM eventually led to what has been described
as a hybrid revolution in Malawi following the discovery of MH 17
and MH 18, hybrid varieties that responded to smallholder farmers’
preferences of taste, storability and poundability
6. Policy and Legislative Framework Cont’d
• Hybrid maize adoption rose from 7 to 24 percent during the
1988-1992 period before the seed industry was eventually
liberalized in 1996
• Seed industry in Malawi is regulated by the Seed Act 1988
as amended in 1996 (providing for liberalization) and as
amended in 2004 though the latter amendments are yet to
be enacted
• Seed industry is further governed by the 1993 Seed Policy
which, inter alia, emphasizes the importance of a pluralistic
and sustainable seed industry
• The policy and the Act are further supplemented by Seed
Regulations, 1994 (Act No.5 of 1988) Seed (Declaration of
Prescribed Seed) Order 1997
7. Policy and Legislative Framework Cont’d
• Broadly distinguished into formal and informal seed systems served
by a wide range of stakeholders
• Key actors include: 1) farmers involved in seed exchanges; 2) farmer
associations working mainly through the Association of Smallholder
Seed Multiplication Action Group (ASSMAG); 3) various NGOs
involved in seed multiplication and relief projects; 4) local seed
companies; and 5) multinational seed companies
• Both local and multinational seed companies have constituted
themselves into the Seed Traders Association of Malawi (STAM) as
self regulatory body established in 2004
• Seed widely distributed through agro-dealers widely touted as a
mechanism for ensuring that farmers access quality seed within
easy reach but more importantly as a strategy for institutionalizing
a private sector driven agricultural sector
8. Context Matters: Politics, Incentives and Interests
• Necessary reforms that would have made liberalization to produce
the desired strategic impact have stalled
– Plant Breeders Right (PBR) legislation drafted in 2007 is still stuck in
the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs
– Biodiversity Bill drafted as early as 2002 is equally stuck in the Ministry
of Justice and Constitutional Affairs
– Succeeded to enact the Biosafety Act 2002 and Biosafety Regulations
and Biosafety Policy of 2007 principally out of necessity to deal with
the hunger crisis in 2002
• Liberalization has ultimately produced a seed industry that is
dominated by multinational seed companies who control up to 90
percent of the market
• Local seed companies cannot effectively compete because the
national breeding programme is marginalized due to limited
funding hence often not able to produce adequate foundation seed
for consequent multiplication
9. Politics, Incentives and Interests Cont’d
• Most of the local seed companies depend on products coming
through the national breeding programme
• Multinational companies cannot work with the national breeding
programme on the pretext of the absence of PBRs hence Malawi
continues to get seed that is bred elsewhere
• Donors are reluctant to fund the national breeding programme on
the account of promoting vibrant private sector involvement in the
agricultural sector
• Situation compounded by the implementation of successive input
programmes: namely: 1) Agricultural Investment Programme (APIP)
(1995); 2) Starter Pack (1998-2000); Targeted Input Programme
(TIP) (2001-2004); Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) (2005 to
date)
• FISP has had significant impact in shaping the seed industry in
Malawi
10. 0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14
Hybrid
OPV
Total Maize
Source: Seed Traders Association of Malawi (STAM) (2014)
Hybrid and OPV Maize Seed in Metric Tonnes, 2003-2014
12. Politics, Incentives and Interests Cont’d
• Created a maize seed system dominated by hybrid due to a
coincidence of interests between donors, seed companies and
government officials although for different reasons
– Donors are obsessed with the promotion of private sector
development in the agricultural sector
– Seed companies are interested in expanding their market share of
their products-hybrid maize since companies participate in FISP not on
the basis of a competitive tender but simply their capacity
– Government officials are interested in finding a quick fixe to the
question of food security that lies at the heart of Malawi’s political
economy
– The supply of legume seed only dramatically improved after 2012
because of a special presidential initiative on hunger and poverty
reduction by former President Joyce Banda
• Implementation of FISP has created a privileged group of local
elites that are capturing the benefits as agro-dealers and contract
seed producers
13. Politics, Incentives and Interests Cont’d
• Local seed companies cannot effectively compete with their
multinational counterparts not only because of the limited viability
of national breeding programme (breeders have essentially
privatized themselves) but also because they depend on the seed
processing equipment of the multinational companies
• Farmers not still served better through agro-dealers since the
majority of them are seasonal, linked to FISP
– Companies withdrawal excess seed at the close of the FISP season
– And most of the agro-dealers disappear only to resurface at the start
of the next FISP season
• Farmers are clearly losers: getting a narrow range of products but
in addition this narrow range of products is not readily accessible
throughout the year yet seed is quite critical to the sustainable
agricultural productivity
14. Concluding Remarks
• Malawi’s experiences clearly demonstrate that context really
matters in understanding how policy reforms actually play out in
practice
• Reforms are thus not simply a question of promoting a preset
toolkit of best practices and blueprint of institutional reforms
• This underscores the fact that policymaking process can be
understood as a succession of bargains among stakeholders
interacting in formal and informal arenas often with outcomes
radically different from those projected in official documents
• Context therefore really matters since achieving policy and
institutional change is not simply a question of what to do but also
how to do it as underpinned by Malawi’s experiences
• The issue therefore is that policy processes should be preoccupied
by attempts to identify where the main opportunities and barriers
for policy reform exist and how stakeholders can use their
influence and programmes to influence positive change
• Overall, the main concern is that the existing evidence seem to
suggest that no country has ever managed to achieve let alone
sustain a green revolution without a domestic seed industry
