Similar
suggestions were made for pearl millet (Ndjeunga, 2002) and beans (Rubyogo and
Sperling, 2009). Local seed dealers and producers would thus provide additional
meeting points between the formal and the farmer seed systems. The role of seed
projects and research centres would be to introduce new varieties into the farming
community via local seed dealers and other agro-dealers, whose capacities they would
strengthen to raise the sanitary and physiological quality of the seed they sell. This
would reduce seed production and transaction costs rendering seed more affordable
to smallholders and leading to the uptake and spread using both formal and informal
dissemination channels. But such an approach would function only if cultivars are