The Access to Seeds Index is now part of the World Benchmarking Alliance. All indexes up to 2020 can be found here. New indexes and methodologies are published on the website of the WBA.
Stay here worldbenchmarkingalliance.orgSeeds are fundamental to agriculture. Yet it is clear that empowering smallholder farmers in developing countries entails more than simply making better seeds available to them. This is acknowledged in the Index’s five guiding principles.
The Index seeks to explore the possible contribution of seed companies to the
six dimensions of access to seeds identified by stakeholders.
The Index focuses on sustainable business models and does not emphasize
charity or donations.
The Index examines if and how seed companies partner with others to
contribute to six factors that are essential for farmer development.
The Index’s main focus is on the role of the commercial seed sector. It also
considers interaction with other systems, such as breeding programs carried
out by public research institutes and farmer-based seed systems.
This principle acknowledges that increased smallholder farmer productivity
has to be achieved using resources more efficiently and minimizing or
reversing the negative impact on the environment.