What Is Seed Production System in India?
The limited generations approach of seed multiplication in stages is widely followed by the Indian seed program. In order to protect the integrity of the variety as it moves from the breeder to the farmer, the system recognizes three generations of seeds, breeder, foundation, and certified seeds. It also offers necessary safeguards for quality assurance in the seed multiplication chain.
About Breeder Seed
Breeder seed, which is created by the original breeder or a sponsored breeder, is the offspring of a variety's nucleus seed. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is responsible for producing breeder seeds.
About Foundation Seed
Breeder seed is the ancestor of foundation seed, which must be created from breeder seed or foundation seed that can be directly linked to breeder seed. The NSC, SFCI, State Seeds Corporation, State Departments of Agriculture, and private seed producers, who have the required infrastructural facilities, have been given the task of producing foundation seed. The Indian Minimum Seeds Certification Standards stipulate that foundation seeds must adhere to certain certification requirements in both field and laboratory testing.
About Certified Seed
The offspring of the foundation seed, the certified seed must adhere to the seed certification requirements outlined in the Indian Minimum Seeds Certification Standards, 1988. If the crop is self-pollinated, certified seeds may also be produced from certified seeds as long as the number of generations from foundation seed stage-I does not exceed three.
What is the Role of the Private & Public Seed Sector?
Over the past few years, the private sector has begun to play a substantial role in the seed market. There are currently between 400 and 500 businesses involved in the manufacture or trade of seeds. Private seed businesses, however, have primarily concentrated on the markets for low-value, high-volume seeds and high-value, low-volume seeds. The public sector seed corporations continue to dominate the markets for cereal, pulse, and oilseed seeds.
Private sector businesses play a crucial role, particularly when it comes to cotton, sunflower, and maize. The private sector, however, is the key participant when it comes to vegetable seeds and planting supplies for horticulture crops.
The public sector seed corporations will continue to hold a monopoly on the production of seeds for cereals, pulses, and oilseeds for many more years to come because the private sector has been reluctant to produce seeds for high volume, low margin crops like wheat, paddy, other cereals, oilseeds, and pulses. There are currently 2 national-level seed corporations and 15 state-level seed corporations.
Seed Industry in India
- India is the fifth largest seed market across the globe.
- It is expected to grow by more than 15% during 2017–2022 and can reach a value of more than US$ 7 Billion by 2022.
- The seed market is majorly contributed by non-vegetable seeds such as corn, cotton, paddy, wheat, sorghum, sunflower, and millets.
- The direct contribution of quality seed to the total production can be raised up to 45% with efficient management of other inputs.
What is Seed Certification System in India
In general, seed certification is a process created to keep a steady supply of high-quality seeds and propagating materials of specified types and varieties of crops available to the general public. These seeds are grown and distributed in such a way as to ensure the crops' physical identity and genetic purity. A formally recognized system for ensuring the quality of seed production and multiplication is seed certification.
Issue Involved
The issues in the seed sector involve multiple stakeholders such as;
Farmers
- Seed replacement rate continues to remain below the desired level of 20 percent for most crops.
- Unscientific use of farm-grown seed leads to lower return from agriculture output.
Seed Companies
- The research investment by private companies remained at a meager 3-4% of revenue against the international norm of 10-12%, due to the complex and weak IPR regime and various licensing terms for the companies.
- Moreover, an existing technology provider in GM Crop seed, continues to enjoy close to monopoly status.
Government
- Regulatory failure in preventing the rampant illegal sale and planting of seeds based on an unapproved GM crop had been reported in Maharashtra and Telangana.
- Various agricultural economists argued that the policies for the seed sector lack a visionary approach and rest on fragmented actions.
Steps can be taken
- A swift action framework is needed in collaboration with state governments to identify and take over fields where illegal GM cotton is being grown.
- Focus on GM technology: National policy on GM crops to define the exact areas where GM is required by the country and where the government will encourage public and private investment in GM technology.
- Quick resolution: to the conflicts between the different IPR laws that are affecting this industry and clearly defining how the government wants to encourage research investment with assured IP protection in this important sector.
- Incentives: to private sectors in the form of bankable schemes should be provided for the production of low-value high-volume seeds.
- Regulatory mechanism: Strengthening the regulatory mechanism for the seed and biotech industry to make it transparent, science-based, predictable, and fair.
- Integrated Approach: Efforts should be made toward the improvement of Seed Replacement Rate, distribution of quality seeds appropriate to agro-climatic zone along with a determined effort to address general and region-specific constraints.
Conclusion
The seed industry is the crucial apparatus for the sound agricultural health of the economy. Doubling the farmers’ income by 2022 through seed science can be effectively realized through an integrated seed market.
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