Global seed companies are designing their products to tackle the impact of climate change and address nutrition needs, but emerging economies still experience limited access to quality seeds with the global seed industry reaching just 10% of the world’s smallholder farmers.
This was contained in a new study- The Access to Seeds Index 2019, Global Seed Companies, published by the Amsterdam-based Access to Seeds Foundation.
The Access to Seeds Index 2019, Global Seed Companies, evaluates the activities of the 13 leading global seed companies to shine a light on where the industry can do more to raise smallholder farmer productivity, improve nutrition and mitigate the effects of climate change through the development and dissemination of quality seed.
The study indicates that the 13 global seed companies only reached around 47 million of the world’s 500 million smallholder farmers in 2017, and most investments went to a small number of countries, mostly in South and Southeast Asia.
