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Farmers cry foul on raw seed deal

The Seed Traders Association of Malawi (Stam) has urged seed suppliers to enhance security of their packaging materials to deal with the proliferation of counterfeit products flooding the market and giving farmers a raw deal.

Speaking in an interview on Tuesday in the wake of complaints from some farmers, Stam president Dellings Phiri said suppliers of counterfeit seeds steal or access through dubious means packaging materials from authentic traders and pack them as certified grain which is sold to unsuspecting farmers.

Thomas_small_holder_farmerPhiri said while certified seeds have a 90-95 percent recommended germination rate, fake ones have nothing because they cannot produce to the variety of the certified one.

Phiri said: “Suppliers should, therefore, impact knowledge to farmers to identify their products and should have specific characteristics difficult to copy.”

He said Stam is fighting the malpractice by having its own secret police that conducts market checks and also works hand in hand with the police to arrest any fake seeds suppliers.

Phiri also said his organisation encourages suppliers to collect seeds from outlets by the end of the months of January and February for a retest.

He called on farmers to stop buying seeds from mobile vans and report the traders to police.

Farmers Union of Malawi (FUM) president Alfred Kapichira Banda said his organisation has noted with concern that some agro-dealers sell their seeds from three-tonner vans at markets where commodities for the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp) are being sold.

He said these agro-dealers are later hard to trace when their seeds have germination problems.

Kapichira Banda said it is unfortunate that the country has weak laws concerning agro-dealers.

“The Seed Traders Association of Malawi and seed companies should tighten all loopholes that give fake agro-dealers an advantage to fill the market with counterfeit seeds,” he said.

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