Africa
March, 2007
New Seed Initiative for Maize in
Southern Africa (NSIMA)
by John MacRobert, CIMMYT, Harare
Source: African
Crops News, March 2007
The New Seed Initiative for Maize
in Africa (NSIMA) Project has the goal of stimulating the
development and delivery of improved maize varieties to farmers
in southern Africa.
The underlying rationale of this
Project is that most smallholder farmers are not using improved
seeds, which affects agricultural productivity. The project
fostered the development of improved and adapted maize varieties
with the National Maize Breeding Programmes in seven SADC
countries and funded the breeding activities of CIMMYT-Harare.
Several new maize breeding lines,
open-pollinated varieties and hybrids have been released into
the seed sector. The Project has supported 336 variety trials
with 117 varieties being tested in 2006/7 season. Selected
varieties will then be tested in farmers’ fields using the
Mother-Baby Trial system. Many of the breeding materials and
varieties developed by the project are taken up by NARS and the
private seed sector, and entered into the National Variety
Registration Processes. A total of 98 maize varieties were
released jointly with the private sector in South Africa and 30
new varieties released in six other states during 2006.
NSIMA supported the SADC Seed
Security Network to formulate a SADC Seed System that was
endorsed by Ministries of Agriculture in all the SADC states.
NSIMA also contributed in Breeders’ and Foundation Seed
production, and supported training and technical back-stopping
activities for NARS, NGOs, private seed producers and
universities.
A comprehensive description of
activities and outputs of NSIMA visit
http://www.africancrops.net/news/march07/nsima or contact
John MacRobert, CIMMYT - African Livelihoods Program, Harare,
Zimbabwe, Email:
j.macrobert@cgiar.org.
Comments about this article can be
posted at the Maize Forum of the African Crops Message and
Discussion Board or by email to:
j.macrobert@cgiar.org.
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