Seed fairs
Practical Action
Conducting a seed fair
Preparation
The seed fair is organised at a local level either village or ward and all preparations should be
coordinated at the local level. The most significant of these preparations are taking stock of the
available seed, determining and agreeing on the judging criteria, selecting judges and judges pre-
fair meeting, sharing determined judging criteria with exhibitors, food arrangements, selecting a
suitable venue and stand preparation.
The venue should be easily accessible and desirably centrally located. The date and timing of the
fair takes into consideration local beliefs and events. It should also be help appropriately in
accordance with the cropping calendar, which normally should be after harvesting and before the
rains.
Determining the judging criteria
The judging criteria may include the extent of crop and variety diversity, crop (produce) and seed
quality, quality of presentation, exhibitor’s knowledge of displayed crops and varieties, crop and
variety origin, variety suitability to local conditions, history of performance under local or similar
conditions and the display itself.
Selecting Judges
Judges are selected from amongst the community itself with representation from all the
participating groups. To increase impartiality
representatives or extension workers from local farmer
support and extension organisations may also support
the judging team.
Competition Participants
The community, based on local dynamics, determines
who can exhibit -individuals, farmer groups or villages.
If the seed fair is being held at village level then
individual or group exhibitions are recommended,
however if it is a ward seed fair, the village exhibitions
should suffice due to space constraints and to speed
up the judging process.
Seed Exchanges
The main purpose of a seed fair is promote local seed
exchanges, it is however important to keep a track of
the exchanges to be able to monitor how much seed is
exchanged locally and with externals through either
batter or cash purchases. Monitoring will help identify
the origin of all the seed exchanged and will help
maintain linkages and farmer seed networks.
Figure 3: Maragwa Seed Show runner-
up prizewinner at seed fair. Photo:
Practical Action / Patrick Mulvany.
In addition to the seed that is on display, exhibitors may bring larger quantities of the same
varieties to the samples for sale on a cash basis or for exchanges with other farmers from within
or without the ward. All sales or exchanges should be recorded for monitoring purposes.
3