SKOV seminar - Good seed is a prerequisite for accelerated agricultural development! But, what is good seed? - 10 februari 2021

Hieronder ziet u informatie over het nieuwe SKOV-seminar over het belang van goed zaad. Omdat de studiekring SKOV uitsluitend in het Engels communiceert, vindt u hieronder dan ook de Engelstalige aankondiging.

Food security remains high on the agenda with population growth and hopefully increasing prosperity. Food production as part of this is under pressure from climate change, land degradation and urbanisation. Seed is ‘packaged knowledge’ and an important basis of all food production. How do we effectively bring together global scientific knowledge and farmers' local demand for good seed in a changing world?

Since both speakers agree on the importance of quality seed for increasing agricultural production in developing countries, they will look at this issue from their specific viewpoint, based on their role in the process of seed breeding and propagation for the production of staple food crops and the distribution of the seeds to small-scale farmers. The speakers will enter into dialogue with each other and with the participants.

The first speaker, prof. dr. Martin Kropff,  former rector magnificus at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) is director-general of CIMMYT, Texcoco, Mexico, the CGIAR International Agricultural Research Centre, which is engaged in research on wheat and maize, including breeding, seed systems, sustainable intensification and social sciences with a focus on improving livelihoods in the developing world. He will speak about breeding and propagation of seeds for staple food crops as well as the scaling of these seeds in the developing world through regional sub-centres all over the world. The impact of CIMMYT’s work with many stakeholders from public and private sector is estimated at 4.5 billion US $ extra value per year for smallholder farmers and small seed companies as a result of high levels of demand-driven adoption.

The PowerPoint presentation of Martin Kropff can be found here:

Presentation Martin Kropff

The second speaker is dr. ir. Marja Thijssen, Senior advisor seed systems at the Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation (WCDI, WUR). Marja leads a team working on guiding seed sector transformation in developing countries in Africa and Asia. In her presentation, she will focus on farmers’ seed needs and on modalities for improving farmers’ access to quality seed for a diversity of crops and varieties, including staple crops.

The PowerPoint presentation of Marja Thijssen can be found here:

Presentation Marja Thijssen

The discussion will be conducted by dr. ir. Niels Louwaars, director of Plantum, the Dutch organization for seed trade.