Based on findings from his PhD, Tsekiso Ranqhai reflects on the impacts of hybrid seed on smallholder farmers in Lesotho.

When humans, through the work of Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin, discovered hybrid vigour, they could not have fathomed how much change in agriculture they would bring about. Hybrid vigour (heterosis) results from the crossing of different inbred lines with desired attributes of the same crop, producing a higher performing and often higher yielding variety, or “F1 hybrid”. While this was a great technical insight into the workings of nature, the technologies that have come out of understanding the hybridization process have driven seed technologies to a significant ontological shift. Because hybrid vigour only lasts for one planting season, the first casualty in prioritizing hybrid vigour was the essence of seed: its reproduction. Ontologically, hybrid seed means that we must shift from using seed as a multi-generational input to using it as a single use input. This is because if hybrid seed is replanted, it loses its vigour.

The technologies of understanding and producing hybrid vigour have advanced greatly – from rudimentary cross-pollination methods to genetic/molecular methods of identifying and crossing desired traits. This advancement has been coupled by a shift in ownership of technologies from public research institutions producing seed for public use and interest, to predominantly private seed companies driven by profit. The prioritization of hybrid vigour has coincided with the business case for seed in capitalist seed markets. This is because to realize the productivity value of hybrid vigour, a farmer has to buy seed annually. This shift means that producing accessible and suitable seed technologies to enhance food security for smallholder farmers has often taken a backseat to priorities of profit.

The production and sale of hybrid seed technologies for profit means that few smallholder farmers in the Global South can afford them long term. In part, the evidence lies in the persistent use of traditional farmer varieties of maize and other crops by smallholder farmers throughout the Global South. In line with Green Revolution efforts in Asia in the 1960s with rice and wheat, great efforts have been made to transition smallholder farmers from using traditional farmer varieties of maize to modern hybrids throughout Africa, including Lesotho. Such efforts have included subsidy programmes aimed at reducing prices of hybrid seed varieties and co-inputs like fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides. Intentions of a permanent transition remains elusive. Even after adopting modern hybrid varieties, many smallholder farmers have not realised productivity gains. Reasons for this vary, and include the marginal agronomic conditions in which they often farm, a preference for the taste and climate resilience of traditional varieties, and the failures of knowledge transfer mechanisms. What is clear is that farmers often have to revert back to traditional varieties, especially when they can no longer afford expensive modern hybrid seeds.

Policy and market efforts to transition smallholder farmers to modern varieties means that existing and persisting farmer seed systems and their traditional varieties remain neglected. Low-cost interventions might include helping farmers to adopt better seed production, selection, storage and quality control methods. Interventions could also include building community seed banks to improve availability in emergency situations such as drought. However, such efforts are often on the margins of seed system development plans. This is due to the prioritization of modern hybrid seed technologies, even when there is a persistent failure to realize their promise of better yields.

In my PhD, I selected two study sites – Nkotoane in the highlands and Mahobong in the lowlands of Lesotho. The difference in climate and ecological conditions, coupled with varying resource endowments, and a preference for local low-input production systems by farmers in the highlands has led to very different seed systems for maize. The cooler and shorter planting season in the highlands makes it suitable only for locally adapted traditional varieties of maize. Attempts to introduce modern maize hybrids through subsidies and extension education have failed repeatedly due to the seeds needing a warmer climate and longer season to fully mature on a reliable basis. The insistence not to depend on market derived inputs also means that farmers in the highlands are reluctant to adopt market-sourced inputs such as hybrid seeds, fertilizers and herbicides, with the exception of pesticides which still find widespread use.

Smallholder farmers in the lowlands of Mahobong reside in more favourable, warmer climate conditions, with a longer planting season. However, the adoption of hybrid maize technologies is still beset with challenges of long-term affordability, especially when farmers rely on off-farm income to purchase agricultural inputs. A significant proportion of smallholder farmers in Mahobong replant hybrids beyond their recommended single planting. The challenge of maintaining the purchase of co-inputs like fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides, has also meant that smallholder farmers continue to deviate substantially by applying lower amounts relative to recommended application rates of these inputs.

A major challenge for advanced seed technologies in smallholder seed systems is that their adoption and productivity require a range of recommended standard conditions, including climate, soil fertility, pH and salinity, fertilizer inputs and weed and pest control. To reliably maintain these conditions, smallholder farmers have to be in favourable soil and climate regions. Smallholders in marginal conditions thus often operate from a deficit. This makes it much harder to realize the productivity gains promised by these technologies, since they have to incur higher costs to bring their marginal conditions to the required standard.

The heterogeneous agro-climatic conditions, variable socio-economic resource endowments and educational backgrounds of smallholder farmers make it challenging for them to adopt standardized technology packages. The tethering of modern seed and chemical inputs to capitalist markets often run counter to food and seed sovereignty aspirations, especially for smallholders producing for subsistence needs. The ontological shift from seed as a multi-generational reproductive input to a single use input is a loss that many smallholder farmers cannot absorb. The productivity promise of hybrid seeds does not compensate for the loss in multi-generational reproductive capability, among many other favourable characteristics, that smallholder farmers value in farmer varieties.