- Date: 27th
- Month: OCT
- Year: 2020
KEPHIS Headquarters, Nairobi - 10 farmer groups have been trained on seed production and certification. The 3-day training, held at KEPHIS headquarters, aimed at training the farmers on Standard seed which is a certified seed class.
Feed the Future Global Supporting Seed Systems for Development (S34D) activity is a 5-year program supported by the Feed the Future Initiative through the Bureau for Resilience and Food Security (RFS) and supported by USAID through the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). S34D is led by Catholic Relief Services as the prime, in partnership with Agri Experience and others as consortium partners. S34D is supporting the development of appropriate Standard Seed protocols through KEPHIS and seed industry stakeholders.
Standard Seed also presents an opportunity to bring in a new category of seed producers and marketers, by graduating farmer groups that have a good capacity to produce seed, into seed companies. This is essential for moving this category of growers from the informal to the formal seed system. S34D is supporting the initial step in this process, i.e. the training of five farmer groups in seed production and certification.
After the training, the groups will be expected to register as seed producers or seed growers and take part in a pilot for Standard Certified Seed in the short rains season of 2020.
