Weed seed contamination in imported seed lots entering New Zealand.

Seed for sowing imports provide a major pathway for the introduction of contaminants, and many agricultural weeds that have now naturalized globally originally entered through this pathway. Management of this pathway is a significant means of preventing future plant invasions and helps minimize agricultural losses. This study examined frequency, origin and identity of contaminant seeds within seed for sowing shipments entering New Zealand between 2014-2018. Considering that seed lots imported into New Zealand are inspected at a higher intensity than required by other international agencies, data provide a window view of contaminants that move throughout the seed for sowing system. Contamination was rare, occurring in 1.9% of 41,610 seed lots across 1,420 crop seed species. Among the different crop types, arable had the lowest contamination rate (0.5%) and forage had the highest (12.6%). Of the commonly imported crop seeds, Capsicum, Phaseolus and Solanum, all had contamination rates of 0.0%. Crop seeds Medicago (27.3%) and Trifolium (19.8%) had the highest contamination rates. Out of 191 genera recorded as contaminants, Chenopodium was the most common. Regulated quarantine weeds were the rarest contaminant type, only occurring in 0.06% of seed lots. Sorghum halpense was the most common quarantine weed and was found only in vegetable seed lots. Vegetable crop seed lots accounted for approximately half of all quarantine weed detections, Raphanus sativus being the most contaminated vegetable crop. Seed lots from Italy had more quarantine weeds than other countries. Larger seed lots were significantly more contaminated and more likely to contain a quarantine weed than smaller seed lots. These findings support International Seed Testing Association rules on maximum seed lot weights. Low contamination rates suggest industry practices are effective in minimizing contaminant seeds. By characterising risks associated with crop seed importation, findings will help inform border inspection agencies with their targeted biosecurity efforts.

Marketing of Vegetable Seeds: Practice and Behavioral Inclinations of Vegetable Seed Sellers and Farmers in Selected Areas of Bangladesh

This research was based on a survey conducted in Bangladesh in three major seed-producing divisions, viz., Dhaka, Mymensingh, and Chittagong. Descriptive data was gathered by randomly selecting 100 peasants and 100 rural retailers for in-depth interviews. The general accounting approach was also used to assess profit and loss. The objective of the study was to analyze the marketing tendencies of vegetable seed farmers and sellers. The results showed a lack of market information, poor institutions and arrangements, poor marketing infrastructures, transportation system, and high and unfair profit margin distribution among the value chain actors with little share to the farmers in the vegetable seed market. These findings are indicators of poor marketing efficiency and thereby suboptimal operation of the seed marketing system. The significant determinants of market supply of vegetable seeds were found to be the average current price, age, the total size of land, farmers’ experience, sex, number of oxen, and access to market information. The determinants of demand for vegetable seeds—family size, purchase frequency, the average current price, income level, average expenditure on food and purchasing, profit or loss of vegetable seed farming—were found to be significant in the study. According to the findings of this report, vegetable seed sector in Bangladesh needs more government support, especially in terms of marketing policies in order to improve the current state of vegetable seed farming. Vegetable seed farming was not profitable due to a lack of technology and knowledge, as well as a lack of funding. With the existing status of infrastructure, the presence of middlemen is unavoidable. As a result, farmers have no alternative but to follow the orders of the middlemen, resulting in seed quality problems. Hence, the results are indicative of the measures that should be taken for production, market infrastructure, arrangements, and institutions to improve the functioning of the seed marketing system. It also proposes a vegetable seed distribution channel through which a cooperative community would serve as a collecting hub for a more efficient marketing scheme.

Africa’s evolving vegetable seed sector: status, policy options and lessons from Asia

Fostering better access to more nutritious foods across sub-Saharan Africa will be critical to ending hunger and malnutrition. In Asia, vegetable production and consumption have grown rapidly since the 1990s and the development of a dynamic vegetable seed industry, led by the private sector, played a pivotal role in this process. The availability of locally-bred and adapted varieties facilitated the rapid expansion of production and increased the supply of affordable vegetables to consumers. In contrast, the vegetable seed sector in sub-Saharan Africa has been slow to develop and has received little attention in the development agenda. Drawing from Asia’s experience, this paper outlines a four-point strategy to accelerate the vegetable seed sector in sub-Saharan Africa. First, there is a need to strengthen the technical capacity of African seed companies to allow them to develop varieties that are well-adapted to local conditions and consumer preferences. Second, seed regulations, originally designed with food grains in mind, should be reviewed and revised to facilitate domestic vegetable breeding research and seed production. Third, more farmer extension is needed to exploit improved varieties together with good management practices. Fourth, vegetable marketing systems should be strengthened to reduce risks to farmers and traders. Investment in these four areas will help energize private sector investment in the vegetable seed sector. Asian experience suggests that investment in locally adapted vegetable varieties is a critical step in improving productivity, availability and ultimately consumption of nutritious vegetables.

VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS OF VEGETABLE SEED IN WESTERN RUKUM DISTRICT, NEPAL

The vegetable seed is one of the growing high-value subsectors in Nepal because of the increasing commercialization of vegetable production, the deficit of seed supply, and the rising involvement of different actors at different levels of its value chain. In this context, the present study was designed to analysis the value chain of vegetable seeds with a special focus on the competitiveness of the value chain actors. The study was conducted in Western Rukum, Nepal in 2017. Data from 210 randomly selected vegetable seed producers using simple random sampling, 13 seed traders including seed collectors, seed companies and agro vets, eight enablers as well as information from secondary sources were collected and analyzed by using descriptive statistics. The result showed that even having nine functional vegetable seed marketing channels in the district there was a weak relationship among value chain actors. The actors involved in the production and marketing sides had different areas of interest. The producers were typically interested in access to technical input and market assurance in both price and quantity, on the other hand, the market actors were interested in quality assurance and market-led price fixation. Additionally, the market information was limited to the local level seed traders. In the contrast, networking among local traders was found very strong. However, they were also not sure about the quality of seed produced by farmers and had to wait until the quality test by the seed company to clear their product. The finding of this study indicates farmers should maintain the quality of seed, the seed traders should provide the essential information to producers regarding the price and quality standard that need to be met, and government agencies should increase the extension service on the technical know-how of high yielding varieties based on consumers demand to promote the export of the seeds.

Vegetable growing in Azerbaijan in modern conditions

Relevance. Vegetable growing is a traditional sector of agriculture in Azerbaijan. The republic has all the conditions for its development, both natural and socio-economic. Materials and methods. The aim of the research was to analyze the current state of vegetable growing in the republic, to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the industry, to determine the terms of support for producers from the state and branch science. Results. The gross harvest of vegetables has been steadily growing in the last decades, and by 2019 amounted to 1715 thousand tons. The yield of vegetables also increased during this period from 14, 7 to 21.9 t / ha. In door production area is approximately 4800 ha. The production of greenhouse vegetables is focused on the Russian market. The bottleneck in the industry is vegetable seed production, a market with a capacity of almost 20 million euros is occupied by foreign companies. At the same time, the agricultural producers get state support in the form of subsidies and soft loans and a full tax exemption. Industry science is also developing: the Research Institute of Vegetable Production has been reconstructed and fully equipped, special training organized for vegetable growers in the Azerbaijan State Agrarian University. Further development of the industry continues through the intensification and biologization of production, expanding the range and improving product quality.