Seeds sector faces major shake-up as India readies new laws and treaties

'India's seeds sector heads into a decisive phase as new draft laws, amendments to plant-variety rules, and a global treaty converge to reshape how varieties are regulated, protected and shared'

The over-₹35,000 crore Indian seed sector could be in for some interesting times, thanks to three developments that could fundamentally alter the governance and functioning of an industry that is key to sustaining life.

 

The first development is a new Seeds Bill, whose draft was released by the central government for public comments earlier this month. It seeks to replace the Seeds Act of 1966 and the Seeds (Control) Order of 1983.  

 

Legislation on seeds was last modified back in the 1960s, and while there have been several attempts since then to make tangible changes, none has taken hold.

 

The second major change comes from proposed amendments to the Act governing the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Authority (PPVFRA) — a body under the agriculture ministry. This piece of legislation draws up a framework to protect the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of new plant varieties and the rights of farmers. 

 

The government has appointed a high-powered panel to propose some changes to the Act. The panel recently held a series of meetings with all stakeholders. Registration of plant varieties with PPVFRA is voluntary and not mandatory for any developer, a position that reportedly remains untouched in the proposed amendments. 

 

Separately, global negotiations started in Lima, Peru, on November 25  to expand the list of crops that are covered by the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) otherwise known simply as the ‘Plant Treaty’.

 

ITPGRFA is a legally binding global treaty adopted in 2001 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and came into force in 2004. Its stated objectives are conservation, sustainable use, and fair and equitable sharing of benefits from plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA).

 

The treaty establishes a multilateral system (MLS) that provides access to a list of important crops for research and breeding, while ensuring that benefits from their use are shared among the signatories.

 

Of the 64 crops under the treaty, India, which is a signatory, has notified just nine, along with their 26,563 ‘accessions’ for the MLS. An ‘accession’, in FAO terminology, is “a distinct, uniquely identifiable sample of seeds representing a cultivar, breeding line or a population, which is maintained in storage for conservation and use”.

 

India has been one of the top beneficiaries of the agreement without sharing much of its own resources, experts said.

 

They pointed out that since the agreement came into force, India has never shared any crop germplasm details but has instead been the beneficiary of almost 990,000 samples till December 2024, second only to Kenya.

 

“All three developments are meant to enhance investments in the domestic seeds sector, facilitate access of high quality foreign material for Indian farmers, make the sector progressive in line with changing times and eventually lead to development of high value hybrids for Indian farmers which will enhance their productivity and incomes,” Ajai Rana, Chairman of the Federation of Seed Industry of India (FSII) and a noted seed expert told Business Standard.

 

A Bill on seeds

 

The draft Seeds Bill, according to some experts, proposes to eliminate the current system of individual states granting seed licences and replace it with a centralised accreditation system that will focus on traceability, with the central government retaining responsibility of price control.

 

Critics said the draft legislation, which is open for public comment till December 11, has whittled down the powers of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (Icar) and state agriculture universities (SAUs) to approve variety trials.

 

They said Section 16 (3) of the draft empowers a committee of experts to recognise any organisation in a foreign country for conducting trials to assess the Value of Cultivation and Use (VCU) of any kind of seed. It also empowers the Centre to recognise any seed certification agency established in a territory outside India, “for such purposes as may be prescribed”.

 

“This one single clause in the draft Bill is in effect ridicules the entire Icar system of evaluations for varieties, by allowing foreign evaluations and assessments and foreign certification,” said Kavitha Kuruganti, convenor of the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA), which comprises more than 400 farmer-centric organisations.

 

Senior government officials, however, deny the allegation, noting that the power to grant final certification will continue to rest with the ICAR.

 

G V Ramanjaneyulu, executive director of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), said that the very first line of the Bill — which says that the objective is to provide for regulating the quality of seeds and to facilitate production and supply of quality seeds - is problematic as it does not mention anything about farmer rights, compensation, or price regulation.

 

“Ease of doing business has become a statutory objective in the draft Bill while critical issues such as farmers’ entitlements (price, compensation, information, choice) are implicit at best, and absent at worst,” Ramanjaneyulu said.

 

Kuruganti, meanwhile, said another major drawback of the draft Seeds Bill is that while it stresses regulation of quality through pre-emptive penalties, it is silent on compensation to farmers in the 

 

event of underperformance or loss due to substandard seeds, a move she described as “unacceptable”. She said states’ powers are being curtailed. Rana of FSII said that they are “cautiously” optimistic on the draft due to penal provisions and power of inspection.

 

Amending PPVFRA 

 

The proposed amendments are not yet public but some industry players familiar with them said they do not alter the basic structure of the PPVFRA and only make some cosmetic definitional changes and modifications.

 

The seed industry's demand to include genetic modification or gene editing in the ambit of the PPVFRA has not been accepted, which means their IPR protection and regulation will continue to be governed by the ministry of environment and forests.

 

However, one major change that the industry has been demanding for some time appears to have been accepted: Permission to get provisional registration of plant varieties, pending final certification.

 

“It usually takes more than three years for a plant variety to get registration certification from PPVFRA and during this time if someone starts using those varieties, the company does not have any protection which the provisional certification would now not permit,” a senior industry official explained.

 

He said a clause on ‘innocent infringement’, which is unique to India and protects the rights of farmers from any kind of penal action if they unknowingly grow a registered or protected variety, will be kept untouched – a big relief for growers.

 

However, in a letter to agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, ASHA and several academicians said the concepts and approaches being framed for the amendments were wrong, and reflect the “sinister nature” of the process.

 

The letter also questioned the composition of the committee of experts that has been formed to suggest amendments to the PPVFRA.

 

Plant talks

 

Though the Central government and its agencies have repeatedly said that India’s interest will be fully protected in the global negotiations and that the country has never shared any germplasm details with any other signatory, civil society and farmers’ rights groups continue to express doubts.

 

Several scientists, academicians, and scholars, in a letter to Union environment minister Bhupendra Yadav and agriculture minister 

 

Chouhan, said the assertion that India retains the freedom to designate plant genetic resources it will share “is simply not true”. 

 

It said that the Plant Treaty is an international legal instrument — once a country signs on, it is legally bound by the provisions of the Treaty, without any reservations.

 

The letter disputes the claim that India is not sharing any seeds with the MLS, saying the ITPGRFA website itself shows that India has provided more than 400,000 samples.

 

“Further, it was argued that India has benefitted from accessing several varieties through the MLS. However, when asked about details of Indian persons/institutions that had accessed these seeds through the MLS, and how many new varieties were developed using such accessions, no data was provided,” the letter alleged.

 

Rana of FSII said that with the Plant Treaty’s expansion, Indian farmers can have access to developed genetic material like South American corn. That’s just one more side to a debate on issues that could be fundamental to India’s food security in the years to come. 

Farming framework

 

The draft seeds Bill 2025: Seeks to regulate the quality of seeds and planting materials available in the market, ensure farmers’ access to high-quality seeds at affordable rates, and curb the sale of spurious seeds.

 

Proposed amendments to PPVFRA: Does not change the protection given to farmers’ rights, facilitates provisional registration, but raises questions about the manner in which changes are being made to it.

 

Plant Treaty or ITPGRFA negotiations: ITPGRFA is a multilateral treaty for conservation and sustainable use of all plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of their use.