India's price-fixing probe of global seed firms sparked by carrot farmers

An Indian antitrust investigation into suspected price collusion by some prominent global agricultural firms was triggered by farmers who complained about excessive pricing of imported carrot seeds, documents seen by Reuters showed.

A group representing about 1,500 farmers in the mountainous Nilgiri district of Tamil Nadu, a top carrot-growing state in southern India, petitioned the watchdog in 2019 alleging that an "unfair profit margin" was being charged on the carrot seeds, the regulatory documents showed.

This is the first time the complaint is coming into public view. It has touched off an investigation that has the potential to affect pricing practices in