In April 2022 I began my research project for my CCAFS course and was lucky enough to carry out my project as part of the EU-funded project LEG4DEV.
LEG4DEV has the goal of scaling legume-based agroecological intensification of smallholder maize and cassava cropping systems in sub-Saharan Africa for water-food-energy nexus sustainability that enables food security and livelihood resilience.
As I began some tasks which fall under several of the LEG4DEV work packages I started to refine my area of interest. I had an interest in nutrition and in gender but ultimately I decided to focus on seed systems.
I found this area to be very interesting, particularly when it comes to legumes and after some reading of the literature I felt that it was an area that could benefit from further research. Following a week or so of reading and learning about seed systems in SSA and across the world I started to see that there appears to be a gap in the market for improved legume seed, or at least there is a gap when it comes to smallholders accessing improved legume seed.
There are many reasons for this, from infrastructure constraints to policy barriers and in my research project I will be using a systematic review to determine scaling options and barriers for improved legume seed in SSA. So far I’m finding the research very interesting and I will soon be analysing my data to try and find some answers to my research questions.
If you want to learn a bit more about seed systems I have linked a few papers below which give some insight into how they operate in both formal and informal ways. Also if you want to see how seed policy can affect smallholder farmers I have linked a very interesting documentary from Colombia. Finally, if you would like to learn more about the work of LEG4DEV I have linked our website below also.
Peer-reviewed articles on seed systems –
- https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.00053/full
- https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/4/2150
- https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12571-015-0528-8
9.70 Documentary – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkQ8U2kHAbI
LEG4DEV website – https://leg4dev.org/
