Expanding the groundnut seed business in Tanzania

Participants in a group task to define key motivations for seed companies. Photo: Akpo E

Involving seed companies in groundnut seed production and marketing which is crucial to enhance the groundnut value chain is the key focus of the Tropical Legumes III project in Tanzania. With this in mind, a meeting was organized on 7-8 September 2017 with stakeholders to discuss key steps to be taken to expand the groundnut seed business to facilitate collaborations for improved seeds.

The 22 participants present were drawn from private seed companies (Beula Seed. Co, Suba-Agro, Temnar Co. Ltd, MERU AGRO), the public Agricultural Seed Agency (ASA), NGOs (Care International, One Acre Fund), Africa Rising, Agricultural Research Institute (ARI)-Naliendele, ICRISAT Nairobi and Malawi, The International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Arusha, and the TL III groundnut focal point in Uganda.  The meeting provided an opportunity to assess the collaboration between ARI-Naliendele and ASA and reach new agreements for improved seed production for the 2017-2018 season.

The seed companies committed to participate in awareness and demand creation activities, and expressed interest in small bulking of the new varieties promoted under TL III.

Dr Esther Njuguna, Scientist, Gender Research, ICRISAT, spoke of gender expectations from the project and on interventions that would help close the gender inequality in seed production and ensure greater participation of women in the decision-making process.

This work contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goal