A feasibility study on the complementarity of quality and genetic tests on seed certification: lessons from the hybrid maize in Malawi

Abstract

At $1.5 billion the African seed sector accounts for 3.5 per cent of the global seed market. The growth is attributed to economic reforms and African countries adopting market-oriented policies promoting the private sector role and regional integration. However, smallholder farmers have reported poor quality certified seeds on the market. Therefore, this feasibility study sought to prove the existence of counterfeit hybrid maize seeds on the market in Malawi. Using the mystery shopper approach 37 hybrid maize seed samples were bought from agro-dealers and eight reference seed samples from the parent seed companies in three districts of Mchinji, Dowa, and Lilongwe. The agro-dealers were categorised whether licenced or not using the Seed Trade Association database. This was followed by quality and genetic purity using simple sequence repeat (SSR) tests. Results show that only 34% of the agro-dealers where the seed samples were procured were licensed by the government. Quality tests showed that the seeds were within the acceptable range for germination, moisture content, and purity percentage. However, genetic variation results showed that only one of the 37 samples matched the reference seed sample and the rest of the samples exhibited heterozygosity traits not matching the reference samples or similar lines.