From Research to the Field: Transforming Africa’s Seed Systems
Twenty years ago, in many African countries, an improved variety could exist without ever reaching the farmer.
An innovation could be developed by a researcher, but remain confined to research stations. A seed company could have the potential to produce, without having access to the necessary starting seeds. And a farmer could know that a new variety existed without being able to buy it.
It is precisely this gap between innovation and its implementation that AGRA has set out to reduce over the past two decades.
In 2026, as AGRA celebrates its 20th anniversary, three success stories, from Mali to Nigeria, illustrate this evolution. Three different contexts, three individual trajectories, one and the same lesson: transforming agriculture is not only about creating better seeds. It is about building the entire system that enables these seeds to move from the laboratory to the field, and then from the field to the market.
In Mali, it all starts with a scientist
Twenty years ago, Mali was entirely dependent on imported hybrid maize seeds. The country had virtually no national maize breeding capacity. It was in this context that Dr. Mamadou Mory Coulibaly’s vocation was born.
When he received an AGRA-supported scholarship at the time to pursue a PhD at the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), he was working on sorghum and naturally considered continuing in this field. Upon arriving in Ghana, one decision changed the course of his career: he decided to train in maize breeding.
The reason was simple: at the time, Mali had no maize breeder.
A decision that produced effects far beyond the career of a scientist: from that point on, national expertise in maize breeding was created which, progressively, would contribute to transforming Mali’s seed system.
With the support of AGRA and scientific partners, the first hybrid maize development programmes were established. The country gradually moved from dependence on imported seeds to producing its own hybrids, with varieties adapted to its climatic conditions. Some are even now exported to neighbouring countries such as Senegal and Guinea.
But one of the most important lessons from this story is not the creation of a new variety. It is the creation of a genuine ecosystem.
Research institutes, seed companies, cooperatives and farmers began to combine their knowledge and work together. Researchers provide genetic material and early-generation seeds; companies multiply them; farmers test and adopt them.
As Dr. Coulibaly points out, a farmer does not change varieties simply because they are told that one is better. They compare it. They observe its yield. They assess its performance. Then they decide.
This is where research leads to impact.
In Nigeria, the same principle is changing the lives of thousands of women
Several thousand kilometres from Mali, a different transformation is underway.
In Kaduna and Niger States, women farmers have long faced challenges that went far beyond the issue of seed: limited access to land, finance and inputs, weak distribution networks and inadequate extension services.
In this context, AGRA partnered with Value Seeds Limited to strengthen the availability of improved seeds and access to them for smallholder farmers, with a particular focus on women.
The approach relied on early-generation seeds made available to seed companies to enable their multiplication and large-scale distribution. Improved maize, rice and soybean varieties were thus developed, multiplied and made available to farmers, with a target of 70,000 women smallholder farmers.
Once again, the seed is only one link in the chain.
The transformation relies on the capacity of a private-sector actor to multiply and distribute, on networks of agro-dealers and community-based advisors, on farmers’ skills, and on an institutional environment that enables the market to function.
Results can now be measured in the fields. Reported yields have increased from 2.5 to 5.6 tonnes per hectare for maize, from 4 to 6.8 tonnes for rice, and from 1 to 1.8 tonnes for soybeans.
Behind these figures are women for whom a better harvest means more than a statistic: more food for their families, more income and more opportunities to invest in the future. When a seed improves a woman farmer’s yield, it can also change the trajectory of an entire family, and therefore, of society.
From yield to nutrition: the next chapter
The case of zinc-enriched rice in Nigeria shows how this same architecture can address the challenge of nutrition.
Zinc-enriched rice varieties have been developed and made available, but their existence on paper was not enough to create a market. CESSA helped bridge this adoption gap by bringing stakeholders together around demonstration plots, field days and demand-creation activities.
The process brings together research, seed companies, government authorities, extension services and farmers. Today, 17 seed companies and more than 10 independent outgrowers are engaged in the zinc-enriched rice commercialization chain, while farmers can discover the varieties under real conditions before deciding to adopt them.
This success story demonstrates a new dimension of work on seeds: an improved variety can contribute not only to producing more, but also to producing better in nutritional terms.
Three success stories, one transformation
In Mali, a young researcher becomes a maize breeder and helps create national capacity that did not previously exist.
In Nigeria, seed companies transform early-generation seeds into commercial products accessible to tens of thousands of women farmers.
And today, again in Nigeria, CESSA is working to move zinc-enriched rice varieties from the status of released varieties to that of varieties genuinely adopted by farmers.
In Mali as in Nigeria, the lesson is clear: the seed is the starting point. True impact emerges when an entire system is set in motion around it.
