Punjab to replace all wheat seed every 3 years: Minister

The Punjab government has decided to replace 100 per cent wheat seed after every three years in order to end stagnation in production in agriculture.

"Most of the available seed of wheat has lost its optimum potency. Keeping this in view, there was immediate need to make available the required fresh seed. For the wheat crop, about 3.4 million quintals of seed is used by farmers every year in the state," Punjab Agriculture Minister Sucha Singh Langah said today.

Langah also said over the years, the quality of the available seeds stock of various crops had deteriorated and there was a need for improvement in seed preparing technology.

"To achieve the desired results, Punseed, a government organisation that provides some part of the seed stocks to farmers, will also be overhauled and modernised," he said, according to an official release here today.

Meanwhile, to achieve a higher growth rate in the farm sector, the Punjab government will provide fresh certified seeds at reduced rates.

For this, prices of BT cotton seed has been slashed from Rs 1,350 to Rs 760 per packet thereby directly giving farmers a benefit of Rs 90 crore, the release said.

It added that 1,535,000 packets of BT cotton seed were made available, which will be sufficient for sowing 600,000 hectares.