Social institutions mediating seed access in West African seed systems

Seed systems for African food security: linking molecular genetic analysis and cultivator knowledge in West Africa

A challenge for African countries is how to integrate new sources of knowledge on plant genetics with knowledge from farmer practice to help improve food security. This paper considers the knowledge content of farmer seed systems in the light of a distinction drawn in artificial intelligence research between supervised and unsupervised learning. Supervised learning applied to seed systems perfo...

Securing Access to Seed: Social Relations and Sorghum Seed Exchange in Eastern Ethiopia

Access to seed is crucial for farming, though few studies investigate household-level access in the informal ‘farmer seed systems’ which still supply most seed in poor countries. This paper uses empirical data of seed exchange practices for sorghum in eastern Ethiopia to analyze how social relationships influence access to off-farm seed for a major crop. Seed shortfalls are common, and farmer–f...

Postdispersal removal and germination of seed dispersed by Cercopithecus nictitans in a West African Montane Forest.

Factors that determine the effectiveness of primates as seed dispersers include (i) the microsite into which they deposit seed, (ii) secondary removal of seed by other taxa and (iii) the effect of gut passage and/or spitting on subsequent seed germination. This contribution evaluated these factors in the little studied putty-nosed monkey, Cercopithecus nictitans, in a Nigerian montane forest. F...

Seed Systems and Seed Relief: an Annotated Bibliography

Nutrient Intake and Digestibility by West African Dwarf (WAD) Sheep Fed Graded Levels of Pigeon Pea Seed Meal

A study was carried out to evaluate nutrient intake and digestibility by West African Dwarf (WAD) sheep fed graded levels of dietary pigeon pea seed meal (PSM). Four diets designated A, B, C and D were formulated to contain 0, 10, 20, and 30% levels of PSM, respectively. Four WAD rams aged between 15 and 17 months and weighing between 16 and 19 kg were used to conduct digestibility study in a 4...