Seed Security and Genetic Diversity – A View from Africa Jim Gaffney Agriculture Division of Dow DuPont 21 March 2018 Ankeny, Iowa

My wife’s village is in southern Cameroon ~ 300 km north of equator My family’s farm is in northern U.S. ~ 5,000 km north of equator My wife’s village is in southern Cameroon ~ 300 km north of equator  

World Population Growth To 2100, by Region Population in 1,000’s World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision; United Nations, Dept. of Econ and Soc. Affairs, Population Div. (2015)

Global Issues Global Opportunities 1/4 World’s arable land 1/6 Global population 43% under 15 yrs old By permission: . © Africa Interactive Maps®

Seed Security and Genetic Diversity Seed security – farmers have consistent access to adapted, high quality genetics and high quality seed. Seed INSECURITY is due to a number of factors, often in combinations: Conflict and corruption Poor leadership Lack of value chains Poor storage Out-dated genetics Counterfeit seed Limited intellectual property protection (and therefore lack of investment) Antiquated seed laws, dysfunctional or non-existent regulatory system (which in turn create combinations of above)

Challenges to Seed Security: Antiquated Seed Laws Non-functioning Regulatory System Example: Tanzania seed registration process: 2 years Advanced Yield Trials 1 year “Uniformity and Stability” trials 1 year National Performance Trials 1 year Farmers Assessment Dis-functional regulatory systems: Transgenic traits Africa has 54 countries, each with its own seed laws, some with functioning regulatory systems, some dis-functional, some not at all. Think about the U.S. – what if every state had its own peculiar set of rules and regs for commerce? Technology cannot move forward at an even pace, or even at all in some countries.

Annual Maize Yield Increase (1991- 2014) Kg-ha-1-yr-1 Van Ittersum et al., 2016. Can Sub-Saharan Africa Feed Itself? PNAS Early Edition. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1610359113 Here’s how this plays out in Africa. Ethiopia, which has really opened up to outside forces and every day that goes by is more open to technology, is moving forward. Tanzania, for which I just described some onerous see laws, has some very productive land and great potential to be an East African bread-basket, but is going backwards in productivity.

Seed Law Harmonization Needs Consistent Application Monitoring And improvement in seed certification, quarantine and phytosanitary measures. Followed by prompt evaluation and release of seed varieties  Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) The good news is that industry is not the only ones to recognize this. New leadership in Africa is pushing for improvements.

Genetic Diversity – Value or Curse? Is genetic diversity a value or curse? Crazy question, right? Of course genetic diversity is valuable. But its really difficult to employ genetic diversity into a modern breeding program. Example: IRRI has over 10,000 rice accessions, in the seed bank, available for use, all with at least a bit of phenotypic information. But its overwhelming. How can a breeder make use of that? We’re starting to understand how gene banks and see vaults and farmers’ landrace varieties can be more valuable. As sequencing becomes more thorough, more accurate, and more useful, we’ll understand more about the value of the underlying genetics of the diversity, and with CRISPR-Cas Advanced Plant Breeding, we can actually do something about it.

What’s Our Role? Have faith in science and promote evidence-based decision-making Be an objective, critical thinker Help Africa take advantage of technology I’m using “OUR ROLE” to mean all of us, working in science and agriculture. It is our responsibility to ensure politicians and policy-makers understand what is possible through objective thinking and collaborative efforts.