<i>Swadeshi</i> body flags up seed event, minister skips it

SJM is against such conferences as MNC seed cos oppose govt's seed price regulation policy

Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Thursday skipped an event organised by the newly formed Federation of Seed Industry of India (FSII), a conglomeration of more than 32 multinational and domestic seed companies including Bayer, Dow Agro, Dupont Poineer, Mahyco, Metahelix, Monsanto and Namdhari.

Though official explanation was that the minister had to attend an important meeting in Parliament, but even prior to that, there were murmurs of dissent against his attendance.

The Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) in a letter written to Singh a day before had red-flagged the event on the ground that anybody from the government should not attend such conferences, which are organised by multinational seed companies as they have been opposing government's policies on regulating exorbitant seed prices.

"It is important to keep this association far from the Ministry so that they are not able to influence the policy of the Government. If they are allowed, they would like to hijack the food security which is connected to the seed security of India," SJM said the letter, copy of which has been accessed by Business Standard.

On being contacted, SJM national co-convenor, Ashwini Mahajan said that the Manch is happy that the minister has skipped the event for whatever reason."The government has been on the fore-front of protecting the interest of farmers first through controlling the BT cotton seed prices and free it from the clutches of multinationals, attending an event organized by the same companies would have given a very wrong impression," Mahajan said.

The Centre had been on logger heads with Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech Ltd (MMBL), over its seed pricing and also "trait value" charged by it.

Mahyco Monsanto Biotech (India) Limited is a joint venture between Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Co. Ltd. (Mahyco) and Monsanto Investments India Private Ltd.

It markets and licenses in-the-seed technologies in the areas of insect protection to seed companies, which in turn market their hybrid seeds with MMB India traits to farmers.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) had also ordered a detailed probe against MMBL for alleged abuse of dominance by the Indian arm of the US-based genetically modified seed giant Monsanto.

Monsanto on its part had threatened to 're-evaluate' it's all businesses in the country. It also challenged the order in Delhi High Court. MMBL has sub-licensed Bt cotton seed technology since 2002 to various domestic seed companies.

The issue also divided the National Seed Association of India, with multinational seed companies along with some like-mined Indian companies forming the Federation of Seed Industry Association (FSII).

Meanwhile, the FSII claimed that in the last one-year they have set-up a secretariat in the National Capital and expanded their membership from five to 32, which included both multinational and domestic companies all focused on research.

"Together, we command over 50 per cent of the revenue of all seed companies and our share in Research and Development is over 70 per cent," Ram Kaundinya, advisor to FSII said.

He said that since its inception in August 2016, the body has been trying to work with different stakeholders to create an enabling policy environment in which the industry and the farmer can prosper in the medium to long run. Interestingly, the even in question was not open to media.