Seed equal

Activities

This objective will be achieved through:

• Demand-driven cereal seed systems focused on leveraging: Supporting more effective delivery of genetic gains from CGIAR cereal breeding, as well as building government, private sector, and NGO capacity to deliver productive, climate-resilient, and market-preferred varieties to smallholder farmers, leading to quantifiable increases in the rate of adoption.
• Boosting legume seed access through a demand-led approach: Building on growing demand for grain legume through a multi-stakeholder approach that strengthens partnerships to have efficient, more predictable, and demand-led access to new varieties.
• Scaling demand-responsive delivery of vegetatively propagated crop seed: Sustainable delivery of seed at scale is achieved through enhanced seed delivery pathway efficiency and effective targeting for different market segments and farmer preferences.
• Partnerships, capacity building, and coordination to ensure uptake of public-bred varieties and other innovations: Leveraging comparative strengths of national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES), the private sector, and civil society organizations, among others, in early generation seed production, commercial seed delivery, enabling seed policies, inclusive seed systems and variety promotion.
• Policies for varietal turnover, seed quality assurance, and trade in seeds: Generating the evidence and engagement necessary to advance efficient, sustainable, and inclusive seed markets, accelerating rates of seed sector growth and varietal turnover and increasing the use of quality seed.
• Scaling equitable access to quality seed: Identifying and scaling strategies for providing access to quality seeds for women and unreached groups, with an emphasis on maximizing synergies between the formal and informal sectors.

Engagement

This Initiative will work in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania as a priority, followed by other countries in Latin America, South and Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Outcomes

Proposed 3-year outcomes include:

1. Seed systems actors including, but not limited to, seed companies, seed entrepreneurs, farmer-based organizations, women’s organizations, and community-based organizations develop their capacities to produce and deliver increased quantities of quality seed of improved varieties in selected countries, geographies, and market segments.
2. Seed system actors promote uptake of quality seed of new improved varieties derived from breeding programs by women and men farmers in selected countries, geographies, and market segments.
3. Increased number of public and private early generation seed enterprises are playing their roles more effectively by adopting models that reduce their cost and increase their output in selected countries, geographies, and market segments.
4. Government partners actively promote policy solutions to accelerate varietal turnover, adoption and quality seed use by women and men in selected countries, geographies, and market segments.
5. Governments, funders, researchers, and extension staff use new tools to be developed for monitoring varietal turnover and quality seed use.

Impact

Projected impacts and benefits include:

	POVERTY REDUCTION, LIVELIHOODS & JOBS More than 42.6 million people (9 million households) are projected to benefit from higher-yielding rice and wheat, and stress-tolerant maize. Increasing access to, and use of, quality seed of market-demanded, climate-resilient, high-yielding varieties will help stabilize or enhance yields and consequently incomes.
	NUTRITION, HEALTH & FOOD SECURITY More than 23.1 million people (4.7 million households) are projected to benefit from higher-yielding vitamin A-rich cassava and orange-flesh sweet potato.  Seed systems can influence food security by improving the availability, access to and use of improved varieties that increase productivity and resilience of food crops, in turn increasing availability of nutritious food at lower prices. Improved incomes attained through higher yields from better-quality varieties enable farming families to spend additional income on food and expand dietary diversity. Nutritional deficiencies can also be addressed through production and consumption of biofortified staple crops.
	GENDER EQUALITY, YOUTH & SOCIAL INCLUSION More than 2.5 million women producers (and 3.4 million women and girls in adopting households) are projected to benefit from high-yield, fast-cooking beans and orange-flesh sweet potato.  Developing viable business models for seed entrepreneurship targeting women and youth and their collectives will contribute to the creation of new jobs in seed value chains and expand livelihood options, increase incomes and contribute to poverty reduction.
	CLIMATE ADAPTATION & MITIGATION More than 69.9 million people (14.7 million households) are projected to benefit from stress-tolerant maize. The Initiative will prioritize product advancement of climate-resilient varieties developed by CGIAR’s Accelerated Breeding Initiative, advancing policy options to accelerate adoption, turnover and demand. These varieties will be adapted to variable seasonal durations and conditions such as drought, heat, salinity and submergence, and waterlogging.
	ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH & BIODIVERSITY 70,000 additional genetic accessions are expected to become available (an increase of 15%). High-quality and high-yielding seeds allow for increased production without increased pressure on land, including forests, carbon sinks, buffer zones and centers of biodiversity. This Initiative will improve availability, accessibility and affordability of a wider range of varieties that enable gains for environmental health and biodiversity to be realized, for example, by reducing dependence on chemical inputs while enhancing soil microbiota.

Projected benefits are a way to illustrate reasonable orders of magnitude for impacts which could arise as a result of the impact pathways set out in the Initiative’s theories of change. In line with the 2030 Research and Innovation Strategy, Initiatives contribute to these impact pathways, along with other partners and stakeholders. CGIAR does not deliver impact alone. These projections therefore estimate plausible levels of impact to which CGIAR, with partners, contribute. They do not estimate CGIAR’s attributable share of the different impact pathways.

Partners

Partnerships are essential to the success of CGIAR Initiatives. The Seed Equal Initiative has and is dependent on a wide array of demand, innovation and scaling partners, including national programs, national policy and seed units, seed and foundation seed companies and other farmer and community-based seed producers, trade associations, regional economic communities and sub-regional organizations. Specific partners include AGRA, Wageningen University Research, Seed NL, TAAT, Syngenta Foundation Seeds2B, Resonanz Grop, New Markets Lab, The Seed System Group, Universities of Florida and Wits, and others. 

Leadership

• Lead: Christopher Ojiewo
• Co-lead: David Spielman

Following an inception period, this summary has been updated to respond to recommendations from the Independent Science for Development Council on this CGIAR Initiative’s proposal. Initiatives are considered “operational” once they receive funding and activities commence.

Header photo: A customer buys maize seed produced by Suba Agro-Trading and Engineering Company at an agrovet shop in Arusha, Tanzania. Photo by Kipenz Films/CIMMYT