The seed sector in South Sudan is currently dominated by seed aid. The A3-Seed project seeks to reduce the country’s dependency on foreign-sourced seeds, and humanitarian support, with the aim to transform the seed sector into a commercially viable one. 

“The yield was not good”

As part of the project, we recently held an event connecting the seed companies with the farmers the project is supporting. And at the event, one of the farmers, Marko Gifridi, said “I used to get seeds from the local NGOs, but unfortunately the seeds are being imported from outside. The yield is not good, while others don’t germinate.”

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This was also one of the findings from a study we conducted of around 2000 farmers. We found that many farmers are unable to source quality seeds for their farms, and either rely on seed-aid or on reusing seeds from earlier harvests. This affects the yields and food production of these farmers. 

According to Nicola Francesconi, Senior Advisor at KIT, one of the problems is that “The seeds are not brought to the farmers at the right time, not when they are ready to plant. And this creates a lot of inefficiencies.”

But a more efficient local private seed sector that caters to local needs can be created. This would require an improvement in seed breeding, multiplication and marketing of selected local private seed companies through training; by strengthening the connections between seed suppliers, seed companies, and seed buyers.

From seed aid to seed market

To expand the Dutch Embassy’s seed sector and agribusiness interventions in South Sudan, A3-SEED aims to strengthen the national seed sector and transform it into a commercially viable one. The mandate of A3-SEED is to ensure the availability of improved seed down to the last mile, by providing technical and financial support to existing private-sector seed companies. Access to quality seeds will also improve food security.

A3-SEED has a budget of €8.5 million, including a €1 million intervention fund (to support the development of, and incentivise inclusive outreach by private-sector seed companies).

Furthermore, as the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to South Sudan, Michiel Smet emphasised, at the launch, South Sudan’s current status of peace primes the A3-SEED project for success.

Within the project, KIT provides technical assistance to IFDC to manage (enhance) the project’s impact creation process and ensure that the project ultimately contributes toward improved agricultural practices, productivity, food security, and rural poverty.

Planned Results

• 10 private seed companies will increase their business turn-over, productive assets and human resources.
• More than 100,000 farming households will increase their agricultural productivity and income through the adoption of improved seeds and farming practices.
• And 50% of seed-aid will be procured locally by humanitarian agencies, from private seed companies, through the Seed Trade Association of South Sudan (STASS).

How did the project do?

The final project evaluation (December 2025) shows that the project generated significant impact for farmers who directly accessed project-supported seeds — with maize yields nearly doubling for those farmers. However, this impact did not reach the intended scale: average agricultural performance across target counties did not improve significantly, and local seed procurement by humanitarian agencies reached around 20% rather than the targeted 50%.

Read the full internal project evaluation below.