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Western Seed

Improving Productivity of Farmers in East Africa

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Western Seed develops and distributes hybrid seeds to improve crop yields for smallholder farmers in East Africa.

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Western Seed is a Kenya-based company whose mission is to address the lack of maize productivity among smallholder farms in East Africa. Using its hybrid seed varieties allows farmers to double crop yields and increase their income. In the last two growing seasons, Western Seed reached more than 300,000 farmers. By 2014, Western Seed hopes to impact 800,000 households – which translates into more than 4 million people.

The Challenge
  • The agriculture sector in Kenya employs 24 million people, with 17 million farmers holding plots of less than 2 hectares of land each.
  • Maize is Kenya’s staple crop. It serves as a primary food source and accounts for 14% of rural household income. Most smallholder farmers, though, use farm-saved seed (seed saved from last year’s crop), which often leads to small and irregular yields.
  • Hybrid seeds that produce higher yields have existed for years. But adoption rates are low due to insufficient supply and a lack of appropriate marketing and distribution strategies.
The Innovation
  • Western Seed’s hybrid maize varieties, which are designed for local conditions, can generate a 300% increase in yield over farm-saved seed.
  • Western Seed is using Acumen’s investment to cultivate, store and distribute hybrid maize seeds and increase its seed production from 1200 metric tons in 2009 to 6400 metric tons in 2014. And the company’s pioneering Direct Access Sales program markets the hybrid varieties directly to rural farmers in Kenya’s mid and lowland areas, where most farms use farm-saved seed.
The Impact
  • Western Seed reached over 300,000 farmers since Acumen Fund's investment and has the potential to reach 800,000 farming households, or more than 4 million people, by 2014.The use of Western Seed’s hybrid seed varieties will allow smallholder farming households to increase crop yields and income from maize crop sales.