SEMINAR-II, VEG.

849 Date: 18-02-2014

INDIAN SEED INDUSTRY –

A VEGETABLE CROP PERSPECTIVE

SEED OF HOPE

OUR SEED, OUR FUTURE

 SEED

• The key component among all inputs

• Quality of seed accounts for 20-25% of
productivity (State of Indian Agriculture 2012-
13)
 HISTORY
Ancient INDIA
• Need for a good viable seed for prosperity of
human race is mentioned in Rigveda

• “Subeejam Sukshetre Jayate Sampadyate”

(Poonia, 2013) -manu smriti

• Own saved seed, No organized seed production

 PRE INDIPENDENCE

No organized seed production

Very few seed companies– Suttons and Sons

in Kolkata

Royal commission of Agriculture (1925)

recommended spread of improved varieties
and seed distribution
POST INDIPENDENCE
National Seed Corporation (NSC) in 1963
• Organized fashion to maintain quality
• Multiplication of seed of pre released varieties
and production of foundation seed of varieties

The Seeds Act, 1963 (1966)

• Tagging either by compulsory labeling or
voluntary certification
• Seed quality control through independent
State Seed Certification Agencies under the
control of state departments of agriculture

Gadwal, 2003; Poonia, 2013

National Seeds Project
• World Bank sponsored
• Three phases-Phase I (1975), Phase II (1981) and Phase III
(1988)
• 15 State Seed Corporations, State Seed Certification
Agencies, State Seed Testing Laboratories (Verma, 2008)
New Seeds Policy, 1988
• “High Priority Industries” (Mazumdar,2012)
• Liberalizing the seed trade (Gadwal, 2003) through open
general license and removed tariff barriers
(Mazumdar,2012)
• Resulted in import of hybrid seeds in cabbage, cauliflower,
chillies, etc. besides large quantities of seeds of carrot and
beetroot by private seed companies
 • Farmer’s rights- Right to save, use exchange,
share and sell farm produce of protected variety
PPV & except sale of branded seed
FRA, 2001 • Protection against the unscrupulous seed
companies through compensation (Prasad et al.
2009)

• Regulation of seed quality

• Curb sale of spurious and poor quality seeds
The Seeds
(State of Indian Agriculture, 2013)
Bill, 2004

• AICRIP on seed production in 1979 with 14

centers
ICAR • AICRIP on production of breeder seed in
SPONSERED vegetable crops is started under National Seed
PROJECTS Project in 1994 (Poonia, 2013)
 INDIA-CURRENT STATUS

Sixth position in world with revenue of INR 110.04 billion in

2013

Indian seed market has grown at 12% annual rate where the
annual growth rate of global seed market is 5% (Verma, 2008)

Over last seven years, has grown at 18.8%

Vegetable seeds account for 20% of the total seeds produced

in the country in 2013 (KEN research)
 20

80

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

NON VEGETABLE SEEDS VEGETABLE SEEDS
 VEGETABLE SEED STATUS

Indian vegetable seed market is growing at a rate of

10-15% a year

There has been an increase of 194% in Indian

vegetable hybrid seed market during 1998-2008

The vegetable seed business in India, at present,

amounts for 9000 million INR accounting for 18%
value wise share of different crops in Indian seed
business (Mazumdar,2012)
 INDIAN SEED INDUSTRY

BASED ON BASED ON
PRODUCE PRODUCER

HYBRID VARIETAL PUBLIC PRIVATE

 100
90
80
PERCENTAGE

70 60
60
50
40
30
20 27
10

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

HYBRID SEEDS VARIETAL SEEDS

 PUBLIC SECTOR

National Seeds Corporation (NSC)

• State Farm Corporation of India (SFCI)
15 State Seeds Corporations (SSCs)
• ICAR institutions and State Agricultural
Universities

Gadwal, 2003;
Poonia, 2013
 PRIVATE SECTOR

• Around 150 seed companies of national and

foreign origin
• Few companies like M/S Bejo Sheetal, Indo-
American Hybrid Seeds and Namdhari Seeds
are working exclusively on vegetable hybrids
PUBLIC vs. PRIVATE
The Indian public sector seed industry used to
dominate the private sector in the very beginning

The situation is quite reversed currently

Seeds of the private hybrids are forming a

significant portion of the total vegetable seed
market

Most of the public sector varieties and hybrids

are replaced by private sector varieties and
hybrids, seed production of which is solely done
by the particular manufacturers
Changing share of Private and Public
sectors in seed production in India
Year Share in seed production
(%)
Private Public
2004 49.11 50.89
2005 58.00 42.00
2006 57.75 42.26
(Nandi et al. 2013)
• Corporate seed firms are mainly
concentrating on vegetables like
tomato, cabbage, brinjal, chilli, okra and
cucurbits
• Not trading with the production of true
seed or planting materials of potato,
sweet potato and other tuber and bulb
crops, leaving public sector to deal with
these crops.
 Why lagging behind??
• Liberalization of seed trade
• Incapability to generate huge funds on research and
development (R&D)
• Lack of proper advertisement and market for public
sector bred varieties and hybrids
• The gargantuan seed manufacturers with
multinational base can assemble germplasm from
any part of the world which cannot be done by the
public sector institutions in easy way
• Mega seed giants employ paramount technical
personnel with opulence and extravagance
FACTORS PROMOTING VEGETABLE
SEED INDUSTRY IN INDIA
 Ever Increasing Demand
• The second largest producer of vegetables
(17.3 t/ha) after China (22.5 t/ha) (Kumar et al. 2011)
Vegetables 1991-92 2010-11
Area 5.59 mha 8.49 mha
Production 58.5 mt 146.5 mt

2.5 times
• SRR are higher for vegetable crops when
compared to cereals-paddy-25.1%, wheat-18%
(Nandi et al. 2013)
Yields of quality seeds are higher than farmer own saved seeds

Comparison of yields through own saved seeds and

replaced quality seeds in various vegetable crops
Crop SRR (%) Yield (kg/ha)
Own saved Replaced
seed seed
Cabbage 100 -- 370.26
Cauliflower 86.4 190.23 230.47
Chillies 83.7 68.21 85.73
Okra 92.4 140.55 230.87
Tomato 99.3 344.50 464.97
(Nandi et al. 2013)
India’s import of vegetable seeds in 2007-08

Crop Quantity (t) Value (m INR)

Pea 105 5.2
Radish 252.63 47.4
Tomato 6.02 42.5
Cabbage 104.97 334.4
Cauliflower 37.62 226.5
Other vegetable 1019.14 847.1
seeds
Total 1525.38 1503.1

(Vanitha et al. 2013)

 Varied Agro Climatic Conditions
Vegetables Suitable region for seed
production
Warm season vegetables Indian plains and Deccan
Plateau
Solanaceous vegetables, Throughout the year under
Cucurbits and Legumes South Indian conditions
Winter vegetables (Cabbage, Hill stations of Himalayan
Cauliflower, Broccoli, Beetroot, range
European Carrot and Radish)
Winter vegetables (Onion, During winter season in North
Asiatic Carrot, Asiatic Radish Indian Plains
and Tropical cauliflower)
(Sharma, 2011)
 Cheap labour availability
• Labour intensive job
• Emasculation and Pollination of hybrid seed
production solely depend on human labour (Sudha
et al. 2006)
• India is ranked second in hand pollinated
vegetable seed production in Asia next to China
(Kalia, 2009; Sharma, 2011)
• India is having huge human resources availing at
reasonably cheaper rates.
• This is attracting various corporate sectors of
national and international origin to invest in seed
business in India
 Vast Domestic and International
markets

Requirement 2001-02 2005

of the After 2007,
vegetable
seed requirement of
Open 30550 t 48000 t hybrid seeds
pollinated
varieties became greater
Hybrid 346.2 t 994 t than OPVs
vegetable
seed
Contribution (%) of various vegetables to
hybrid seed market segmentation FY 2013
Country wise share (%) of export of
vegetable seeds from India in 2013
KOREAN
THAILAND, 0.4 CHINA, 0.7 REPUBLIC,
INDONESIA, 0.3
SAUDI ARABIA, 2.1
JAPAN, 1.4 5.1
NETHERLAND,
2.4

BANGLADESH, PAKISTAN, 55.8

30.9

USA, 1.0
Source of Data: APEDA, 2013
 FRUIT AND VEGETABLE SEED EXPORT IN QUANTITY (MT)
20000

18000 17174
APEDA, 2013
16000 15206
14000
12302
12000 11619
10659 10158
10000
8104 8533 8882
8000 7518
6727
6178
6000 5170
4000

2000

0
 Income generation
1. Highly remunerative business
2. Hybrids fetch more price than OPVs
as the cost of hybrid seed production
is more due to the involvement of
more labour
3. Hybrid seed production of sweet
pepper is highly remunerative
generating an income of 136000 INR
per 0.75 acre followed by hot pepper
generating an income of 41500 INR per
0.25 acre (Sharma, 2011).
 Cost and returns per hectare from hybrid seed
production of tomato and okra
Particular
Tomato Okra

Value
Quantity Value (INR) Quantity
(INR)
Total cost
49775 38548
Yield
0.493 q 138118 5.66 q 77995
Benefit:
Cost 2.77:1 2.02:1
Net income
88343 39447

Sudha et al. 2006

 Employment generation
On an average one million people are employed in
vegetable seed production activity (Sharma, 2011)
Approximately 0.17 million farmers are engaged
in contract seed production
Vegetable Contribution towards employment
generation through hybrid seed
production
Solanaceous vegetables 56.46%

Cucurbits 28.08%
Okra 15.46%
(Hazra et al. 2005)
 Average number of man-days per acre
required for hybrid seed production of
various vegetables

Crop Average man-days per

acre
Tomato 480
Chilli 1800
Okra 180
Brinjal 600
Cucurbits 150 to 450
(Hazra et al. 2005)
 Employment generation through hybrid
seed production in tomato and okra
Tomato Okra
Operatio Own Hired Total Own Hired Total
n M F M F M F M F
All
Cultural 45.39 10.3 55.7 67.5 178.9 57.8 21.4 18.1 69.1 166.5

Emasculat
ion and 5.48 21.3 11.4 275.5 313.7 6.67 11.6 1.4 257.2 276.9
Crossing
Harvestin,
Cleaning
3.56 5.8 37.2 73.9 120.5 7.61 10.8 2.4 85.9 106.8
and
Packing
Total
54.43 37.8 104.2 416.9 613.3 72.2 43.8 21.9 412.2 550.2

M-man days; F-female days (Sudha et al., 2006)

 Foreign exchange earning
FRUIT AND VEGETABLE SEED EXPORT IN VALUE (LAKHS)
40000
India is the ninth major exporter of fruit
and vegetable seeds in the world 34772
35000 APEDA, 2013
30000 28772

25000

20000 18491
14215 14504
15000 12151 11997
10095 9294
10000
6750 6454 6598
5357
5000

0
 Negative impact
• Poor farmers can’t afford high cost veg. seeds
No reproduction Purchasing seed
of branded seeds every year
by farmers
PPV & FRA,
2001 No awareness
Protection for among farmers
landraces and
farmer varieties
Stealing

Govt. of India sue Monsanto for Bio-Piracy, accusing stealing of

indigenous plants (Brinjal) in order to re-engineer them into patented
varieties- France 24; 8th ,Sep; 2011.

The farmers in our communities are robbed of the advantage they

should get from the indigenous varieties –
KS Sugara, Member secretary of Karnataka biodiversity Board
• Terminator and traitor seeds - fortunately
banned
• Non availability in time-especially GM seeds
• unscrupulous companies are selling spurious
seeds
• Truthfully labeled seed Boon or
Bust?
• Liberalization of seed trade
• High Cost and Vague Market Demand
• Perishable Nature of Seed
1. Seed is a living entity and a biological
product
2. subjected to death depending upon its
genetic potentiality to remain viable and
storage conditions (Poonia, 2013; Sharma, 2011)
3. Unlike cereals, vegetable seeds are not the
edible portions
• Problems linked with contract farming
• Farmers may not be having scientific and technical
knowledge on floral biology pollination mechanism,
isolation distance, rouging etc
• Over large areas-effect uniformity & quality
• Climate, Pest and Disease related problems
• Stringent seed policies and laws
• Varietal notification and registration are compulsory
and is time taking in bureaucratic system
• Seed certification is time consuming task
• Export and Import regulations are inconsistent and
politically motivated (Verma, 2008)
 CONCLUSION
• Vegetable seed business will ever have huge
scope to success and will play an important
role in economy in countries like India
• Making available quality seeds to the farmers
in time and in sufficient quantity at
reasonable prices
• Government has to reduce precincts on
import and export of quality seeds and
planting materials
• Policy making and implementations
shall be free from political motivations

• Strengthening of public sector in R&D is

needed to compete with private seed
companies so as to provide good quality
seeds to the farmers at cheaper rates

• Win-Win-Win approach among Public,

Private sectors and Farmers
SAVE SEEDS, SAVE FARMERS