A “$30,000 fine, or 20 years of imprisonment.” This is the punishment for trading uncertified or fake seeds in Malawi, as per the country’s parliament on April 4, provides for instruments to regulate the production, processing, certification, sale, import and export of seeds. In a country where agriculture accounts for 80 per cent of the employment opportunities as well as 80 per cent of the total exports, the legislation was much needed. At least one would think so.
Its passage is preceded by nearly a decade of debate, with the approval to the Act stalled many times. While the government deploys all reasons to justify the legislation, there is an uncomfortable question: What happens to Malawi’s informal seed system, or farmer seed system, which accounts for 80 per cent of the planted seeds, leaving only the 20 per cent of the formal seed system to be regulated by the current law? Farmer groups and civil society organisations see the law as an entry of commercial seed companies to the market to ultimately take over the indigenous seed system.
This story is from the May 01, 2022 edition of Down To Earth.
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This story is from the May 01, 2022 edition of Down To Earth.
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