Western and Central Africa
Seeds of Dignity
“Seed is a farmer’s dignity and without seed, a farmer is a
potential migrant,” said Saley Younissi, a farmer from Tera in Niger, at a meeting
that took place in early 1999 at ICRISAT’s Niamey location. Younissi was
expressing his gratitude for an emergency seed supply program that had saved him and his
family from misery, because he received seed just when they were about to flee to cities
after a terrible drought had ravaged his crops. For those who had been closely involved
with the program, it was a very special moment.
The situation in the dry belt of West Africa was so desperate that if no action had been taken, it might have spun out of control. The West and Central Africa Millet Research Network (ROCAFREMI) launched the emergency seed program in close collaboration with ICRISAT and with support from USAID. The national agricultural research systems of Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Senegal, along with a host of other partners helped implement the program. The group decided to distribute urgently seed of millet, sorghum, and cowpea for the 1998 sowing.
K Anand Kumar, ICRISAT Scientist at Niamey
explained, “When such disasters strike, farmers use any seed that is available –
seed of varieties that are not adapted to the region.
Planting such seeds risks crop failure and significant long-term
effects on food supply.”
For the emergency program, scientists were careful to ensure that only varieties that had performed well in on-farm trials and had proven acceptable to farmers were distributed. Their success was reflected in a subsequent impact study found on average that 30% of the farmers in the relief zone in Niger continued growing the varieties that were distributed in 1999, and nearly 4,000 families in the country benefited from the program.
The experience has helped development practitioners gain valuable lessons on how to cope with similar crises in the future: “We have now an effective mechanism in place if something like this ever happens again,” said B Ouendeba, ROCAFREMI Coordinator.
