Kenya’s East African Seed Company and Zimbabwe’s Seed Co. have topped the list of companies playing a critical role in raising smallholder farmer productivity on the continent.
According to the 2019 Access to Seeds Index for Eastern and Southern Africa released by Amsterdam-based research firm, Access to Seeds Foundation, the two homegrown African seed companies have outperformed multinational peers in serving smallholder farmers.
While East African Seed stands out for a broad portfolio including local crops and large network of extension staff across multiple countries, Seed Co. boasts of the most extensive breeding, production and sales network on the continent.
Seed Co. which provides hybrid and non-hybrid cereals and oil crop seed varieties is said to be having the widest geographic reach in agronomic training in Africa.
The Access to Seeds Index analyses of 22 leading seed companies in Eastern and Southern Africa with Thailand’s East-West Seed coming number three on the list, followed by US-based Corteva Agriscience (DowDuPont) and Swiss-based Syngenta.
