PROJECT OVERVIEW
Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the program consolidates advancements from single-crop BMGF-funded seed systems initiatives – YIIFSWA II, BASICS-II, SweetGAINS and RAPID-Banana. This integration facilitates cross-learning between crops, capitalizing on the diverse set of cross-cutting opportunities, thus ensuring overall VPC seed systems development. An important feature of this project is that it was co-developed and is being co-implemented with seed systems experts and value chain actors who identified bottlenecks and prioritized target areas for innovation research to build functional seed systems in their respective target countries.
Research will be implemented within 5 components, each focusing on delivering technological, marketing, and institutional innovations that will contribute to the following primary outcomes:
- Yam Component: Yam seed system actors in Nigeria and Ghana adopt innovations that result in more efficient and economically viable high-quality seed delivery of market-preferred varieties to smallholder farmers by 2027.
- Banana Component: Economically viable banana seed systems are established by seed system actors in Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda through the application of novel or improved innovations to tissue culture, macro propagation and nursery enterprises that deliver market-preferred varieties to farmers by 2027.
- Sweetpotato Component: Sweetpotato seed system performance is improved through technological, marketing, and institutional innovations that deliver timely, affordable quality seed of market-preferred varieties to actors in the Eastern Region of Uganda and the Lake Zone of Tanzania by 2027.
- Cassava Component: Cassava seed system actors in Nigeria, Tanzania and Rwanda adopt innovations that increase the cost efficiency, volume and seed quality of improved varieties delivered to smallholder farmers by 2027.
- Cross-cutting Component: Seed system actors in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda validate common approaches to technological, marketing, and institutional innovations for vegetatively propagated crop seed systems that provide models for wider scaling for VPC seed delivery across Africa by 2027.
GENDER EQUITY
The PROSSIVA team is fully committed to gender equity, cognizant of the under-representation of women within seed system research and entrepreneurship in spite of the fact that women represent the majority of smallholder producers of VPC crops in sub-Saharan Africa. Research will be conducted to improve understanding of gender inequality within VPC seed systems and to identify innovative solutions that will contribute to ensuring gender equity. Active partnering with seed system actors, including breeders, regulatory agencies, seed companies and entrepreneurial farmers, will result in the achievement of the intended primary outcomes, as the application of seed system innovations leads to greater efficiency and volume of seed delivery and improved targeting towards specific markets.
PROJECT PARTNERS
PROSSIVA is being implemented by a diverse set of 25 partners, mostly based within the 5 target countries (Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda). These include national research organizations, centers of the CGIAR, national seed regulatory authorities, consulting agencies, and private seed companies.