Whose Seed Is It Anyway? Nigeria’s Warning for Tanzania

In Tanzania stakeholders are pushing to change a regional seed law before it locks in rules that could sideline the seed-saving practices millions of smallholder farmers still depend on. In Nigeria, the warning comes from a crisis that has already happened. A country that once ranked among the world’s leading ginger producers is still dealing with the fallout from the 2023 ginger blight, including lost production, disrupted exports and a long recovery of planting material.

Put the two stories together and a bigger question emerges: what happens when the seed systems farmers rely on are not adequately protected or supported?

The answer has implications far beyond agriculture. Seed policy can affect farmer livelihoods, food security, biodiversity, export earnings and the resilience of corporate supply chains.

Tanzania Wants to Fix the Rules Before They Harden

Tanzanian stakeholders have told East African Community lawmakers that the draft EAC Seed and Plant Varieties Bill, 2025 requires fundamental changes before it advances. The proposed legislation is intended to harmonise seed testing, certification and trade across the EAC’s eight partner states. In principle, a common regional framework could make seed movement and regulation more consistent across East Africa.

The concern is not with harmonisation itself. Rather, stakeholders say the bill does not adequately recognise Farmer Managed Seed Systems. This is the community-based practices through which farmers save, select, exchange and replant seed outside commercial certification systems. That issue came into focus during public hearings held by the East African Legislative Assembly’s responsible committee across the partner states in late August 2026.

According to the Tanzanian submission, standards designed primarily for commercially bred seed may not fit farmer varieties that have been developed and adapted through generations of community selection. If both systems are subjected to the same regulatory logic, stakeholders fear that rules designed to improve seed quality and trade could unintentionally restrict practices that remain important to smallholder farmers.

The proposed changes are therefore specific. Stakeholders want farmer varieties exempted from commercial testing requirements and non-commercial seed exchange protected from prohibition. They also want breeders to disclose the origins of genetic resources and traditional knowledge used in developing new varieties.

Another proposal would add a dedicated section covering genetic resources, benefit-sharing and community consent. Stakeholders have also suggested renaming the legislation the EAC Seed, Plant Varieties and Plant Genetic Resources Bill, 2025.

Kenya and Uganda raised comparable concerns during parallel hearings. The debate, therefore, is bigger than one country’s objection. East Africa is confronting a difficult policy question while the rules are still being written: can a modern seed system protect commercial innovation without weakening the farmer-managed systems that already exist?

Nigeria offers a very different view of what can happen when seed resilience is tested.

Nigeria’s Ginger Crisis Shows the Cost of Vulnerability

Nigeria has had a national seed regulator for more than three decades. The National Agricultural Seeds Council was established to regulate areas including seed testing, certification and quality control. The broader objective is ensuring that farmers have access to quality planting material.

The existence of that regulatory structure, however, does not automatically guarantee a resilient seed system. Ginger brought that distinction into sharp focus.

Nigeria was once the world’s third-largest ginger producer, and the crop became an important non-oil export. Kaduna ginger, in particular, developed a reputation in international markets for its distinctive pungency. Then the 2023 ginger blight outbreak devastated production across major growing areas, including Kaduna, Nasarawa, Plateau and Bauchi.

Reported losses ran into billions of naira, with estimates exceeding ₦12 billion. The disease was the immediate cause of the crop losses. However, the crisis also exposed longstanding concerns around farmers’ access to quality planting material.

Researchers and farmers have identified seed quality as one of the factors that can influence the spread and severity of crop disease. Before the outbreak, access to suitable and disease-resistant ginger planting material was already a challenge for many smallholders. Once the disease struck, replacing lost planting material became another problem altogether.

The market shock was severe. A 50-kilogram bag of ginger that sold for less than ₦50,000 before the outbreak reportedly climbed as high as ₦780,000 at the peak. Exports also fell sharply, creating room for competitors such as Ethiopia to gain ground in markets where Nigeria had previously been a major supplier. Recovery has proved slow.

In early 2026, ginger was still reportedly trading at around ₦13,000 per kilogram. The National Ginger Association of Nigeria has attributed continued scarcity partly to the rebuilding of planting material through a three-year seedbank project. That means the sector is still trying to rebuild an agricultural asset that the disease severely depleted.

Two Seed Stories, One Underlying Risk

The Tanzania and Nigeria stories are not really about one regional law and one Nigerian crop. They are about something much less visible but fundamental to agriculture. Who controls, maintains and can access the planting material on which food production depends?

Tanzania’s stakeholders are raising that question before a regional regulatory framework is finalised. Nigeria is confronting it after a major agricultural crisis.

The difference in timing matters. Tanzania still has an opportunity to decide how its regulatory framework treats farmer-managed seed systems before those rules become established. Nigeria’s ginger sector, meanwhile, is rebuilding after disease has already exposed weaknesses in access to planting material.

That does not mean Nigeria’s seed regulator caused the ginger crisis. Nor does it mean commercial seed systems are inherently harmful to farmers. The more useful lesson is that regulation alone cannot create agricultural resilience.

A resilient seed system needs quality control, research, disease surveillance and reliable access to suitable planting material. At the same time, policymakers have to consider the farmers and communities that have developed, maintained and exchanged locally adapted varieties over generations.

That balance becomes particularly important as agriculture faces more climate and disease pressures. Seed varieties adapted to local conditions can provide options when rainfall changes, pests spread or growing conditions become less predictable. Commercial breeding can also provide improved varieties with traits such as disease resistance and higher yields.

The policy challenge is not necessarily choosing one system over the other. It is creating rules that allow both to contribute without one gradually displacing the other.

Why Seed Policy Belongs in the Resilience Conversation

Seed regulation can look like a technical agricultural issue when viewed from a policy document. Its consequences, however, can travel through the entire economy.

For farmers, access to viable planting material can determine whether a production season begins with an opportunity or a significant financial risk. For food systems, the availability of locally appropriate varieties can influence how producers respond to disease, drought, changing rainfall and other environmental pressures.

Exporters and processors face another layer of risk. When a major crop is disrupted, lower production can affect prices, contract commitments, processing capacity and the reliability of supply. Companies sourcing agricultural commodities therefore have an interest in the resilience of the systems producing those commodities.

There is also a biodiversity question. Farmer-managed seed systems can preserve varieties that may have little commercial value but remain important because of their adaptation to specific environments and farming conditions.

That does not mean every farmer variety should be exempt from quality or safety standards. It does mean that policymakers need to consider whether regulation protects farmers from poor-quality seed without making legitimate seed-saving and exchange practices unnecessarily difficult.

Tanzania’s current debate is essentially asking that question before the rules are finalised. Nigeria’s ginger experience shows why the question deserves attention.

The resilience of Africa’s food systems starts with the decisions made long before a crisis arrives. Follow CSR Reporters for more evidence-led stories on agriculture, sustainability, business and the policies shaping Africa’s future.