ACCELERATE

The ACCELERATE Project seeks to enhance agricultural productivity, promote sustainable seed system and grain businesses, and improve livelihoods by accelerating the adoption of new open-pollinated varieties (OPVs)of sorghum, common beans and groundnuts. Adoption and varietal turnover rates of most OPVs are low and insufficient to meet the climate change challenges and changing market demands faced by smallholder farmers and traders. As a result, traders and farmers continue to sell and grow old, low-yielding varieties that are susceptible to climate change, biotic and abiotic stresses. This trend persists due to lack of product information, limited promotional efforts, inadequate access to early generation seeds, insufficient data to guide adoption decisions, and weak seed supply system.  

Therefore, the project emphasizes creating demand-pull for these varieties through strategic engagement with both large and marketplace (small-scale) traders, as well as institutional seed buyers by linking existing capacities of the formal and semi formal seed sectors with sources of demand. The overall aim is to establish a scalable model that could be replicated in other regions or crop value chains to increase productivity through enhanced use of new/improved varieties and build sustainable seed/grain businesses that transform livelihoods.  

ACCELERATE is built on three core hypotheses: 

• Increasing information flow to and from large traders, grain producers, and formal and semi-formal seed producers will drive demand pull for quality seed of improved varieties  
• Increasing information flow and engagement of marketplace or small-scale traders will boost adoption of new varieties through demand pull 
• Raising institutional buyer awareness of and access to improved varieties will accelerate varietal turnover rates in stressed areas and improve incomes/nutrition outcomes that raising awareness among institutional buyers will boost varietal turnover in climate-stressed areas, leading to improved income, productivity, and nutrition outcomes for farmers and communities 

• Boosting Tanzania’s agricultural innovation through ACCELERATE Project
• Demand-led seed system accelerates adoption of improved bean, sorghum, and groundnut varieties in Tanzania
• Exploring Impact of Ntemisambo Company’s New Groundnut Varieties in Katavi Region, Tanzania
• Enhancing trader seed delivery models for sorghum and groundnuts: The case of Tanzania’s Kibaigwa Flour Supplies Ltd
• Catalyzing Change in Seed Systems in Africa: Accelerating Variety Turnover of Open-pollinated Varieties (OPVS) in Tanzania
• Revolutionizing the Bean Value Chain in Tanzania: Case of IKUWO General Enterprises