Rwanda yesterday assented to regulations that will govern trading in seed varieties within the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa).

The regulations, which will have to be adopted in all the 19 member states before coming into force, will facilitate safe movement of quality seeds within member states. To qualify to benefit from the initiative, seeds will first have to go through a quality certification process, according to officials.

The Minister for Agriculture and Animal Resources, Geraldine Mukeshimana, said the initiative will stimulate the breeding and availability of many new improved seed varieties, which will give better alternatives to farmers. “We had challenges where someone, for example, couldn’t easily sell seeds produced in other countries which were hindering farmers to access various varieties,” Mukeshimana said. She added that having many seed varieties to choose from will help farmers alternate, especially in the era of climate change which requires innovation from time to time to keep the yields high.

Argent Chuula, the chief executive of Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (Actesa), a Comesa specialised agency, said there is  a lot to do to move the sector upward by availing adequate improved seeds for farmers to attain food security. Chuula said, currently, the region has a total seed production of about 500,000 metric tonnes per annum, while a total demand for seeds is about two million metric tonnes.

In Rwanda, seed production stands at about 8,000 metric tonnes a year, while some members of the bloc have even less  production capacity. This indicates that there is still deficit in the region that imports from other regions outside Africa, a fact that calls for Comesa to have own producing industries.

Gervais Ngerero Nkuriza, the director of seed department at Rwanda Agriculture Board (Rab), said the harmonisation of regulations requires that seeds fulfill international standards before being added on the list. “The seeds are to be certified in a harmonised way. Variety can be from one country to another, Rwanda has, for example, beans varieties of “Vun’inkingi” and will be exported to Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania to be grown there. So we also can import others,” he said

Among the laboratory standards required to be certified, there is, for some crops, a minimum germination at 90 per cent, minimum pure seed at 99 per cent, and maximum moisture 13 per cent, among others, he said.