Pragmatic Ways to make Indian Agriculture Atmanirbhara

Agriculture in India has been way of life and never been a profession. It is practiced as rituals and food is like God which is to be worshiped. It has been supporting large section of our population with all economic strata of society. Its volume has been increasing year on year though its share in economy/ GDP is shrinking due to increasing role o of other sectors. After the green revolution the self-reliance has been steadily strengthening from import to net export status. We now are supporting many countries who are food deficit. So, food security has changed from national food security to global food security. Now, we are swiftly moving towards nutritional food security. In the shifting paradigm, consumer wants food with improved and known nutritional value. The 2020 global pandemic has established that health and wellness is of prime importance in human civilization and that can not be replaced with healthcare system. So we all ned to build a good health system through healthy food habit and immunity building food constituents which is possible through always consuming right kind of food with higher nutritional values.   We therefore need different kind of food to be produced through crops suitable in a particular geography. Here comes the role of crop research, breeding and development of new traits to meet the changing needs and changing food consumption patterns. Seed will always be of great interest due to continuous pressure on crop cultivation and climate change alongwith other abiotic and off course biotic factors.

Seed is the smallest investment of any farming activity but it attracts a lot of storm due to its critical role in agricultural production. Even farmers also try to cut costs on seeds but that does not help. Now time has come that for higher output, higher input is required. As we say “Subeejam sukshetre jaayte Sampaddyate” (means a good seed if sown in good field, it yields in plenty. The scientific and technological advancements has attracted various level of entrepreneurs who all made a sustainable Indian Seed Industry. Seed industry can bring huge employment opportunities for rural people by way of engaging in seed production, quality supervision, processing, packing and marketing.  We have developed a mechanism to produce seeds by our own farmers. We can transform the life of farmers with small training and development and make them highly skilled for seed production activity. The local climate should be highly favourable to the cultivation of a particular crop upto harvesting stage.  The grower should be resourceful, able to invest in seed production work and has quality awareness and its impact on farming community. He should be able to understand the quality control mechanism like maintaining isolation distance, rouging operation, chances of mechanical admixtures, pollinators, volunteer plants, weeds and various diseases of crops. Moreover his readiness to understand and follow the instructions of seed and quality control officers visiting time to time his field.  It is our responsibility to make selected growers aware about seed laws, minimum Seed standards and minimum field standards applicable in a particular crop.  The grower must take the responsibility of producing and making all efforts to maintain highest possible quality standards throughout the production cycle.

Mechanism of developing seed industry: For successful seed production , we need high quality of breeder seeds and foundation seeds. Agricultural Universities are the right source of such seeds. Once breeder seeds or foundation seeds are available according to the requirements and we distribute to the farmers through internal or external. We select good  farmers in village for trial production of important crops.  We can categorize the seed production based on involvement of various agencies and organisations. The Indian seed industry has developed into organised industry supported by R&D infrastructure. Still the access to quality seeds is much below than expected and required. If we look at crop wise seed replacement rate of  major crop is still very low. However, few selected crops have reached to highly encouraging level. In this the role of private sector is much more prominent than public sector organizations. We have developed several seed producing clusters with well skilled farmers for quality seed production. India has several favourable conditions and infrastructure to produce seeds and export to other countries as well. We can produce large number of crops in different seasons and in different geographies. We can also work to substitute the import of seeds being done to save the foreign exchange. The climate change has been making many good seeds obsolete hence we need to develop new seeds with better resilience against climate and diseases. Therefore, the role of breeders never ends at a point.  We need very robust NBA, PPV&FRA system with the support of NBPGR to provide wide base of germplasm to breeders to develop new traits to meet the changing needs. We need to encourage seed ventures to export the seeds and government has to provide global market access through all technical and commercial supports.

Contract Seed Production: This is most practised mechanism of seed production where producing organisation contact farmers and explain requirements of seed production like, crop, its sowing time, harvesting time, package of practices, agronomy, plant protection, quality management through maintaining minimum prescribed isolation distance from other variety crops and most important terms and condition of procurement and payment. When farmer agrees to undertake seed production, an agreement is signed between Grower and production company and the producer company or organizer gives foundation seeds to farmer and he raise the crop as per the advice.  All efforts are made by the farmer (seed grower) and the producer company to produce maximum quantity with highest quality (germination and genetic purity).  The produce is taken to the processing plant of company and processed and tested for germination and genetic purity tests. The payment is made by the production company to the grower as per mutually agreed terms and conditions.

 Custom Production- In such cases, overseas companies approach seed production companies of country and they on the other hand approach farmers for seed production. Since the foundation seeds as well as seed produced so, have to cross borders as per prescribed procedure the process is called custom production. The inspections by organising companies as well as overseas company officers are done a right stage to ensure high quality seed production.  This method is highly profitable but involves risks also due to high quality standards. In such case confidentiality, timely delivery, high quality standards, safety of foundation seeds or parental lines are very important.

Seed Village Concept- This concept has evolved to use collective energy, efforts and skills of farmers to produce high quality seeds. Mostly officers from govt departments, farmer representatives decide the crop of which seeds to be produced. All growers then ensure standard quality norms across the village. They ensure that no undesired crop or variety is cultivated which otherwise may harm the quality of seeds being produced. The quality works like offtypes and volunteer plants are rogued out collectively. The seed so produced is supplied to nearby villages/ farmers or supplied collectively to companies who sell across the country.  Its very successful model and it ensures inclusive growth of all farmers with collective efforts and mutual hand holding.

Community Seed Bank and Gene Bank: The collective efforts are made to collect as many germplasm of local collection possible. The germ plasm collected so is multiplied and stored for use in future. It saves the particular local germplasm from becoming extinct. The part of collected seeds are shared with farmers with an expectation of returning double of its borrowed quantity. The genebank is considered as repository whereas community seed bank exchange of seeds. 

Conclusion: The self-reliance on seeds can make our agriculture really self-sustainable as it may be used by MMC to twist the arms of farmers. The exploitation and monopolistic practices can be checked only if we are able to meet seed demand by domestic companies and organizations. We also need to work towards nutritional food security through seed security system. We need to stop and control the irresponsible people who are exploiting farmers by delivering spurious and duplicate seeds. We need to do due diligence of companies who are engaged in unethical practices and ruining the name of Indian seed industry.  We need to develop various common facility centre for quality testing of seeds. The research institutions need to focus on development of new traits to cope with changing climate, increasing disease pest pressure and also the changing consumption patterns. A well-developed seed industry in the country can support food processing industry, F&V availability, agricultural production to meet the ever-increasing demand to population explosion.  This way, India not only can become Atmanirbhar but also can become supplier to other countries.