National mission likely in 12th plan

To ensure easy availability of high-quality certified seeds at reasonable price to farmers, the agriculture ministry’s long-pending proposal for a national mission on seeds is expected to be implemented in the 12th Five Year Plan that starts from April 2012.

The Planning Commission has given “in principle” approval for the mission, which will cost around Rs 3,773.40 crore — and will run for a period of five years.

A final decision will have to be taken by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, a senior agricultural ministry official said on Tuesday.

Officials said work on a national mission on seeds had started a few years ago. “It is likely to be operationalised soon. It will strive to improve private sector participation in the development and distribution of seeds in the country,” a source told Business Standard.

At present, private sector contributes 40 per cent of the total seed supply in the country estimated to be around 350 lakh quintals every year.

Lack of high-quality certified seeds both for cereals and also for fruits and vegetables along with their poor replacement ratio have been one of the main drawbacks of Indian agriculture.

Demands have kept rising, though there has been progress to continued efforts to improve research and development of newer and better varieties of seeds. As per government estimates in the 2010-11 crop marketing year, the country’s seed availability exceeded demand by around 23.21 lakh quintals, while in the current crop marketing year supplies were more than the demand by an equal amount.

The National Seed Plan framed in 2005 had assessed that India would need an overall 258 lakh quintals of seeds annually in the next five years.

However, that assessment was surpassed in 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-2012 itself because of higher area coverage under cereals, grains, fruits and vegetables.

At present, the government is also working on a new seeds bill that it had introduced in Parliament in this July, but is reworking after several MPs proposed amendments. “The revised seed bill will be sent to the Cabinet for approval,” an official said.