On Tuesday 12th October, Kamano Seeds in Zambia received $161,375 as a reward for achieving seed sales amounting to 355.25mt of biofortified orange maize during 2016/17 season. This amount of seed sold on open market planted 24,000 hectares of orange maize. The reward is an incentive offered by the AgResults Biofortified Maize Pilot project being implemented in Zambia to stimulate orange maize production using a pull mechanism. A pull mechanism incentivizes the private sector to create sustainable markets for newly introduced biofortified crops.
Kamano Seeds is a female owned, smallholder private seed company. It recently received capacity building support from HarvestPlus which funded a seed specialist position and provided logistical support to the company. Kamano Seeds is one of the first and smallest among four companies that have commercialized the first released varieties orange maize in Zambia. At the same event, ZamSeed, received $20,052 for achieving seed sales of 82mt that planted 5,500 hectares of orange maize.