Building South Sudan’s Homegrown Seed Industry is Creating Local Opportunities

A RALP-supported seed farmer prepares her sorghum seeds, produced for storage in Bor County in Jonglei State (Photo: RALP / World Bank)

For decades, farmers in South Sudan have faced persistent challenges—limited access to quality seeds, subnational conflict, climatic shocks, a weak seed market, and inadequate storage and, certification systems. Together, these factors have severely undermined the country’s agricultural systems, damaging critical infrastructure and disrupting traditional seed networks. Each planting season began with anxiety as farmers waited for imported seed consignments that often arrived late after the rainy season had started, missing the narrow planting window. Worse still, due to poor handling and lack of a regulatory framework, many of the imported seeds failed to germinate in local soils, leaving fields bare, farmers without income, and communities vulnerable to food insecurity. The absence of a resilient, locally based seed system became both a symptom and a cause of wider agricultural fragility in the country.

Today that story is changing, and a new chapter in South Sudan’s agricultural journey has begun, one driven by community-led seed production and local resilience. Through the World Bank’s South Sudan Resilient Agricultural Livelihoods Project (RALP), implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MAFS) with support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), farmers are being empowered to produce, certify, and market their own locally adapted seed varieties. RALP’s success lies in its support for the promotion of Community-led Quality Declared Seed (QDS) production systems and the Farmer-Led Seed Enterprise (FLSE) model and it’s work to strengthen quality assurance and build modern seed storage facilities—the first steps toward establishing a reliable, self-sustaining national seed system.

Building the foundation for South Sudan seed regulation

Seed security is food security and requires a robust regulatory system to ensure quality and safety, safeguard varietal purity, and ensure seed quality, certification, storage, distribution, and market confidence. In most countries, these functions are performed by dedicated seed regulatory institutions. However, because South Sudan's agriculture sector is still in its infancy, such systems have remained largely underdeveloped. RALP has supported building the institutions needed to govern the sector through the establishment of 13 Seed Quality Control Boards (SQCBs), support to seed production groups, production and certification of QDS, construction of seed stores to enhance post-harvest handling and ensure proper storage of seeds, provision of foundation seed, and training in seed multiplication and quality assurance. RALP is laying the institutional foundation for a nationally regulated seed system and building the systems that will enable South Sudan to regulate, certify, and sustain its seed sector long into the future.

Bridging supply-demand gap through trade fairs

The impact of RALP’s seed system reform has been strongly driven by the organization of Seeds Trade Fairs, which have become a critical coordination mechanism within the local seed ecosystem. These fairs serve as a structured marketplace, bringing together local seed producers and farmers at the beginning of the planting season. Supported seed producer groups deliver their QDS to a common venue, where farmers from surrounding communities can access, verify, and purchase seeds. This approach has addressed one of the most persistent challenges in South Sudan’s agriculture: delayed and unreliable seed distribution.

Through these trade fairs, farmers now have immediate access to affordable, locally produced, and climate-adapted seed varieties. The direct interaction between producers and buyers is improving trust in seed quality and strengthening local market systems by ensuring that seeds circulate within communities. As a result, planting is done on time, germination rates have improved, and overall crop performance has increased. At the same time, seed producer groups benefit from a ready and organized market, which incentivizes increased production and enhances income generation. Surplus seed can help more farmers, support emergency needs, and boost business growth. These fairs help create steady markets for the locally produced QDS and encourage private investment. The MAFS Directorate of Research has also produced 25 more metric tons of foundation seed to support ongoing seed growing.

Source: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2026/07/29/building-south-sudans-homegrown-seed-industry-is-creating-local-opportunities