Algeria has decided to stop importing market garden seeds from 2023. The announcement made on Thursday, August 11 by Prime Minister Aïmene Benabderrahmane sparked many reactions in the agricultural community. If the need for such a measure is welcomed, the question of the means remains.
Farmers, importers, and seed merchants wonder about the supply of seeds for the next agricultural campaign.
Vegetable seeds: products of high technological value
Plants grown from market garden seeds have various characteristics: high yield, disease resistance, flavor, and earliness. The combination of these characters at the level of the same variety comes from genetic crosses skilfully carried out by breeders. It is a question of bringing together within the same plant the genes responsible for interesting traits.
These selection operations take several years, including 8 in the case of tomatoes. They require the presence of qualified personnel: geneticists deciding on crossbreeding programs, technicians ensuring their implementation, and collaborators in charge of logistical operations at the research stations.
Not to mention a network of multiplier farmers. The varieties were created to meet the needs of farmers and consumers. In France, nearly 400 million euros are invested annually in varietal creation. The new varieties are then protected by intellectual property rights on plant varieties.
Vegetable varieties, hybrid seeds
Any attempts to use the seeds from the vegetables produced by the farmer with the aim of carrying out a new production cycle is impossible.
Such an approach requires the authorization of the breeder. Furthermore, the seeds obtained are not viable. Indeed, the majority of modern vegetable seeds are hybrid products that owe their exceptional characteristics solely to the crosses made each year by the breeder.
To succeed in such crosses on a large scale, breeding houses use plants in which one of the two parents has acquired male sterility by genetic engineering. For maize, castration is mechanical, and to obtain hybrid wheat, a gametocyte is sprayed which sterilizes the pollen of part of the plants.
The farmer who does not have the starting plants cannot produce hybrids. The re-sowing of seeds can only give plants with poor agronomic performance. The character of hybrid seeds is materialized by the mention of type F1 seeds on the packaging.
In the case of watermelon, as with clementines, seedless varieties have appeared. This removes any desire for resowing.
As the expert Aissa Zeghmati recently indicated on Algerian Radio, the vegetable seed market is in the hands of large international companies.
Need for international cooperation
The solution, therefore, involves setting up local teams to carry out a long and patient selection process. It also involves cooperation with international institutes to which Algeria adheres. In the case of cereals and pulses, this has been the norm for several years.
Receiving high-yielding vegetable varieties from FAO-linked institutions, however, needs to be tested locally and then multiplied for marketing. Suffice to say that several years are needed before such seeds reach farmers.
A national plan for varietal creation
Through the declaration of the Prime Minister, the public authorities today reaffirm their desire for greater independence of Algeria in terms of seeds. This requires consultation between agricultural services, agronomic research, seed multipliers, importers, and seed companies.
In the case of potato seeds, the rise in power in Guellal (Sétif) of the in-vitro culture laboratory of the public company Agro-développement constitutes a fundamental asset. It is the same with the ultramodern installations of the Algerian company Vitroplant in the case of fruit trees.
More than a halt in imports, the initiation of a process
The newly inaugurated seed bank can also constitute the official interlocutor for the exchange of genetic material between Algeria and international organizations affiliated with the FAO.
Also, beyond an immediate halt to imports, the course defined by the Prime Minister constitutes a starting point towards the definition of a national program for the adaptation and creation of market gardening varieties that should lead to more independence in seed material.
