Africa Guardian

Award expected to Strengthen Public-Private Partnerships
ACCRA, Ghana. December 23, 2013. Mr. Zakaria Sumani Iddrisu, the Managing
Director of Heritage Seeds Company Limited – supported by AGRA – was
recently named the National Best Seed Grower Farmer during Ghana’s 29th
National Farmer’s Day. The event was held at Sogakofe in the country’s
Volta Region.
Agriculture, it is said, begins with seeds. Good seeds in good soils
produce good yields. Africa’s vast lands are yearning for good seeds to
increase yields to improve the food security situation across the
continent. Unfortunately, at the operational and policy levels in
countries across Africa, the seed industry is going through a lot of
challenges ranging from low quality to non-availability of the much-needed
input. AGRA’s Program for Africa’s Seed Systems (PASS) is designed to get
improved and higher-yielding seeds to Africa’s farmers to help them
increase their productivity and incomes.
Since 2008, AGRA has been providing technical and financial support to seed
companies in Ghana as well as a number of other African countries. Heritage
Seeds Company Limited is one such company. It has benefitted from AGRA’s
support in form of grants as well as on-site technical advice through field
trips, workshops, training sessions, and coaching over the years. The firm
received a grant to produce certified seeds, create awareness among farmers
on the new seeds and distribute the new seeds to farmers. Through efficient
coaching and other technical support received from Program staff of AGRA,
Mr. Idrissu moved from producing Open Pollinated Variety (OPV) to improved
variety seeds within a short period, which has resulted in winning this
prestigious award.
“This award gives our grantee the platform as private sector small-scale
seed producers to talk with public sector stakeholders about partnerships
that will benefit both parties and move the seed industry in Ghana forward.
Through AGRA’s support, Idrissu has become a success story and a source of
motivation for small-scale seed producers to strive for excellence in their
work,” says Dr. Issoufou Kapran, AGRA’s Program Officer for Seed Production
and Dissemination. “Through enterprises such as Heritage Seed Company, AGRA
is creating the needed impact on the ground.”
AGRA believes that if the needed support is provided to train researchers
and scientists to develop, register, and disseminate improved seed
varieties to smallholder farmers across Africa, the story of Africa’s
agriculture will be told differently; and if the private sector is
encouraged to invest heavily in agriculture across the continent, several
poor families will have different stories to tell about their livelihoods.