I was welcomed to Madagascar\nby Mr. Mbosa Rabenasola, agronomist and agricultural consultant who has long\npromoted the role of both research and the private sector in achieving a\nMalgasy Green Revolution. Mbosa, as he\nis known, had come highly recommended to us by Justin Rakotoarisaona, Secretary\nGeneral of AFSTA, the African Seed Trade Association, who is also Malgasy. It was a great recommendation, and Mbosa\nmanaged to organized meetings with all the key informants and officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Madagascar\u2019s crop\nproduction systems are a bit special in that the country was settled nearly\n2,000 years ago by mariners who had sailed across the Indian Ocean from\nIndonesia and began cultivating the only cereal crop they knew: rice. \nThis, in spite of the fact that Madagascar\u2019s soils are not your typical\nrice-producing soils, and Madagascar\u2019s central plateau environment is higher\nand cooler than most of the world\u2019s rice-producing environments. Partly as a result, rice yields in Madagascar\nhave always been quite low, especially given that most fields are irrigated\nthrough ancient, gravity-fed and terraced systems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Madagascar\u2019s farmers\nare some of the hardest-working and most dedicated to their craft I have ever\nmet anywhere. Nothing comes easy in this\ngeographically isolated, island country off the coast of Mozambique, but the\ncountry\u2019s farmers make up for whatever built-in challenges the country faces\nthrough their deep knowledge and mastery of local technologies, including a\ndizzying array of local rice land races and animal traction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We met with a highly\npromising seed association-cum-seed company in the town of Sakai led by Njiva\nRandrianantenaina, assisted by his sons. \nThey produce quality seed of rice, beans, maize and Bambara groundnut\nand function as a private seed company, selling seed in small packages directly\nto farmers and through agro-dealers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We also met up with\nFrancois Grobler, who has teamed up with Mirana Rakotovelo to form Agri-Vet, a\nseed and input supply company. They\nproduced over 50 MT of maize seed in early 2019 and were getting ready to clean\nit using a processing plant they have been able to lease from the government,\nalong with offices and warehouses outside the town of Sakay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With these\ninvestments, and the longstanding commitment of FOFIFA (the national\nagricultural research institute), and the support of the Ministry of\nAgriculture, the Malgasy seed sector looks set to take off. Next step is to introduce new germplasm, test\nit, and scale it up alongside seed of current favorites. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was welcomed to Madagascar by Mr. Mbosa Rabenasola, agronomist and agricultural consultant who has long promoted the role of both research and the private sector in achieving a Malgasy Green Revolution. Mbosa, as he is known, had come highly recommended to us by Justin Rakotoarisaona, Secretary General of AFSTA, the African Seed Trade Association, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.seedsystemsgroup.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.seedsystemsgroup.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.seedsystemsgroup.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.seedsystemsgroup.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.seedsystemsgroup.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.seedsystemsgroup.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.seedsystemsgroup.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.seedsystemsgroup.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.seedsystemsgroup.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.seedsystemsgroup.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}