As also reported during the previous period under review, an action plan, championed both by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat and the SADC Seed Security Network (SSSN) at the SADC regional level, was established in order to facilitate and ease the movement of seed across borders in the region, with food security as the ultimate goal.  During 2003, several technical committees were to meet to discuss and define harmonized seed laws and regulations, including:

·          A protocol for regional variety testing and registration;
·          A seed certification and quality control system to integrate international standards for certification;
·          Harmonized Phytosanitary standards and minimum requirements to move seed across borders; and
·          Regional integration on the discussion of intellectual property rights issues.

However, only two of these workshops materialized – a Technical Meeting to Formulate a Regional Crop Variety Release System held at Gaborone, Botswana on 7-9 April 2003 and a Technical Meeting to formulate a Regional Seed Certification and Quality Assurance System held at Maputo, Mozambique on 23-25 February 2004.  The scheduled Phytosanitary Meeting was postponed at the last minute and was expected to take place later in 2004.

The Gaborone meeting developed a regional variety testing, registration and release system for SADC, endorsed that a SADC Common Catalogue would be established and decided that crop varieties in the catalogue may be marketed in all SADC countries.  For landraces, a Secondary Catalogue was to be established for information purposes.  Requirements for varieties to be listed in the SADC Common Catalogue were defined.  The SADC Regional Variety Registration & Release Scheme was suggested to be implemented parallel to the existing national variety release systems.  The full proceedings of the meeting were circulated to all SANSOR members for comments.

The Maputo meeting proposed the establishment of a SADC Seed Certification & Quality Assurance System according to which seed of consistent high and known quality would be able to move freely across borders of the region.  Only varieties listed in the SADC Common Catalogue were to be certified.  Participation in the System was to be voluntary.  SADC was to establish a SADC Seed Committee (SSC) to oversee the implementation, auditing and further development of the system.  The system was to be implemented in the participating countries under the responsibility of the National Seed Certification Authority (NSCA) and was to run parallel with the national certification systems.  The System was open to qualified seed producers in all SADC Member Countries.  Application from a country to join the System was to be submitted by the NSCA to the SADC Seed Committee (SSC) through the SADC Directorate of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR).  To further facilitate the operation of the System the SSC was to introduce a SADC seed label and seal.  The full proceedings of the meeting would be circulated to all SANSOR members for comments as soon as they have been finalized.

Concurrent with the last mentioned meeting, a SSSN training workshop was held at the same venue with the purpose to familiarize policymakers and technicians from the offices of SSSN National Seed Focal Points with the SADC Seed Security Information System (SSSIS) and to engage workshop participants with the further development of the system.

One of the main stumbling blocks of the SSSIS was the reluctance of some countries to provide information on the production and expected stocks of seed.  Such information was vital for the functioning of the SSSIS and members were urged to provide the required data.

The SSSN was still going strong and growing, with the addition of an information officer.  The Network had secured financial support for 2004-2006 from the Swiss Agency for Development & Cooperation.  The office of the SSSN was expected to relocate from Harare, Zimbabwe to Gaborone, Botswana some time during 2004.