Seed and Fertilizer Policy in Africa: Recommendations to the African Union Commission, Regional Economic Communities, and Country Decision-Makers from an Expert Technical Convening, Addis Ababa, December 5-7, 2013

The convening focused on seed and fertilizer policy in Africa, with a primary goal of improving agricultural growth and development. The Abuja Fertilizer Declaration and regional seed harmonization agendas have been critical policy frameworks for the first ten years of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). These frameworks have drawn government, private sector, and donor attention and commitment. However, since the development of these frameworks, a significant body of evidence, knowledge, and experience has built up, providing new evidence and approaches available to policymakers to make improved seed and more appropriate fertilizer widely available to Africa's farmers. Practical policy models are available with proven impact on scaling up seed and fertilizer use. Africa has numerous examples of seed and fertilizer policies that rapidly increase availability and/or lower costs for farmers to access high-quality, profitable, and appropriate seeds and fertilizer. The Technical Convening's recommendations were informed by several compelling examples, including Kenya's fertilizer market liberalization in the 1990s and later agro-dealer development, which cut in-country marketing margins by more than two-thirds, reduced farmers' distance to agrodealers by half, and dramatically expanded fertilizer availability in remote areas. In East Africa, serious government engagement of private seed companies and associations at every step of regulatory development created a strong regulatory and harmonization framework. Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania accept varieties already registered in one of the other countries, without waiting for REC harmonization to be completed. In West Africa/ECOWAS, new regional fertilizer regulation is providing assurance to private fertilizer dealers that they can sell across borders. In Ethiopia, recognition of inadequate nationwide NPK recommendations led to major investment in soil mapping and analysis to develop new fertilizer formulations, which are resulting in new in-country blending industry and higher fertilizer response rates and profitability. Implementing the longstanding ECOWAS and more recent EAC, SADC, and COMESA seed harmonization policies at the national level is a complex but urgent task demanding political commitment, expert technical and legal support, and strong communication to key actors in each country's public and private sector. There are essential country actions that, if undertaken now, even in parallel or prior to completion of the regional harmonization agendas, could lead to major increases in improved seed availability to achieve national CAADP goals. For both regional harmonization and unilateral national decisions, an overarching principle should be to lower costs to the private sector so that the pace of variety release rapidly increases, allowing farmers to have a wider range of more productive seed choices. This means highly streamlined variety testing, accepting varieties already tested in neighboring countries, and minimizing government or NGO provision of free or subsidized seed. In particular, high-priority practical policy actions that decision-makers could take now include revamping regulatory processes to be transparent and involving private seed companies and associations from beginning to end, as in Kenya and Zambia.