Nairobi — As famine and food shortages threaten millions of people in the region, key players in African seed sector have met to accelerate efforts for high yield and drought resistant seed varieties for poor farmers.

A regional meeting that opened on Monday in Bamako, Mali, brought together 300 agriculture scientists, entrepreneurs, farmers' organisations and governments from across the continent.

The experts from 20 countries who collectively form the heart of the Programme for Africa's Seed Systems (PASS), a $150 million initiative launched two years ago by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra) to develop improved varieties of rice, maize, millet, sorghum and other food staples to millions of Africa's smallholder farmers.

Reports over the past month of a drought-induced famine potentially affecting 20 million people in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda provide yet another reminder of the challenges facing African agriculture and add a new sense of urgency to the PASS effort.

"Without a viable, sustainable system that provides our farmers with improved higher yielding and disease- and drought-resistant varieties of our food crops, Africans will continue to be uniquely vulnerable to food crises," said Dr Namanga Ngongi, president of Agra.

In its short existence, PASS has moved rapidly to spur the development and distribution of improved seeds for African farmers, who have been relying on poor quality seed saved from previous harvests or distributed by aid groups.

Since its inception, PASS's work across the seed value chain has already resulted in the training of over 100 African crop scientists, funding some 40 crop breeding programmes, initiating 65 new, high-yield crop varieties into the field, providing start-up capital for 32 African seed companies.

The companies have collectively produced approximately 6,000 metric tonnes of certified seed.

PASS has also enlisted 5,000 agro dealers who in 2008 alone provided smallholder farmers with $45 million worth of seed and farm inputs.

Yet, enormous challenges remain, with bottlenecks at nearly every link in the seed value chain.

One crucial area addressed repeatedly by conference participants was the need to develop a strong private sector of local companies producing and disseminating high quality, certified seed.

Said Dr Joseph DeVries, PASS director: "A strong, African-based commercial seed sector devoted to serving smallholder farmers has long been a missing link in creating a sustainable seed system. Today, we are forging that link."

A new study released at the conference documents the state of the seed sector in four West African countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Mali and Benin. A total of only 11 seed companies were identified, eight of them in Nigeria.

"Except for Nigeria, there are not enough seed companies in West Africa to drive a viable seed sector," said study co-author and Agra policy officer Augustine Langyintuo.

"We must increase the number of seed companies if smallholder farmers are to be able to access improved seed and grow more food."

The situation in East and Southern Africa is similar.

Although there are more private seed companies in existence, significant obstacles have historically inhibited their ability to scale up production of improved seed.

In 2007, the total amount of improved seed produced was only nine per cent greater than a decade ago, despite the presence of many more seed companies.

Obstacles to developing robust seed systems in Africa include lack of access to credit -- only one per cent of commercial bank financing goes to agriculture. Also a problem is lack of access to seed production and processing equipment.

Government policies have also created obstacles by slowing the release of proven new varieties; providing weak oversight to seed regulatory systems; and enforcing unnecessary barriers to seed trade barriers.

Despite the many challenges, in the past two years PASS grantees have demonstrated that they are far from insurmountable and, moreover, that throughout Africa demand is high for improved varieties that can allow farmers to boost their harvest and better withstand threats such as drought and disease.

An assessment by Agra earlier this year found that nearly all the PASS sponsored seed producers in 13 countries have sold 100 percent of their seed.

Most indicated they could have sold more.

Also, in only two years, investments in 24 small and medium sized seed companies and cooperatives have helped them double production, from 2656 metric tonnes to 5284 metric tonnes.

PASS hopes to see these totals rise to 13,000 tonnes by the end of this year.

Agra is also strengthening the agro- dealer networks in eight countries in Eastern and Southern Africa; Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Rwanda, and three countries in West Africa; Ghana, Nigeria and Mali.

These agro-dealers reach tens of thousands of farmers with affordable high quality seed, fertilizer and other inputs. In just four countries--Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia--AGRA has funded the training of 4,426 agro-dealers, leading to the certification of 3,612 agro-dealers.

They have collectively sold nearly US$2,000,000 of inputs to farmers.

PASS grantees attending the Mali conference are bringing a number of other reports of progress.

In Rwanda, for example, PASS-supported scientists are developing improved varieties of drought tolerant and disease resistant beans and stress tolerant maize.

PASS also has invested in a Rwandan seed company that is producing and distributing to smallholder farmers improved varieties of maize, beans, sorghum, cassava and soybeans.

In Uganda, PASS support has enabled 10,000 bean farmers to increase yields and provided smallholder farmers in 23 districts with 10,557 banana trees resistant to a rapidly spreading and devastating fungus.

In June of this year, Uganda released three new, hybrid maize varieties which are now being commercialized by the country's rapidly growing private seed industry.

In Uganda, as in several other countries where PASS operates, the growth of the seed industry is limited not by farmer demand for improved seed (which always remains high), but by the availability of new, locally-adapted varieties and sufficient seed producers to multiply and market them.

The study, conducted under the auspices of the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa Project, found that demand for improved maize seed far outweighs supply.

From 1997 to 2007 in West Africa, only one-third of farmers' demand was met.

This number, however, masks huge differences within the region.