Emergency seed aid, a critical intervention during times of crisis for farmers in the developing world, has had a range of unexpected effects— and the easiest solution, seed handouts, is rarely the best, according to a new paper published today in The Journal of Development Studies.

The research, which examined multiple distributions in more than 15 African countries dating back to 1974, found several examples of seed aid that has aided farmers. But the findings also show that widespread seed handouts can create a culture of dependency, undermine local markets, and compromise local diversity of staple crops, especially by giving exaggerated emphasis to maize.

The findings have been received with great interest by donor and recipient countries. Ethiopia is moving quickly to establish seed aid guidelines and to cut back on free distribution of seed. The United States, along with several other countries, has spearheaded new ways to make accurate assessments of need, and to design more targeted responses that aim to support local seed markets. In fact, the US government helped support the research reported here as part of its effort to make aid more effective.

It is a classic case, officials from several countries say, of governments using research findings to improve the delivery of services and aid.

"Seed was available locally in those countries and other nations receiving emergency aid, but some farmers lacked access to seed because they didn't have the means to buy or exchange for it" '' said Louise Sperling, the report's lead author and senior scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), one of the 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). "Local seed systems prove remarkably resilient. We need now to help farmers get access to seeds locally available."

The report, contrary to popular wisdom, found that farmers even in some of the world's worst contemporary disasters - including the days after the Rwandan genocide and during the years of war in Sierra Leone - were able to find seed and produce crops that matched levels in prior years. In fact, some farmers in the war zones of Sierra Leone actually increased their production of grain supplies without any seed aid. Seed was available locally in those countries and other nations receiving emergency aid, but some farmers lacked access to seed because they didn't have the means to buy or exchange for it.

Several key players involved in seed aid, from donors to distributors, will meet in Oslo, Norway, on May 14, to discuss how to use the report's findings to create better policies and practices. The group will include representatives from Norwegian and US governments, United Nations agencies, and large non-governmental organizations such as Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and CARE, which are involved in emergency seed assistance in Africa now.

The international donor community has long seen seed aid as one of its best ideas in helping vulnerable farmers feed their families and communities during droughts, conflicts, floods, and other emergencies. The practice, while first used during the Great Depression in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s, and then later during the Ethiopian famine in the mid-1970s, became a routine part of donor assistance starting in the late 1980s.

Sperling - along with David Cooper, formerly of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (now with the Secretariat of the Convention of Biological Diversity), and Tom Remington of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) - surveyed the history of seed aid in their study, compiling for the first time a comprehensive review of accounts from more than 20 large emergencies in 15 countries. Each emergency may involve hundreds of handouts. A wide range of organizations, including CGIAR centers, the FAO, and several large international NGOs, have helped distribute seed aid directly to farmers in the past. Many of those groups are reconsidering their policy in light of the research findings.

The authors made important distinctions among the different approaches to seed aid. The most common practice has been to simply hand out seeds - known by donors as direct seed distribution. But donors in recent years have shifted to some extent to market-based approaches, having learned that access - not seed availability - is the most common constraint in drought, short-term war, and floods. Even if seed is locally available, some poor farmers may not have the financial means or social networks to access it. The market-based approaches include giving vouchers or cash to farmers to buy seeds from local markets or organized seed fairs. This approach gives farmers the power to make their own decisions on what crops to grow or what varieties they need to combat their specific stresses, rather than have someone else decide for them.

According to the report, direct seed aid has been used repetitively in many countries. For instance, this type of free distribution was given consecutively for 22 seasons, or for 11 years, in Burundi, dating to 1995; nine years in eastern Kenya since 1992; for nine seasons in Malawi since 1992; nearly continuously since 1991 in Zimbabwe; and for most of the past 34 years in Ethiopia.

But during many of those emergencies, evidence shows that seed aid played a very minor role in the cultivation of farmers' fields - generally less than an eighth of the seed sown. In Kenya, during the 1997 drought, despite the massive distribution of maize seed, more than 85 percent of the seed sown came from local channels. Researchers documented similar findings in bean-seed giveaways in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch in 1999, and sorghum in drought-stricken Somalia during the same period. In Rwanda, three months after widespread killing and displacement in 1994, with violent events peaking during harvest time, farmers were able to plant their staple crop, beans, in quantities comparable to those before the genocide. Just a quarter of seed planted came from seed relief efforts during the first post-war season, and this dropped to 6 percent the next season.

In several places in Africa now, governments and NGOs are responding to various natural disasters (Ghana, Burkina Faso, Malawi, and Madagascar), and face choices in each of those places about how to distribute seeds to farmers. In Kenya, where rains are having a slow start, groups are distributing free maize seeds to commercial farmers.

In a separate comprehensive study on seed aid, released late last year, Ethiopian and international researchers concluded that Ethiopia alone has received more than $500 million of seed aid since 1974. That study, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Ottawa, Canada, included more than 15 authors.


"The findings from this report suggest that aid agencies move away from supplying seed aid by default," said Geoff Hawtin, director general of CIAT. "More effective seed relief requires proper assessments and constant evaluation. We do not want to create dependencies among our farmers. We want to encourage seed markets," he noted.

"What we really need is a seed aid revolution. A business-as-usual approach could be damaging to agriculture in Africa. Even situations that require immediate humanitarian responses can be implemented in a way to take what we already know into account," he added.