Smallholder farmers require innovative solutions to mitigate the consequences of increasing climatic risks. This project investigates how different types of market actors in high-quality seed systems can promote their clients’ adaptive capacity by interlinking stress-tolerant varieties with innovative financial and advisory services that help resolve key barriers to adoption, targeting particularly female farmers and youths. Specifically, we propose testing the impacts of bundling seeds with innovative picture-based crop insurance and advisory services that leverage smartphone technology to provide comprehensive yet affordable risk management solutions. We will facilitate—through knowledge sharing, capacity building and research uptake activities—the scaling of these services. We hypothesize that bundling seeds with such services helps improve effectiveness and trust in seed quality, while also minimizing the (often perceived) risks around adopting such seed varieties—thereby potentially unlocking further agricultural investments. In the first two years, we test these hypotheses by means of a randomized trial with 6,000 farmers in which different types of seed market actors promote a stress-tolerant seed variety either in isolation (control) or bundled with 1) a high-quality comprehensive picture-based insurance product; 2) a personalized picture-based advisory service; 3) a combination of the two. We will analyse whether impacts differ depending on the type of seed provider, including an incumbent seed company, a smaller private seed company, and a national agricultural research centre, with potentially more inclusive distribution channels to reach women and the youth. The project will build on findings from past seed systems interventions in Kenya, including the DTMA project and ACRE’s Replanting Guarantee scheme, and the project will leverage existing initiatives including KALRO’s Digital Hub for Agriculture, to facilitate a nationwide scale-up of key findings and lessons learnt with the different types of seed providers in the third year.

This proposal aims to build on the successes in the Ghana’s tilapia cage culture, and accelerate tilapia development through testing interventions to improve the seed system for small-scale cage and pond farmers, by addressing the research question “How can the production and marketing of high quality tilapia seed be developed in a sustainable and commercially viable manner?” This is done by addressing two objectives: to improve the quality and service level of public and private hatcheries, and to increase access to and use of high-quality fish seed for new or existing producers, with specific attention for women. Research will initially focus on exploratory research to including gender-sensitive seed supply chain assessment and examining farmers’ demand for quality fingerlings for cage and pond tilapia culture, their willingness to pay for quality fingerlings, and the needs for capacity development among hatcheries and farmers. Partly parallel to this process we will start testing business and extension models, and quality assurance mechanisms to implement in the tilapia seed sector. Finally this will be linked to a capacity development strategy and knowledge sharing and dissemination strategy.