The Programme for Seed System Innovation for Vegetatively-propagated crops (VPCs) in Africa, PROSSIVA, aims to enhance the efficiency, productivity, and profitability of VPC seed systems in target countries of Africa through conducting research and delivering innovations that will overcome seed system bottlenecks. PROSSIVA is implemented by Centers of the One CGIAR led by IITA, working in partnership with a diverse set of national and international partners operating in both the public and private sectors.The project will contribute to poverty alleviation, improved livelihoods, and new job opportunities, particularly for women and youth, by raising VPC productivity, increasing volumes of sale, and by improving the efficiency of seed marketing and delivery. The program complements the work of the Seed Equal Initiative of the One CGIAR, which aims to deliver increased rates of varietal turnover and greater seed volumes of focus crops.
Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the program consolidates advancements from single-crop BMGF funded seed systems initiatives – YIIFSWA II, BASICS-II, SweetGAINS and RAPID-Banana. This integration facilitates cross learning between crops, capitalizing on the diverse set of cross-cutting opportunities, thus ensuring overall VPC seed systems development. An important feature of this project is that it was co-developed and is being co-implemented with seed systems experts and value chain actors who identified bottlenecks and prioritized target areas for innovation research to build functional seed systems in their respective target countries.
Despite the importance of VPCs such as banana and plantain, cassava, sweetpotato and yam for food security in Africa, their seed systems are underdeveloped, thus making it difficult for producers to get disease-free planting materials of improved varieties in a reliable manner. The planting materials for these crops are also perishable, bulky, hard to transport, and susceptible to the transmission of diseases and pests. CGIAR centers and a wide diversity of public and private sector partners will conduct high quality and targeted research to deliver innovations that address these constraints and develop efficient and sustainable VPC seed systems in five implementing countries, namely: Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
To enhance the efficiency, productivity and profitability of VPC seed systems in target countries of Africa through conducting research and delivering innovations that will overcome seed system bottlenecks.
Technological innovations
Faster virus cleaning techniques, disease diagnostics, rapid propagation techniques (lab screenhouse & field), good agricultural practices, for improved efficiency for EGS and CS production
Marketing Innovations
Cost effective demand identification methods & marketing strategies to promote (position, brand & communicate) the use of quality seed & integration into seed business models
Institutional Innovations
Strengthened seed actor linkages and institutional arrangements to enhance seed system efficiency
Research will be implemented within 5 components, each focusing on delivering technological, marketing, and institutional innovations that will contribute to the following primary outcomes:
Yam Component: Yam seed system actors in Nigeria and Ghana adopt innovations that result in more efficient and economically viable high-quality seed delivery of market-preferred varieties to smallholder farmers by 2027.
Banana Component: Economically viable banana seed systems are established by seed system actors in Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda through the application of novel or improved innovations to tissue culture, macro propagation and nursery enterprises that deliver market-preferred varieties to farmers by 2027.
Sweetpotato Component: Sweetpotato seed system performance is improved through technological, marketing, and institutional innovations that deliver timely, affordable quality seed of market-preferred varieties to actors in the Eastern Region of Uganda and the Lake Zone of Tanzania by 2027.
Cassava Component: Cassava seed system actors in Nigeria, Tanzania and Rwanda adopt innovations that increase the cost efficiency, volume and seed quality of improved varieties delivered to smallholder farmers by 2027.
Cross-cutting Component: Seed system actors in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda validate common approaches to technological, marketing, and institutional innovations for vegetatively propagated crop seed systems that provide models for wider scaling for VPC seed delivery across Africa by 2027.
Resourced was able to achieve the following in Year 1 of the PROSSIVA program under the yam component:
