Project Briefs

Successful Local Seed Businesses: Understanding the role of success factors and organisational forms

Introduction

The Integrated Seed Sector Development (ISSD) programme in Uganda aims to continuously develop and adapt its work with local seed businesses (LSBs) according to the pace at which farmer groups are evolving into sustainable enterprises. An LSB is a group of farmers that are able to produce and market quality seed of varieties preferred by other farmers. For an LSB to be sustainable, it needs to be commercially oriented and able to make investments. To support this process, ISSD is entirely based on capacity building and does not provide free inputs. To guide the ISSD staff and farmer groups on areas where capacity building is needed, the programme developed a diagnostic tool to measure whether farmer groups are progressing towards becoming sustainable enterprises. This diagnostic tool is called ‘success factors for sustainable LSBs’ and it has a scoring system from 1 (weak) to 5 (strong). To strengthen their weakest ‘success factor’ area, ISSD staff held tailored coaching and training sessions with the LSBs.