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Business Reporter
THE Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) has launched the harmonised seed laws and regulations for the trading bloc to improve movement of seed across the region.

The Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (Actesa) in partnership with Food Trade East and Southern Africa (ESA) programme recently launched national seed laws that have been aligned to the Comesa seed policies.

The launch took place in Nairobi, Kenya, where national Seed Review teams from seven Comesa member states including Zimbabwe, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia and Malawi participated.

“The aim of harmonising country seed laws and regulations under the Comesa Seed Harmonisation Implementation Programme (Comship) is to bring about consistent domestication, application, monitoring and improvement in seed certification, quarantine and phytosanitary measures. This in addition to the evaluation and release of seed varieties among Comesa member countries. It will also give smallholder farmers in the region better access to quality inputs and related technologies,” said Comesa in a statement.

Kenya’s Principal Secretary for Agriculture Mr Richard Lesiyampe officiated over the launch on behalf of the Cabinet Secretary Mr Willy Bett. He described the launch as a historic opportunity to collectively reflect on how best to plan and avoid or mitigate risks that face the agriculture sector in the region.

“I am happy to note that all the country processes have been home-grown and sensitive to country situations while keeping the broader objective of attaining the harmonised regulations in focus. This deliberate inclusivity in the process has led to harmonised regulations that are widely acceptable to seed industry stakeholders,” Mr Lesiyampe was quoted as saying.

Comesa noted that the regulatory environment surrounding seed production and certification has made it costly to do business in the seed production sector, discouraging private sector companies from investing in innovation and expanded production.

“UK Aid, through the Food Trade ESA programme, has provided targeted grants to a number of organisations implementing projects that are bridging gaps within the sector. The grant provided to the Actesa has helped to support the domestication of harmonised seed trade regulations across East and Southern Africa.

“The focus of the Food Trade ESA programme is improving the quality and quantity of staple foods that our farmers produce and to ensure that they benefit from trading surpluses across the region,” said Comesa.

It said working with Actesa has laid an important foundation to promote coherence in the production and trade of seed across East and Southern Africa.
Actesa with the support of Food Trade ESA, facilitated domestication of harmonised seed trade policies and regulations in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda.

The three countries joined Burundi and Rwanda, which completed the review and the gazetting of their seed trade policies and can now fully participate in the production, certification, registration and trade of improved seed varieties across the region.