Malawi puts US$1m into seed plan as AGRA warns of gap between laws and farms

• Africa has strong seed policies but weak delivery, says AGRA president in The New African

Malawi has committed US$1 million of public money to a national seed investment plan, according to AGRA president Alice Ruhweza.

Writing in The New African with Evelyn Lusenaka, who heads AGRA’s Centre of Excellence for Seed Systems in Africa,

Ms Ruhweza said countries that wrote seed plans into their budgets moved fastest. Nigeria set up a ₦50bn (US$37.66mn) seed fund and Ethiopia raised US$5mn with the Gates Foundation. Malawi’s US$1mn was the smallest of the three.

“Plans that governments own get financed. Plans that donors own get filed,” they wrote.

The piece appeared as the African Union opened its first Africa Seed Summit in Eswatini on 5 October. It cites the AU’s 2025 Seed Sector Performance Index, which scored 50 countries and found a continental average of 4.63 out of 10. Use of quality commercial seed averaged just 3.06.

None of the 46 countries with data met all of their seed needs for their four priority crops. Fourteen released no new varieties between 2022 and 2024.

The piece does not give Malawi’s own score. It says Malawi’s regional bloc, the Southern African Development Community, scores 4.96 out of 10 for recognising farmer-managed seed systems, the best of any bloc.

The authors want every country to put its seed plan into its national budget, and regional blocs to recognise one another’s variety releases.