| The draft Seeds Bill cleared by the Cabinet last week for introduction in Parliament seeks broadly to deregulate and decontrol the seed industry even while making registration of all seeds compulsory. A National Seeds Board is proposed to be constituted to maintain a national register of varieties approved for sale in the country.
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| The new legislation, that will replace the Seed Act of 1966, also seeks to provide more stringent penalties to check the sale of spurious seeds. The original law stipulated a fine of only Rs 500 for the first offence, which is deemed too little to curb the menace of fake and sub-standard seeds.
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| Significantly, as in the case of the Plant Varieties Protection Act, the proposed law also seeks to allow farmers to save, use, exchange, share or sell their farm grown seeds and other planting material.
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| The new Bill is the result of years of deliberations on the seed sector reforms and will represent further refinements and fine-tuning of the liberalised Seed Policy of 2002.
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| It is based broadly on the recommendations of the Seed Policy Review Group set up in 1998 under the chairmanship of former Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University vice-chancellor, MV Rao.
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| However, the suggestions given by the states and other concerned ministries and organisations, have also been incorporated in it, according to Krishi Bhavan sources.
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| Major reform-oriented features of the Bill include granting registration to the new varieties on the basis of information supplied by the producers on expected performance and accreditation of individuals or private organisations to carry out certification. Self-certification will also be allowed on fulfillment of criteria laid down by the National Seeds Board.
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| The board will be free to accredit the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) centres, state agricultural universities and private organisations to conduct trials for new varieties for ascertaining their performance.
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| But the board will specify the minimum standards of germination, genetic and physical purity of seeds of a registered variety. The mark or label on the seed consignment will have to indicate that the seeds conform to the minimum seed standards.
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| Besides, the label will have to mention the expected performance of the seeds under given conditions.
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| While the seeds of registered varieties will be allowed to be imported freely, in the case of others, only limited quantities will be allowed to be imported for research and trial purposes on the basis of data from trials abroad. However, the importers will have to declare that the material is not a product of transgenic manipulation.
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| The main objective of the proposed amendments to the seed law is to provide conducive environment for quicker growth of the seed sector. This will facilitate the availability of the superior and good quality seeds and curb the trade in spurious and sub-standard seeds that cause tremendous losses to farmers.
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| As it is, the seed sector has been growing quite rapidly in the past few years. Though the production of breeder seed (the first stage of seed) has been static at around 50,000 tonnes between 1999-2000 and 2003-04, that of foundation seed (second stage, used for producing certified seed) has risen from 4.66 lakh tonnes to nearly 6.5 lakh tonnes during this period.
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| The output of certified seeds (which are sold to farmers for sowing) has surged from 87.98 lakh tonnes to an estimated 117 lakh tonnes during the same period. |
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