The quality of purchased seeds, such as maize, groundnuts, and others, is a major concern in Uganda.<\/p>\n
Evidence from recent studies indicates that farmers all over the country have been\u00a0slow to adopt<\/a>\u00a0improved seeds, such as those that protect against drought. Farmers prefer to use seeds they\u2019ve saved from the last season; these are generally of poor quality and don\u2019t protect against weather problems. This suggests that, for Uganda\u2019s farmers, the cost of improved seeds \u2013 which are more expensive than home-saved seeds \u2013 outweighs any of the benefits.<\/p>\n Farmers are also concerned about the quality of agricultural inputs like fertilizer, seeds, and pesticides. They worry about the potential for these to be adulterated and contaminated. For example, a recent study\u00a0found<\/a> that a bag of fertilizer picked at random had only half of the nitrogen content it should. This meant there was little value to using it. The authors also looked at yields from improved maize seeds and discovered a similar situation.<\/p>\n One reason that\u2019s widely cited for low yields is deliberate adulteration of seeds by sellers along the supply chain. The assumption is that sellers deliberately introduce grains or even stones into bags of seed to increase the weight. When the farmer uses these seeds, most don\u2019t germinate. However, no one has ever identified adulteration \u2013 it\u2019s simply assumed this is what is causing the problem.<\/p>\n This means that agricultural policy has tended to focus on certification of seeds, including labeling at the source,\u00a0e-verification<\/a>, and requiring bags that are not easy to open until the farmer has them. But little effort has been made to improve the quality control of the seed supply chain as a whole, including transportation networks and storage at the end seller.<\/p>\n Uganda\u2019s certification and oversight of seeds has proven inadequate for ensuring that farmers obtain good quality inputs. Neither seed companies nor input shops are well regulated, and market failures have emerged \u2013 meaning that the access to optimal quality seeds is still very limited.<\/p>\n Our project expands on the recent work of researchers looking at the quality of agricultural inputs in Africa. To diagnose where quality issues crop up in Uganda, we explored 21 varieties of maize across the supply chain. What we\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0is that quality, rather than genetic purity, appears to be the main problem. The results are consistent with mishandling and poor storage of seeds.<\/p>\n What our tests found<\/strong><\/p>\n To collect a representative sample of seeds \u2013 as if an actual farmer would have purchased those seeds \u2013 we employed a mystery shopper approach. A well-trained team of enumerators self-identified as farmers and purchased seeds from a census of companies at all levels of the supply chain, across three districts in northern Uganda and the capital, Kampala.<\/p>\n