Aligning seeds & needs

The seeds business today is not what it was when the Seed Act was enacted in 1966. Four decades ago, the Green Revolution was still to happen, and seeds""an important contributor to that Revolution ""were a public sector monopoly.

Today, the business is dominated by private sector companies, including multinationals, who need an entirely different environment to function effectively. The old statute has lost its relevance and needs to be replaced with a modern law.

Surprisingly, despite all the lip-service governments pay to agricultural development, it has taken years to put together a draft amendment bill""which has recently been approved by the Union cabinet. While that's certainly a step in the right direction, it needs pointing out that the groundwork for reforming the seeds sector was done as far back as six years ago, when the seeds policy review group submitted its report to the government. It's not that no changes have been made since 1966.

Some significant changes were made in 1988 and, more recently, in 2002, but several critical issues remained unaddressed for lack of statutory sanction. A Crop Varieties Protection Act was enacted in 2001, but this took care of only the patenting aspects of seeds. This law was enacted only because changes were required to be made as part of India's obligations under global treaties.

The draft seed bill now ready for introduction in Parliament has several features that the seeds industry should welcome. A major change proposed relates to the decontrol and deregulation of the industry and seed-processing units.

Another, which is equally important, is the delinking of seed certification and law enforcement. Henceforth, the private sector will be involved with the process of evaluation as well as certification of seeds, relaxing the official stranglehold on the seeds industry and cutting down on procedural delays.

At the same time, the requirement of mandatory registration of all seeds and planting material and the labelling of their expected performance on the seed packaging will help maintain discipline in the industry and protect farmers from being misled.

The provision for stringent penalties for the sale of spurious seeds will be an additional safeguard for ensuring the supply of good quality seeds. The stipulation in the original law of a fine of just Rs 500 for selling fake seeds is, obviously, no deterrent against this menace today.

Also, significant from the farmers' point of view, is the permission granted to them to save, use, exchange or sell self-grown seeds and planting material. Though multinational corporations are bound to be uneasy with this provision, they realise that anything else is unlikely to work under Indian conditions.

Currently, the bulk of the seed requirement is met through self-produced or locally acquired seeds at the village level and this practice is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future even if it is sought to be curbed by law.

Even the Indian sui generis plant variety protection law has a similar provision in this regard. Having got this far, the UPA government needs to give top priority to the passage of this legislation in the next session of Parliament and take proactive measures to ensure its early enforcement for the benefit of both industry and farmers.