Center for Regional Food Systems

Learning how to grow seed for sale and personal use is an opportunity to sustain local seed resources and enhance farmers’ income. This module provides information on growing quality seed and helps farmers to learn what is required to produce seed that can be registered for sale.

This guide will assist educators such as extension workers and lead farmers to teach farmers how to grow seed for their own use and possibly for sale. The goal is for farmers to become more seed secure, especially for crops which are not widely available for sale, such as many legume varieties.

Legumes are good for the soil, for animal nutrition, and are especially nutritious for people. Seed companies generally sell a few varieties of legumes so farmers can grow their own seed to provide more legume selection and better local access for markets. The challenge with producing enough legume seed is that each plant produces only a few seed per pod, compared to grains like maize, millet, and sorghum. Once farmers have gained confidence to grow seed they can show other farmers their techniques. Farmers can then work together to grow a large amount of seed to sell and better supply market demand.

This curriculum intertwines activities with seed production information to create a fun and interactive learning environment. This module can be modified as needed to offer the appropriate style of teaching. The information for seed registration is based on Malawi’s Ministry of Agriculture’s requirements to produce and sell seed (Seed Act Amended, 1996).

This guide was produced by the Michigan State University Department of Community Sustainability and the Michigan State University Africa RISING Malawi Project. It was originally published by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture.

Citation

Morrone, V., Mzumara, E. and Livuza, H. 2018. Seed production guide curriculum for Malawi – a farmer field school approach. Ibadan, Nigeria: IITA. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10568/93422.