New technology to lower maize seed price
A new technology, Maize Doubled Haploid Facility, which can help companies breed maize seed varieties in a short space of time, will enable African farmers access seed at a cheaper price.
This means that many local small-scale farmers, who produce a large chunk of the country’s maize, will afford maize seed since many of them find prices prohibitive.
Currently, the seed production industry is dominated by multi-national companies and it takes almost 12 years to come up with a variety that can be used by farmers.
One of the country’s renowned farmers, Felix Jumbe, in an interview this week said the Maize Doubled Haploid, currently in use in Kenya, can be used by any seed multiplying company in Africa by just sending seed samples for tests to the East African country at a minimal fee.
“This facility will break the barrier of seed trading, not only in Malawi, but the whole of Africa. It will also make seed cheaper because previously it could take 12 years to breed seed, but now the seed will be bred within two to three years.
“The other advantage is that even small-scale companies can access this technology and maize seed prices will automatically come down,” explained Jumbe the advantages of the new technology.
He said this in Lilongwe soon after returning from Kenya where leading farmers in Africa familiarised themselves with the facility provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and is being operated by the Kenya Agriculture Research Institute (Kari) in conjunction with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT).
Jumbe, who owns a seed producing company Peacock Malawi, said he is one of the beneficiaries of the project which was inaugurated in 2006 in Kenya to produce drought tolerant maize seed varieties in Africa.
The technology will enable farmers to use drought tolerant varieties which can produce high yields even when the rains are low.
He said despite the facility being in Kenya, any African seed company, big or small is free to access it.
“On our part as Peacock, we have already benefited from this because we have produced MH 30 and MH 33 and the seeds will be on the market this year,” said Jumbe.
Apart from the two varieties from Peacock Malawi, the company has also produced drought tolerant varieties some of which include MH 26, 27, 28,29,30,32 and 33.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture Ulemu Chilapondwa said it is encouraging that companies are coming up with drought tolerant seeds to enable farmers reap bumper yields even when there are no adequate rains.
“Every technology that makes the life of a farmer easy is very welcome in the country and small scale seed producers must make use of the technology in Kenya because it will make the price of seed to go down,” said Chilapondwa.
