I was\nwelcomed to Madagascar by Mr. Mbosa Rabenasola, agronomist and agricultural\nconsultant who has long promoted the role of both research and the private\nsector in achieving a Malgasy Green Revolution. \nMbosa, as he is known, had come highly recommended to us by Justin Rakotoarisaona,\nSecretary General of AFSTA, the African Seed Trade Association, who is also\nMalgasy. It was a great recommendation,\nand Mbosa managed to organized meetings with all the key informants and\nofficials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Madagascar\u2019s\ncrop production systems are a bit special in that the country was settled\nnearly 2,000 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\nfarmers are some of the hardest-working and most dedicated to their craft I\nhave ever met anywhere. Nothing comes\neasy in this geographically isolated, island country off the coast of\nMozambique, but the country\u2019s farmers make up for whatever built-in challenges\nthe country faces through their deep knowledge and mastery of local\ntechnologies, including a dizzying array of local rice land races and animal\ntraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We met with\na highly promising seed association-cum-seed company in the town of Sakai led\nby Njiva Randrianantenaina, assisted by his sons. They produce quality seed of rice, beans,\nmaize and Bambara groundnut and function as a private seed company, selling\nseed in small packages directly to farmers and through agro-dealers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We also met\nup with Francois Grobler, who has teamed up with Mirana Rakotovelo to form\nAgri-Vet, a seed and input supply company. \nThey produced over 50 MT of maize seed in early 2019 and were getting\nready to clean it using a processing plant they have been able to lease from\nthe government, along 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":2266,"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\/1762"}],"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=1762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.seedsystemsgroup.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1762\/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=1762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.seedsystemsgroup.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.seedsystemsgroup.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}