Bangalore: Shrinking land and water resources,
heavy dependence on monsoon and optimum weather conditions and
low productivity were some challenges facing the country,
which would need more than 300 million tonnes of food by 2020,
an expert said on Friday.
"Productivity is still low in many crops and low productive
seeds were still being planted in fertile agricultural lands".
Dr Arvind Kapur, CEO, Vegetable Seed Division, Rasi Seeds,
said, addressing the Indian Seed Congress here today.
A combined effort between the public and private sector in
agricultural sector was clearly lacking while agricultural
policies continue to be inadequate, he said.
In terms of seed production, seed production per unit area
needs improvement. Large area should be earmarked for seed
production to achieve targets. There was a need to improve
seed production systems and to earmark seed production areas
as seed valleys. "Seed production contract should be legal to
avoid cross purchases", he said.
The seed industry today was witnessing an increasing global
market, use of hybrid seed with several technological
components, increase in number of regulations and
international seed trade as well as presence of several
multinational companies in the space.
While the world seed market was USD 50 billion, the total
Indian seed industry is worth around Rs 8000 crore.
PTI
First Published: Friday, February 12, 2010, 18:03