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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's recent projections indicates that sensitivity to climate risks is likely to increase in the coming decades, with more erratic rainfall, prolonged dry periods, shorter growing seasons, and seed germination failures. The impacts of these risks on food, nutrition, and seed security among smallholder hous...
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... study is based on two months fieldwork undertaken in Northern Ghana, semi-arid climate regions, during the 2019 planting season in two farming villages ( Fig. 1 ). The two villages, Site-1 and Site-2, were mainly chosen for comparative analysis. ...
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... noticable among the social characteristics is how the level of education related to seed security. Fisher et al. ( Fisher et al., 2015 ) and Ekhuya et al. ( Ekhuya et al., 2018 ) found that more educated household heads were also more likely to adopt improved seeds. Fisher et al. ( Fisher et al., 2015 ) showed that compared with younger heads, older household heads were less likely to adopt new seed varieties, which may be indicative of the unwillingness of older farmers to get rid of native seeds. ...
Citations
... Our findings also showed that legume seed access via the informal seed system in SSA is influenced by a range of factors. These include infrastructure (i.e., roads to access rural areas), gender inequality, and access to credit facilities (Mulesa et al. 2021;de Boef et al. 2021;Madin et al. 2022). Social capital (i.e., relationship networks) was also seen to be very important in accessing seed informally (Ricciardi 2015). ...
As a fundamental pillar of food security in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), ensuring seed security is critical to empowering farmers in cultivating food and livestock feed, thereby fostering income generation from agricultural outputs. Among the crops cultivated by smallholders, legumes have the potential to deliver multifaceted benefits. Legumes are nutrient-dense and enhance soil health through their nitrogen-fixing qualities. However, in many instances, the development, release, and supply of improved legume varieties are insufficient to meet the needs of smallholder farmers in SSA. Here, we systematically reviewed the literature to (i) identify and categorize existing legume seed systems, (ii) map legume varieties available to smallholders, (iii) identify barriers hindering the adoption of various legume varieties, and (iv) identify potential strategies and opportunities for strengthening legume seed systems in SSA. Our results demonstrate the coexistence of formal and informal seed systems within legume seed supply chains in SSA, each employing unique seed distribution channels. Smallholders, however, are shown to predominantly depend on the informal seed system to source most legume seeds except for commercially available varieties. We also identified a diverse range of legume varieties available to smallholders in the region, with farmers having varying trait preferences based on crop type and gender. Notably, high yield and abiotic stress tolerance were the most preferred traits. The adoption of these varieties, however, is influenced by various factors, including lack of timely access to seeds in adequate quantities from the formal seed system, high seed costs, and limited information on new varieties. The reviewed literature highlighted that utilizing improved legume varieties had a positive effect on smallholders, leading to improved welfare, food security, dietary diversity, and income. We conclude that the effective scaling of legume systems in SSA is contingent upon the presence of supportive policy frameworks and well-established technical support structures.
Graphical Abstract
Packets of legume seeds within a legume germplasm and breeding program at the University of Zambia (Photo by Caitlin Breen, 2022).
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13593-024-00956-6.
... Many researchers have modeled the impact of changing climatic factors on crop productivity and have found that rising atmospheric temperatures and variations in precipitation affect both the quality and quantity of agricultural commodities (Abbas, 2022;Chaudhry and Sidhu, 2022;Warsame et al., 2021;Yerlikaya et al., 2020). A key requirement for food and nutritional security is the availability of high-quality seed in sufficient quantities when needed for crop production (Madin et al., 2022). Hence, the impact of climate change on seed production also needs to be determined. ...
New Zealand is a major producer of carrot seeds globally. Carrots are an important nutritional crop for human consumption. Since the growth and development of carrot seed crops mainly depend on climatic factors, seed yield is extremely susceptible to climate change. This modeling study was undertaken using a panel data approach to determine the impact of the atmospheric conditions (proxied by maximum and minimum temperature) and precipitation during the critical growth stages for seed production in carrot, viz., juvenile phase, vernalization phase, floral development phase, and flowering and seed development phase on carrot seed yield. The panel dataset was created using cross-sections from 28 locations within the Canterbury and Hawke's Bay regions of New Zealand that cultivate carrot seed crops and time series from 2005 to 2022. Pre-diagnostic tests were performed to test the model assumptions, and a fixed effect model was selected subsequently. There was significant (p < 0.01) variability in temperature and rainfall throughout different growing phases, except for precipitation at the vernalization phase. The highest rate of changes in maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and precipitation were recorded during the vernalization phase (+0.254 °C per year), floral development phase (+0.18 °C per year), and juvenile phase (-6.508 mm per year), respectively. Based on marginal effect analysis, the highest significant influence of minimum (187.724 kg/ha of seed yield decrease for each 1 °C increment) and maximum temperature (1 °C rise increases seed yield by 132.728 kg/ha), and precipitation (1 mm increment of rainfall decreases the seed yield by 1.745 kg/ha) on carrot seed yield were reported at vernalization, and flowering and seed development, respectively. The minimum and maximum temperatures have a higher marginal effect on carrot seed production. Analysis of the panel data demonstrates that the production of carrot seeds will be vulnerable to climatic change.
... These factors also explain the widening development inequalities evident not only in income distribution but also the existing 'gender gaps'-mostly among women in agriculture (FAO 2011;Flint 2011;OECD 2014;World Bank 2008). Northern Ghana shares similar characteristics of this situation (Bawakyillenuo et al. 2016;Madin et al. 2022). ...
Literature predicts a heightening of poverty levels and existing disproportionate barriers affecting women in agriculture as future development challenges, particularly in the global south. This makes efforts to build resilience and sustainable livelihoods among peasant women paramount. However, social and environmental justice scholars have demanded for international support in the cost bearing obligations. Therefore, this paper seeks to assess the outcome of the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Resiliency in Northern Region (RING) project, which aims to contribute to the Government of Ghana’s efforts to sustainably reduce poverty and improve nutrition. To do this, we frame our research within the resilience-building approach and hypothesize that the project goals improve the resilience of the women through sustainable livelihood outcomes. To test this, we adopted an exploratory sequential design in the context of subjective resilience theory employing a paired sample analysis. The analysis shows that the perceived project outcomes among the sampled beneficiaries in both stages significantly correlated. The qualitative finding suggests that fostering resilience among peasant women is viable and calls for efforts to implement similar projects, especially those geared toward bridging gender inequalities in the agriculture sector. It also shows that perceived outcomes among project beneficiaries can serve as valuable input into resilience assessment. We recommend further research into the downstream effects of the Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) on peasant women livelihoods.
