The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) has prepared this policy discussion document as a contribution towards national and regional seed policies in Africa that recognise and support farmer seed systems. The document is an effort to synthesise the policy issues emerging from our research and advocacy work on farmer seed systems in the past few years.

The discussion document considers a range of policy issues including plant variety protection (PVP), distinct, uniform and stable (DUS) and value for cultivation and use (VCU) tests, variety registration, seed production quality controls, storage and packaging, and phytosanitary measures.