Access to Seeds Index 2016

According to the Access to Seeds index 2016, access to seeds is important for smallholders since better quality seeds could enhance their productivity, income and food security.

The report published by Access for Seeds foundation in March 2016 consists of three indexes: one for major field crop seed companies; one for vegetable seed companies and one regional index for Eastern Africa.
The report presents rankings, key findings on industry level, good practices for all measurement areas and scorecards for individual companies. The rankings are relative rankings, meaning companies are compared to each other rather than against an absolute, ideal state.

In general, the report highlights that local and regional markets remain more important to smallholder farmers for accessing seeds than multinationals companies. Farmers buy more than half of their seeds on local and informal markets. Regional seed companies are investing more in local crops and better address the needs of smallholder farmers than multinationals. The report also states that seed companies do not take a structural approach to address the needs of women farmers.

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(Access to Seed/Ob)