This study evaluates the impact in the main cropping season of 2015 of a new approach to the distribution of improved seed in Ethiopia, known as Direct Seed Marketing (DSM). Under DSM, seed producers are allowed to sell seed directly to farmers, in contrast to the conventional seed marketing (CSM) system in which seed passes from seed producers to regional Bureaus of Agriculture to woreda Agricultural Offices to Development Agents, cooperative unions, and primary cooperatives, who, in turn, sell the seed to farmers. The study is based on a survey of 800 farmers, 118 agricultural extension workers, 75 seed sellers, and 24 seed producers in Amhara, Oromia, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples (SNNP), and Tigray regions. The performance of the DSM program in 2015 was evaluated on eight criteria: seed availability, sufficiency of supply, timeliness of delivery, seed pricing, quality, ensuring accountability for low-quality seed, ease of purchase, and use of public resources. The results indicate that DSM had heterogeneous effects across the different regions, showing the need to strengthen the sharing of experiences with the program across the regions of Ethiopia to scale up DSM’s benefits. However, when we consider the overall DSM program without regional disaggregation, the DSM and CSM systems do not differ significantly on most of the eight criteria, although DSM required significantly less of the time of the farmer-level agricultural extension agents, the Development Agents. DSM performed as well as CSM across the eight criteria examined, while requiring 39 percent less time for the involvement the Development Agents. Farmers’ subjective views of DSM were quite positive. On most criteria, 50 to 65 percent of farmers said DSM performed “better” or “much better” than CSM. The study also identifies specific areas where the performance of DSM needs to be improved. A review of international experience with seed systems is used to provide some additional recommendations regarding the longer-term development of seed systems in Ethiopia.

Several factors contribute to the low level of improved variety use in Ethiopia. Among those, on the supply side, is the limited availability of seed in the volumes, quality, and timeliness required by farmers, which is partly a result of limited public and private investment in the sector. Beginning in 2011, the Government of Ethiopia introduced a novel experiment-the Direct Seed Marketing (DSM) approach-to reduce some of the centralized, state-run attributes of the country’s seed market and rationalize the use of public resources. DSM was designed to incentivize private and public seed producers to sell seed directly to farmers rather than through the state apparatus. This study is the first quantitative evaluation of DSM’s impact on indicators of a healthy seed system: access to quality seeds, on-farm productivity, and market participation of smallholders. Using a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences approach, the study finds that DSM led to a 26 percent increase in maize yields and a 5 percent increase in the share of maize harvest sold. DSM also led to improvements in seed availability for all three of Ethiopia’s major cereals: maize, wheat, and teff. However, DSM’s effects on yields and share of harvest sold are not statistically significant for wheat and teff. These crop-specific differences in performance are likely explainable by biological differences between hybrid maize and openly pollinated varieties of wheat and teff that incentivize private sector participation in maize seed markets over wheat and teff seed markets. These differences demand different policies and perhaps even institutional approaches to accelerating adoption between hybrids and OPVs.

In 2013 the Bureaus of Agriculture in the regional states of Amhara, Oromia, and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples of Ethiopia supported a program of direct marketing of certified seed by seed producers to farmers across 31 woredas (districts). This program stands in contrast to the dominant procedure for supplying such seed in which farmers register with local agricultural offices or extension agents to purchase seed for the coming cropping season and then receive seed either directly from these local offices or through local cooperatives. The evaluation shows that competition between entrepreneurial seed producers to capture a substantial portion of the market of farmer-customers for their seed to enable their firms to remain in business will propel wider and more effective distribution of new and improved hybrid maize to more and more farmers.

Through a rigorous, multi-stage analysis, the evidence generated by this corporate evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness of Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA)’s business plan for achieving measurable changes in Ethiopia’s agricultural sector, both at micro and macro levels. The assessment also identifies areas for renewed and refined emphasis, as well as strategic planning for the future planning and monitoring of ATA’s work. This evaluation finds that ATA has achieved many of the outcomes it is being measured against, in terms of input use, extension services, and agricultural technology. The outcomes observed point to the effective removal of bottlenecks in the rural agricultural economy that have improved the linkages between producers, input markets and agricultural services. The improvements in those priority areas are reflected in productivity gains for certain priority crops and in market orientation positions that confirm ATA’s effectiveness in connecting producers to markets. FAO’s evaluation finds positive macroeconomic effects from ATA interventions, helping to ameliorate the reduction in gross domestic product growth, and also supporting the development of agroindustry and transportation services.

At the start of CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) Phase 2 in 2017, and later during the priority-setting round in 2019, each of the PIM research areas (‘flagships’) formulated key research questions they aimed to answer and identified theories of change and pathways to achieve impact. In this series, we share highlights of what we have learned and achieved and suggest areas to be explored in the future.

Community seed banks first appeared towards the end of the 1980s, established with the support of international and national non-governmental organizations. This book is the first to provide a global review of their development and includes a wide range of case studies. Countries that pioneered various types of community seed banks include Bangladesh, Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Nepal, Nicaragua, the Philippines and Zimbabwe. In the North, a particular type of community seed bank emerged known as a seed-savers network. Such networks were first established in Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA before spreading to other countries. Over time, the number and diversity of seed banks has grown. In Nepal, for example, there are now more than 100 self-described community seed banks whose functions range from pure conservation to commercial seed production. In Brazil, community seed banks operate in various regions of the country. Surprisingly, despite 25 years of history and the rapid growth in number, organizational diversity and geographical coverage of community seed banks, recognition of their roles and contributions has remained scanty. The book reviews their history, evolution, experiences, successes and failures (and reasons why), challenges and prospects. It fills a significant gap in the literature on agricultural biodiversity and conservation, and their contribution to food sovereignty and security.