NSA MAGAZINE-OCT-DEC-2011-WOC by Tulika Singh

Message from the desk of President

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National Seed Association of India

Welcome to 2012! Let me take this opportunity to wish you and your friends and family a Happy New Year. May the year 2012 bring progress and prosperity for everyone. Over the last three decades, Indian seed industry built robust seed management practices that ensured supply of high quality seed to the farmers. It has not only contributed to productivity in many a crops but also contributed to rural prosperity. A large number of new varieties and hybrids were introduced by the industry with reliable supply year over year. Investment in R&D, seed supply systems, infrastructure and human resources demonstrate robustness of Indian seed industry. Indian seed industry, during the decade, witnessed a double digit growth against global single digit growth. The demonstrated dynamism of the industry need to continue and adapt at much faster rate in the next decade to address alarming rise in demand for food, feed and fiber, driven by population growth and changing food consumption patterns; under constraints of land and water and changing climate. We are witnessing increased complexity due to rapidly changing seed management processes, regulatory mechanisms, global treaties and societal expectations. This not only provides significant opportunity but also demands management of business in an inclusive and sustainable fashion. The contributions by various authors in the current issue highlight a few of the above, if not comprehensively. Dr.Anand, Namdhari Seeds Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore in the article “GROWTH OF HYBRID VEGETABLE SEED INDUSTRY IN INDIA – PROGRESS TOWARDS A BRIGHT FUTURE”, mentions on Seed production : “ Development of new areas for hybrid seed production is vital. Training of manpower, in this direction is another important goal. Seed production under both low cost protected structures and greenhouses is essential. It is important to place the right crops in these structures with a clear vision on the cost benefit ratios worked out.” Dr. P.S. Dravid, Future Growth Drivers for Indian Seed Industry : The Government needs to create favorable business climate by the following initiatives: Science based predictive regulatory system for Genetically modified crops; R&D support for molecular breeding; Fiscal incentives for building infrastructure; Favorable minimum support price & improving Govt. procurement machinery; Enhancing rural credit & crop insurance schemes; Streamlining State Govt. regulations. DR. ARVIND KAPUR, RASI SEEDS P LTD, writes in the article, 'Future growth drivers for Indian seed industry': “With the seed market expanding globally and also in India, bigger investments will come in R&D by the private players and that will be the key driver in promoting the seed industry in India… Indian Seed Industry is presently in the exponential phase. Farmers are demanding high quality and performing varieties..” Dr Pramod K Agrawal, Managing Director, Prasha Agri-Consultants Pvt. Ltd. in his article on Future growth drivers for Indian seed industry “India has the potential to be number one provided a massive extension work is done and seed companies tries to reach to “unreachable areas” of the country.” In an article titled “Agricultural biotechnology and smallholder farmers in developing countries “, in Current Opinion in Biotechnology 2011,column of , www.sciencedirect.com Vivienne M Anthony and Marco Ferroni, answers a question on “ How can agricultural biotechnology contribute towards solutions that will close the yield gap for smallholder farmers? The answer is that this Improving crop genetics is part of the solution and should be integrated along with the creation of functioning markets and distribution systems for seed, access to fertilizer, tools and appropriate mechanization, with microirrigation, precision farming, agricultural extension support and links to output markets playing a role.” S.V.R. Rao, Nuziveedu Seeds Private Ltd, in the Indian Seed Industry, Drivers of Future Growth, speaks about Geographical expansion of the seed industry ..”Companies are exploring opportunities in the export markets in Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Srilanka, Myanmar, Indonesia, and Malaysia and African countries like Tanzania, Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Sudan and Kenya. The limited availability of hybrid seeds in these countries and the potential adaptability of Indian crop germplasm offer a huge opportunity to the Indian seed players. With minimum incremental R&D cost, business expansion can be done in these countries.” Another notable point on attracting investments towards the seed industry.. he writes,.. “Recently Seed Industry has become very attractive for the investors. Indian investors are eagerly looking for many IPOs from Seed Industry…The capital infusion will facilitate infrastructure development that is required for faster growth of Indian Seed Industry.” Let us move on to create a more dynamic, innovate and internationally competitive research based industry helping to produce high quality seeds and planting materials. Our efforts shall improve the farmer's profitability and be a contributor for sustainable agricultural growth.

Dr. K.V. Subharao President

CONTENTS

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Message from the desk of President Message from the desk of Executive Director

Future Growth Drivers for Indian Seed Industry - Arvind Kapur

Growth of Hybrid Vegetable Seed Industry in India â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Progress Towards a Bright Future - N. Anand

Private Public Partnership for Seed Security - R.R. Hanchinal, Nadaf H.l. and Vijayakumar A.G

Innovative Triggers for Growth of Indian Seed Industry - Malavika Dadlani, Vilas A. Tonapi and Arun Kumar M.B

Future Growth Drivers for Indian Seed Industry - Pramod K Agrawal

Future Growth Drivers for Indian Seed Industry - P. S. Dravid

Challenges and Promises of the Future - Ajay Vir Jakhar

Agricultural Biotechnology and Smallholder Farmers in Developing Countries - Marco Ferroni & Vivenne M Anthony

Indian Seed Industry : Drivers of Future Growth - SVR Rao

EVENTS 1.

NSAI AGM

NSAI Special Lecture

NSAI State Interaction Meetings

11 12

Seed & Agriculture Statistics

News

New NSAI Members

Honours & Awards:

National Seed Association of India

ABOUT NSAI National Seed Association of India (NSAI) is the apex organization representing the Indian Seed Industry. The vision of NSAI is to create a dynamic, innovative and internationally competitive, research based industry producing high performance, high quality seeds and planting materials which benefit farmers and significantly contribute to the sustainable growth of Indian Agriculture. The mission of NSAI is to encourage investment in state of the art R&D to bring to the Indian farmer superior genetics and technologies, which are high performing and adapted to a wide range of agro-climatic zones. It actively contributes to the seed industry policy development, with the concerned governments, to ensure that policies and regulations create an enabling environment, including public acceptance, so that the industry is globally competitive. NSAI promotes harmonization and adoption of best commercial practices in production, processing, quality control and distribution of seeds.

NSAI GOVERNING COUNCIL 2011-2013 President

Dr. K. V. Subbarao (PHI Seeds)

Vice President

Mr. N. P. Patel (Western Agri Seeds)

General Secretary

Mr. M. Harish Reddy (Ganga Kaveri Seeds)

Treasurer

Mr. K.S. Narayanaswamy (Geo Biotechnologies)

Immediate Past President :

Dr. M. Ramasami (Rasi Seeds)

MEMBERS Mr. G. S. Gill (Monsanto India)

Dr. D.B. Desai (Navbharat Seeds)

Mr. Venkateswarlu Yaganti (Yaaganti Seeds)

Mr. Pawan Kansal (Kohinoor Seeds)

Mr. Bhupen Dubey (Advanta India)

Mr. K. Niranjan Kumar (Garc Seeds)

Mr. M. Sabir (Manisha Agri Biotech)

Dr. Manish Patel (Incotec India)

Dr. P. Sateesh Kumar (Prabhat Agri Biotech)

Mr. Vaibhav Kashikar (Ankur Seeds)

Mr. Aloke Marodia (Pan Seeds)

Mr. Satyanarayan Rathi (Divya Seeds)

Mr. S.K. Roongta (National Seeds Corp.)

NSAI SECRETARIAT Mr. Raju Kapoor

Dr. N.K. Dadlani

Dr. Seema Sehgal

Mrs. Tulika Singh

Executive Director

Director

Asst Director

Dr. N.K. Dadlani & Mrs. Tulika Singh

Message from the desk of Executive Director

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National Seed Association of India

It gives me an immense pleasure to be a part of the distinguished National Seed Association of India (NSAI) family. I have joined NSAI at an exciting time when the industry is faced with great opportunity for growth and contribution to the Indian economy, alongwith the biggest possible challenge being faced by the Indian agriculture to meet the ever growing food, feed, fibre & fuel requirement of the country, under shrinking resource base & growing expectations of the stakeholders. The very task ahead for NSAI would be (i) facilitating an enabling environment for growth; (ii) identifying and addressing the stakeholders' needs; (iii) facilitating introduction and adoption of new technology for higher productivity; and (iv) facilitating global connect for the Indian seed industry. This being a knowledge industry, sufficient importance has to be given to capacity building in research and stewardship shared technology. There is certainly a need for the industry to work together for value creation, an enabling eco-system for growth, to provide a platform for new knowledge and alignment of the interests of stakeholders towards a win-win situation. I look forward to work with the members of the Governing Council and the entire seed industry for better tomorrow and will be eager to look forward to suggestions from all stakeholders.

Raju Kapoor (Executive Director)

Mr. Raju Kapoor joins as the Executive Director of NSAI

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National Seed Association of India

Mr. Raju Kapoor has joined NSAI, Secretariat as its next Executive Director. He is an agriculture professional with 26 years of rich experience in the agricultural input and output industry at leading portions. Prior to joining NSAI, he had been the President (Agribusiness Division) of Deepak Fertilizers & Petrochemicals Corporation Ltd, Pune and President (Agribusiness) of Jubilant Organosys Ltd, Noida. He brings with him a rich leadership & management experience and is passionate about contributing to the rural prosperity. An MBA, having advanced training in Innovative Management from the Kellogs School of Management has also a six sigma process improvement techniques trained professional. Apart from being a passionate photographer, he is also engaged in running a philanthropic organization for the betterment of mankind. We welcome him to NSAI & hope that under his leadership, NSAI will touch newer heights.

Readers Feedback We have received the recent issue of Indian Seed & Planting Material and I must congratulate both of you and other staff members. Over all magazine has got good aesthetics, quality of article is very good. This is definitely an improvement and I believe our magazine has become a tool for important information even to the foreigners who are interested in Indian agriculture and seed market. Uday Singh

Pls. write to us your feedback at: raju.kapoor@nsai.co.in, nkdadlani@nsai.co.in & tulikasingh@nsai.co.in

Future Growth Drivers for Indian Seed Industry

ARVIND KAPUR Hyveg RASI SEEDS P LTD.

Indian Seed Industry is presently in the exponential phase. Farmers are demanding high quality and performing varieties. The vibrant private sector is providing farmers the seeds which they actually demand and need for better productivity. Presently the traded seed industry in India is worth US $ 2.4 billion and out of which 70% (US $ 1.75 Billion) is coming from the private sector.

ESTIMATED VALUE OF DOMESTIC MARKET

Thousands

GENOTYPING

PHENOTYPING

USD Million

EARLY GENERATION

PRODUCT RELEASE

LATE GENERATION

US A CH I FR NA AN CE IN D BR IA AZ I JA L P G ER AN M AN Y AR IT G ALY EN TI N RU CAN A SS A IA DA N FE D SP AI N

TIME

Fig. 1 Estimated Value of Domestic Market

Fig.2 Phases in the Creation of Cultivars

Presently India is ranked jointly third with France in terms of value of domestic seed market and seed market in India is expanding both by value and volume (Fig.1). Key drivers which will determine the future growth of the seed industry will be based on the market development and technologies developed and available. Some of these are listed below.

to crop. With the introduction of hybrids, the quantity of seed used per unit area is decreased, but the value of the seed market increased significantly. So the conversion of non- hybrid areas with hybrids will be the instrumental in the future growth of seed industry.

Germplasm

Hybridization

The diverse and new germplasm will play an important role. Presently the germplasm base is becoming narrower and genetic gains in India are not significant in many crops. In June 2004, 40 nations ratified the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). The chief objectives are the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits derived from their uses. The countries which signed the treaty agreed to establish efficient and effective multilateral systems to facilitate access of germplasm. Prior to this treaty, the genetic resources were viewed as the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Common Heritageâ&#x20AC;? of human kind. Many gene banks were established globally to conserve the land races. Many of these are within the CGIAR system. Organisations like CIMMYT, IRRI and ICRISAT, have large

The Seed Replacement Rate (SRR) is still very low in many crops. In wheat and rice, it is around 25% while in corn and pearl millet, it is more than 60%. In Sunflower it is now 100%. In Vegetables the SRR is around 50%. This is one of the key factors which will influence the growth of the seed Industry. The hybrids and the heterosis level will determine the SRR in a crop (Fig.2). The first F1 hybrids commercialized on a large scale were in corn in USA. Today except USA, hybrids in corn are growing only on 25-30% of the area globally. Introduction of hybrids changed the industry in three ways. (i) There is a need for the farmer to buy hybrid seed every year (ii)Development of professional and specialized seed producers (iii) There is increase in the value of the hybrid seed. The difference in the value of the hybrid seed compared to non- hybrid seed varies from crop

Oct. - Dec. 2011

packaging of these technologies on the seed and better delivery mechanism has solved many problems of growers during early establishment of the crops. In some crops the micronutrient and microbial inoculants are added to the seed which not only help in early establishment of seedlings but also provide tolerance to abiotic stresses.

repository for the Wheat, Maize, Rice, Pearlmillet, Chickpea etc. With the advent of CBD, genetic resources were removed from common heritage status and placed under the national sovereignty, which by its bilateral nature, leads to increasing complexity. No seed company can afford the investment of 10 or 20 years into research programs and when there will be a commercial product, they can't predict the legal certainty to use that material. There should be mechanism and processes which are less burdensome which allow bilateral system of CBD to work. The exchange and availability of diverse germplasm, the legal framework and the efficiency of bilateral and multilateral system will determine the future growth of the seed industry.( Fig.3,4)

Plant Biotechnologies Plant biotechnology is going to be a key factor in the future growth of Indian seed industry. The role of Cell Biology, Marker Assisted Selection and Gene Insertion Technology is going to play a very significant role. Growers have seen innovations in seed products and the next decade promises to be filled with new products designed to increase performance efficiency and yield. Most of the MNC's will bring their latest innovations to the market.

PREVIOUSLY

Molecular Marker Assisted Breeding SEED INDUSTRY

The molecular marker tools which are available to the breeders are unprecedented power for selection of the right genotype. With the marking of certain genes within a plant genome, breeder can trace it throughout the plant life cycle. Breeder can determine the trait before the seed actually go to the ground. Now the genome sequence is happening at a faster pace and the available data allows breeders to significantly shrink the time line between initial discovery and the commercial introduction of the hybrids. Today, breeders can get the genetic analysis information from just a portion of the seed coat. DNA now is analysed in close to real time. With DNA analysis from the chip of the seed, a breeder can segregate the seed before sowing based on the presence and absence of a trait. This is going to increase the efficiency almost ten folds and breeder can bring the commercial products in three years rather than waiting for eight to ten years. With the hundreds of datapoints getting availble, the breeders have huge information about the genetic constitution of the seed before planting a single seed in the soil.

FARMER SEED DISTRIBUTOR SEED REGULATORY BODY

Fig.3 Seed Industry Interactions and Regulatory Environment

TODAY SEED INDUSTRY

CONSUMERS

VARIOUS REGULATORY BODIES

FARMER SEED DISTRIBUTOR SEED REGULATORY BODY TRADERS

FOOD/FEED INDUSTRY REFINERS

RETAILER DISTRIBUTORS

Fig.4 -evolution of Global Communication and Regulatory Environments of Seed Industry

Seed Technologies as Drivers of Growth The post harvest handling of seed is playing an important role in crop establishment. The seed technologies like seed processing, seed coating, seed priming, pelleting, encrustations etc are becoming more sophisticated particularly for vegetable seeds. The value addition for the farmers is very high. The

Oct. - Dec. 2011

GENE INSERTION TECHNOLOGIES

and the natural insect population increase also attract sand improves the bird population. With Monsanto and Dow Agro Science coming out with new generation herbicide tolerant traits which will control broadleaf and grass weeds. Stacking multiple herbicidal genes will provide diversified options for weed control

Insect Resistant Traits Today insect resistant cultivars developed by inserting gene from soil bacteria, the Bt gene, has revolutionized the agriculture. The significant reduction in pre- harvest losses due to the resistance and lesser use of pesticides helped the growers significantly. Presently 65% of the corn acreage is under Bt corn trait. With the stacking of multiple traits in a single product, a crop can withstand the attack of host of insects throughout its growing cycle. In India, cotton experience has instilled great confidence in growers for this technology. More than 90% area of cotton today is under Bt cotton hybrids. In cotton also multi trait genes are being introduced to further strengthen the resistance against many insects that infest the cotton crop. New genes for insect resistances are being identified with new modes of action. Syngenta has come out with a next generation insect protection product . The Agrisure Viptera trait in corn has new mode of action that controls Lepidopteran corn pests like cutworm, corn earworm and fall armyworm.

Drought Tolerant Traits In future corn and soybean crops will be available which will be more efficient in using available water resources. Pioneer is about to launch their first drought tolerant corn in USA. These products will help in providing yield stability in areas with limited water supply.

Efficiency Traits Several seed companies are now developing traits that allows the crop plants to better utilize the available nitrogen. Fertilizer is the key and expensive input and lot of nitrogen get percolated or washed away and is not fully utilized by the plants. So any trait which can increase the efficiency of fertilizer uptake will help the growers to reduce the cost of crop production.

SmartStax, the trait combination developed by Monsanto and Dow Agro Science is a stack of eight different genes including herbicide tolerant and insect protection traits in a single product. It will offer protection with multiple mode of actions in a single product in aboveground and below ground insects. Companies are continuously searching new genes with new modes of action and even new sources of insect toxins.

YIELD ENHANCEMENT Modifying Yield Potential Starch biosynthesis plays an important role in plant metabolism. ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (ADPGPP) is a critical enzyme for regulating starch biosynthesis in plant tissues. Starch biosynthesis and dry matter accumulation were enhanced in Potato tubers of plants transformed with glgC gene from E.coli encoding ADPGPP enzyme. The glgC gene has been introduced in Rice also and the yield potential of these lines is being evaluated.

Herbicide Tolerant Traits Herbicide tolerant trait played a significant role in the agronomy of many crops. Presently 90% of soybeans and 70% 0f the corn is planted using the herbicide tolerant trait. With this trait, No-till cultivation is possible which will not only solve the problem of soil structure alterations due to extensive ploughing but also protect the fauna and flora of soil. With the crop residue in the soils, the organic matter is improving

Oct. -- Dec. Dec. 2011 2011 Oct.

The transfer of C4 traits into C3 rice is also being explored. A maize gene encoding for Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) which catalyses the initial fixation of CO2 in C4 plants is introduced in the rice lines. The rice plants showed high expression

of maize genes and also exhibited reduced O2 inhibition of photosynthesis.

laws already are restricting the free movement of germplasm which is the backbone of seed industry. The bi-technology regulatory laws are also generating some issues in developing technologies. If the ambiguity in implementing these laws remain than it will certainly slow down the technology intervention in crop improvements. The new trade laws which are going to come near future will determine the future growth path of the seed industry. Open and congenial legal environment certainly going to contribute significantly in future growth of the seed industry in future.

Male Sterility System The male sterility system which is being used in Brassica napus by Bayer is a really valuable in improving hybridisation in crops where male sterility systems are either not available or not stable or restoration of fertility is an issue. The Barnase-Barstar system is also being tried in other crops to diversify the male sterility sources.

New Technologies to Control Viruses To control the multiplication of viruses in the host plants the technologies like RNAi and miRNA are being developed. These technologies will provide durable solution to control some of the difficult viruses where resistant sources within the crop species are not available or difficult to transfer.

Development of International Seed Trade The globalization and development of international seed trade will also contribute towards the growth of Indian seed industry. The seed production and shuttle breeding will further bring the global seed industry closer. Many MNC's are producing seeds in many countries and also doing breeding of a crop in many countries.

Protection and Regulatory Laws The protection, regulatory and trade laws will significantly contribute towards the growth of seed industry. The protection laws like Plant Variety Protection and Patents will ensure the proper compensation to the innovators. Broad based protection and patents on the contrary will affect the future growth of the breeding companies. The CBD

Oct. - Dec. 2011

With the seed market expanding globally and also in India, bigger investments will come in R&D by the private players and that will be the key driver in promoting the seed industry in India.

Growth of Hybrid Vegetable Seed Industry in India: Progress towards a Bright Future - N. Anand, Namdhari Seeds Pvt. Ltd. The hybrid vegetable seed industry in India is estimated to be around 1000 Cr ($ 200 M) and including OPs it is approximated to be in the region of 1800 Cr ($ 350 M). This dramatic increase in hybrid seed usage in vegetable crops that occurred during a short span of about 30-35 years is indeed a remarkable achievement for a developing economy. India is the second largest producer of vegetables with around 105 MT. from an area of 6 M ha. This constitutes 15% of world's production coming out of 2.8% of cropped area of the country. It holds the first position in total crop production in chillies (dry), onion, gourds, egg plant and okra; second in cabbage, pumpkin, cauliflower, green peas, and third in tomatoes. Although the average yields per unit area in India are not striking due to many marginal farmers, but progressive growers harvest over 40-45 tons per acre of tomato. These figures would compare with the best in outdoor production in other parts of the world. This would also be an indication of the potential yields and how with appropriate improved agronomic practices the average yields can be stepped up.

and SAUs. It was in the 70's that tomato and capsicum hybrids were first introduced and demonstrated to the growers. The advantages were apparent and glaring. The intelligent Indian vegetable growers did not miss the opportunity. Simultaneously seed production using hand emasculation and pollination was standardized and seed villages organized for contract hybrid seed production. The few companies that entered this trade relied on hybrids bred and developed abroad but tested and selected for marketing in India. Hybrids were subsequently introduced in other vegetable crops too like chillies, cauliflower, brinjal, okra, watermelon and melons. Initial releases in these crops were also through direct introductions. During the 80's some of the Indian companies decided to embark on development of breeding programs through locally recruited talent. The decision paid off with hybrids in tomato, chillies, watermelon and melons entering the arena successfully. The hybrids developed had better adaptability besides being grower friendly and satisfying the needs of the consumers. This led to rapid switch over from OPs to hybrids across the subcontinent. Major reasons for the success and

The vegetable consumption in India has shown an upward trend and the major reasons include: (i) majority of Indians are vegetarians and the non vegetarians also consume significant quantities of vegetables (ii) the per capita cereal consumption shows a slight downward trend while that of vegetables is on the increase, a shift in food usage (iii) India is the second largest producer of vegetable crops (iv) rapid shift in demography towards the middle class who have better purchasing power, (v) increasing migration to cities with changing food habits. The Indian agricultural scenario shows preponderance of small farmers. It is estimated that 80% of the farms are less than 2 hectares. The growers opt for vegetables growing since they are more remunerative than cereal crops. Prior to 80's when the usage of hybrids was not widespread the growers were taking up improved OPs for cultivation. These were mostly from public institutions like ICAR

Oct. - Dec. 2011

widespread adoption of hybrids by the growers included higher and continuous harvests, improved fruit attributes like firmness leading to better transport qualities, better fruit characteristics, adaptability, etc. The liberalization of seed imports in 1988 was a landmark. Import of high quality seeds of vegetable crops hybrids including OPs in cauliflower, carrot, beetroot, etc was permitted and made available to the growers and the consumers were also the beneficiaries with healthier produce reaching their tables. Table1: Estimated Market Size and Value of Vegetable Seeds (Domestic Market) Crop

Estimated Volume (Kg)

Estimate Market Value (Cr)

Estimate Market Value$ (M)

Regular (dual purpose) Tomato TYLCV

12,000

12.5

Regular Non TYLCV Tomato

20,000

11.5

Acidic TYLCV Tomato

25,000

9.6

Acidic Non TYLCV Tomato

10,000

1.9

Chilli Pepper

70,000

140

26.9

Watermelon

120,000

10.4

Musk Melon

15,000

2.3

Okra F1

1,500,000

150

28.8

Ridge Gourd

50,000

2.9

Bitter Gourd

100,000

5.8

Bottle Gourd

120,000

3.7

Cabbage

50,000

10.6

Cauliflower

50,000

17.3

Cucumber

40,000

6.2

Eggplant

50,000

4.8

Sponge Gourd

30,000

1.3

Carrot

30,000

3.3

Pumpkin

40,000

1.9

Capsicum

4,000

3.5

Radish

140,000

1.4

866

166

Total

Largest value of hybrids seed sales is estimated to be through tomato 185 Cr ($ 36 M). This is a crop on which considerable efforts have been devoted to developing varieties to suit market needs. It was determinate plant with earliness and oval fruits, firm and medium sized with good transport qualities that caught the attention of growers and traders. The growing demands in urban areas and the possibility of transporting long distances required continuous cropping in the same geographical area. This resulted in rapid spread of TLCV. Hybrids with resistance were developed and introduced by private companies. As the virulence of the pathogen changed the companies were quick to develop hybrids with increased levels of resistance. The two major segments comprises are oval and oblate (acidic). In the oval segment the TLCV resistant hybrids accounts for 12 t valued at 65 Cr ($ 13 M) while the regular segment (non TLCV) is worth 60 Cr ($ 12 M) (20 t). During the last decade there has been a rapid raise in the demand for TLCV resistant hybrids since incidence of the disease is widespread and more area is also grown under tomatoes. By employing hybrids with TLCV resistance in summer the growers earn as much as 3 - 4 lakh/ac. Similarly the volumes of hybrid seed sold in acidic segment with TLCV resistance is 25 t as against normal hybrids similar fruited (10 t). The seed price in general, of acidic hybrids is considerably less than the ovals. In this segment the resistant hybrids are priced 80% higher than the normal. The reasons could be that the oval fruits are transported over longer distances, stays longer on the shelf and more over is grown under higher input conditions. Acidic types are grown widely under low input, marginal farming sometimes under rain fed conditions. The pointer that the growers are willing to pay for better products (in this case resistance) is evident. The breeders have responded with a variety of products in either segment with requisite resistances. The new threat to tomato cultivation is posed by GBNV. It is rapidly spreading in the southern states. The loss could be as high as 100%. There is an immediate need for developing hybrids with resistance to this virus In addition to TLCV. PPP programs could benefit all.

Okra, a traditional Indian vegetable widely preferred all over India has shown, probably the swiftest climb

Tomato 185 Cr ($ 36 M), okra 150 Cr ($ 29 M), chilli 140 Cr ($ 27 M) and cauliflower 90 Cr ($ 17 M) top the list of hybrid seeds marketed in India (Table-1). All these crops have shown a steady increase in volumes over the years. Crops like gherkin hybrid seeds valued 25 Cr ($ 4.8 M) have not been included in the above list. Although OP vegetables sold in India have not been listed, substantial quantities of carrots, beet root and coriander are imported and sold by the companies.

Oct. - Dec. 2011

in hybrid seed sales during the last five years. Hybrids were slow to make a mark since resistance to viruses was mandatory. Presently nearly 1500 t of hybrid seeds are marketed in India. It is imperative that the hybrids developed are resistant to YVMV and ELCV. Developing hybrids with combined stable resistance to these viral diseases in the background of heat tolerance coupled with male sterility to aid seed production will significantly transform the landscape of this crop with more conversion from OPs to hybrids. This yet another area wherein PPP programs with the Public institutes doing through pre breeding and marker development can go a long way.

Watermelon: It is one of the most popular vegetables consumed as a fruit. The hybrids have almost wholly taken over the OP market. While the large sized Jubilee patterned hybrid has been dominating the scene a welcome development has been the successful introduction of ice box types which weigh 3kg each fit for a small house hold. Known to be a summer crop, it is now cultivated during kharif and rabi seasons to escape diseases. Wilt and bud necrosis (a viral disease) are the major diseases and continue to haunt the growers. Intensified efforts on development of resistant hybrids will have rich rewards for the growers and the seed companies. One of the ways in the interim to overcome wilt would be through grafting onto to resistant rootstocks. With the advent of transplant nurseries this is a possibility. Seedless triploids will be a boon to the consumers. Work on varietal development, requisite seed production technology, educating the growers on specialized growing skills and above all focused marketing efforts will be necessary to successfully launch triploids in Indian markets.

Chilli occupies the largest area under the crops listed above. This crop is grown under a wide range of agro-climatic conditions including rainfed systems and is widely segmented, a result of regional preferences over the years. Hybrids could be broadly classified into green (for fresh market) and for red (dry). In the former category a number of segments exist depending on the length, shape, immature colour, wall smoothness and levels of pungency (measured as Scoville units). In the red dry category the size of the fruit, colour (measured as capsanthin), drying qualities differentiate the segments. Breeders have successfully developed hybrids suited to the different market needs satisfying the consumers, growers, traders and the industry (in case of red dry). The advantages conferred by the hybrids include higher yields, better uniformity of produce. Virus resistance is getting to be important, predominantly caused by CVMV, CMV and more recently TLCV. Some of the companies use male sterility and the advantages include ease in seed production, security of parental line besides crop uniformity. The scope to increase the share of hybrids in this crop exists and this is expected through resistances to viruses and fruit rot. It is also expected that there will be consolidation of some of the segments especially in green fresh wherein the demands from the cities will be important. A long awaited development would be a successful hybrid in the Byadagi segment, a widely grown OP variety in North Karnataka.

Melon: India is a land of diversity of this crop. Although widely cultivated in India, the hybrids are popular in N W states growing cantaloupe type of melon, netted and with salmon flesh. Galia type in Maharashtra and white fleshed yellow skinned Amarillos in A.P. have made some headway. A versatile hybrid with extra sweetness, good transport qualities, earliness, grower friendly, virus and Fusarium wilt resistant will have a chance to make greater inroads. Major markets are cities in the northern belt that the growing areas need to cater; efforts to popularize this fruit vegetable in southern cities will have a positive impact on growing areas and seed demands. Cucumber: A traditional Indian vegetable (Asiatic cucumber), this is widely cultivated over length and breadth of India. India is a center of diversity of this crop and therefore a myriad forms are cultivated in different regions. The green long with specks is the major preference of the growers. In Maharashtra, Puneri Khira and Himangi types which are short and white is popular. In all these segments hybrids have promptly taken over the OPs and the hybrid market is continuing to grow. Resistance to viruses and heat tolerance need to be incorporated into the hybrids besides catering to the consumer preferences in terms of fruit size and skin colour. There is also a niche market for beit alpha hybrids that is popular in Middle East. Developing such hybrids suited to this sub continent and to be grown in net houses / green houses will provide space for high value cucumber seeds. Gherkin is an important item processed for export. Gherkin (pickling cucumber) hybrids are widely grown in the southern states contracted

Cauliflower: An introduced crop and yet a home for early cauliflowers. Subsequently it spread all over India with varieties to suit different seasons. Very early, early, mid season and late cauliflowers are grown in one part of the country or another, thus making available curds round the year in the cities. The southern states are dominated by hybrids (of different maturity groups). North is a major market for this vegetable and transition from Ops to F1s is well under way. The hybrids sold are mostly by Japanese, Korean and European companies. Some of the Indian breeders have successfully launched hybrids (early category) developed and seeds produced in India.

Oct. - Dec. 2011

by the processing industries. Gherkin hybrid seeds are imported and the estimated value of 25 Cr ($ 4.8 M). There is scope to develop hybrids suited to the tropics with better adaptability and resistance to downy mildew and viruses.

More recently Nantes hybrids have found popularity in the hills of southern India (30t) the major advantages being uniform high quality produce standing to rains and non cracking. Kuroda hybrids could succeed in the plains of this peninsula with good adaptability and suited to year round growing.

Indian gourds: This group includes bitter gourd, bottle gourd, ridge gourd, sponge gourd. A decade ago these crops were dominated by OPs. Breeding efforts by the private companies saw hybrids emerging and dominating the scene. The market needs especially in bitter gourds vary from small dark early hybrids to long green or even white and these have been successfully addressed by the breeders. The advantages in gourds hybrids are earliness, higher and more continuous yields, uniform and attractive produce. The market potential is immense and ways to economise seed production costs will be a boon.

Seed Production: The Indian vegetable seed industry has made a mark in hybrid seed production. Dry season production (rabi) is successful for tomato and khariff season for cucurbits. Efforts were made to establish seed villages and contract seed production since 70s and 80s. It is astonishing to note that the major portion of the quantities of solanaceous crops, cucurbits, okra, egg plants besides gourds are produced in India. Table 2 - Total Acreage Under F1 Vegetable Seed Production (domestic Market) Crop

Tomato

0.4

1787

Watermelon

120

2400

Chilli

0.4

933

Melon

0.5

250

1500

0.5-1.0

50-100

15000

Brinjal

0.5

625

Cucumber

0.5

667

Ridge gourd

0.5

500

Bitter gourd

100

0.5

1000

Bottle gourd

120

0.5-1.0

100-200

640

Total

1410

Okra

23802

In all it is estimated that the area under hybrid seed production (for domestic market) will be in the region of 25,000 ac. In addition to this, hybrid seed production for export is also undertaken in crops like cucumber, squash, melons, tomato, eggplant, etc. Modern agro techniques like drip, plastic mulch, fertigation, etc are being widely adopted by the growers thanks also to the subsidies from the Government. New areas have been added to the traditional areas and efforts are being explored to widen the production bases. The basic issues that confront hybrid vegetable seed production include increasing costs, lack of trained man power especially pollinators, competition from remunerative commercial crops, pressure of pests and diseases due to continuous cropping, etc. A major benefit offered by this activity is rural labour employment. More modern structures like net houses and green house production have also come into vogue for high value seeds like sweet peppers, indeterminate tomato, etc.

Heat tolerance besides resistance/tolerance to gummy stem blight, powdery mildew, downy mildew will be key research areas for the future.

Cabbage: One of the earliest successes with hybrids was in this crop and during the initial phase of hybrid popularization. The market is almost completely saturated with hybrids. Segmentation (depending on size and shape) in different areas over time has remained constant. Hybrids with good adaptability and black rot tolerance besides earliness have advantages in market penetration.

Carrots: Kuroda type of carrots with OPs made a dent in the market. The volumes traded are huge.

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Domestic Unit Avg yield/ Total area (t) production plot (kg) (ac) plot (ac)

A glimpse into the future reveals a bright prospect for Indian vegetable seed industry. There is likely to be substantial increases in hybrid seed usage in crops like okra and cucumber especially with value addition. In crops like tomato, chillies and watermelon incorporation of traits like disease resistance is bound to reflect in better crops and profitability to the farmers albeit higher seed prices. In general usage of hybrids in gourds is likely to show an upward trend. In many instances local varieties have been converted to hybrids which are easily accepted in the market. Carrot hybrids are expected to increase their share, while marginal increases are expected in cauliflower. Capsicums targeted for tropics and sub tropics with tolerance to viruses will make inroads in the market. Overall, adaptability in the hybrids will hold major advantage. Credit goes to the Indian seed industry for providing the quality seed at one of the lowest prices in the world seed market which could happen only due to the in house research by seed companies and seed production within the country.

tomato could make an impact. Interest in greenhouse crop cultivation will continue and we need to gear up in development of hybrids in tomato, peppers and beit alpha cucumbers. Use of male sterility in crops wherever possible will make seed production easier and needs to be pursued vigorously. More modern techniques like marker assisted selection will help shortening the gestation period required in variety development. Efforts and resources in this area will be essential.

Developmental Activities : Varieties in brinjal with Bt have been developed and await clearance from the Government. Release of Bt brinjal for commercial cultivation will open up the doors for entry of GM vegetables and will be a pointer for the industry in opting for further investments in GM research. It would be wise to help impart training to develop the transplant nurseries with better knowledge to grow seedlings free of pests and diseases. Grafting in watermelon to overcome wilt is a short term solution in this crop and this may require training personnel in transplant nurseries. Efforts are also needed to guide and improve the agro techniques to exploit the inherent potential of the hybrids. The industry can also plan to showcase greenhouse and net house growing to the resource rich growers since the area under protected cultivation is expected to grow in this country.

Research Front: Disease resistance will be an important focus for the breeders. PPP model with the public institutes taking up identification of source of resistance and pre-breeding while the private breeders develop breeding lines with horticultural qualities and eventually turning them into hybrids would be an ideal situation. Most breeding companies are devoting considerable resources in equipping disease screening techniques. It is important to breed hybrids with stable resistant gene(s). Abiotic stress tolerance is also turning out to be an important area for research. Scarcity of water leading to development of hybrids with better water use efficiency/drought tolerance and heat tolerant hybrids to enable growers to take up remunerative crops in summer would be important. The input costs of fertilizers are increasing and therefore development of hybrids with better nutrient use efficiency thus, maintaining yields under even low input regimes would benefit the growers. Onion hybrids with earliness, uniformity, tolerance to diseases and above all with storage qualities are bound to be a major triumph. Specialty products in melons, watermelons with yellow and orange flesh, beit alpha cucumber, colored peppers and cherry

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Seed Production: Development of new areas for hybrid seed production is vital. Training of manpower in this direction is another important goal. Seed production under both low cost protected structures and greenhouses is essential. It is important to place the right crops in these structures with a clear vision on the cost benefit ratios worked out. The hybrid vegetable seed industry in India has been swiftly growing. This is evident from the linear growth and development witnessed during the last three decades. As a consequence a number of new companies have emerged comprising of large Indian as well as multinational companies investing in research. The vegetable seed industry is destined to reach greater heights with the major aim being 'increasing the quality of life of vegetable growers.'

Private Public Partnership for Seed Security

R.R. Hanchinal, Nadaf H.L. and Vijayakumar A.G UAS Dharwad

Introduction: Agriculture plays a significant role in economics of developed as well as developing countries with 2.7 billion people worldwide dependent on agriculture. Apart from being a source of income and livelihood, agriculture is also a source of raw materials for industry and national income in many developing countries. It is estimated that about 30% of the GDP in Africa and South East Asia, 20% in East Asia and the Pacific and 10% in Central Asia, Latin America and Caribbean comes from agriculture. The availability of seed plays a crucial role in transferring other agricultural technologies at the field level. In other words, availability of seed of an improved variety/hybrid at planting time determines the crop production potential; hence seed plays a crucial role in food production capacity at household as well as national level.

was responsible for increase in production during last two decades may be hindered due to non availability of cultivable land for further expansion. Hence to achieve four per cent growth in agriculture, the alternative left with us is the vertical growth in the production, which is possible only through use of quality seeds of proven varieties/hybrids. It has been proved beyond doubt that the quality seed of improved varieties can alone increase the crop yields to the extent of 15-20 per cent over the old and obsolete varieties. It is also well recognized that the production of quality seed meeting the prescribed standards of genetic and physical purity, seed health, vigor, viability and storability are specialized and scientifically based activities requiring focused attention.

Seed is the basic, vital and central input in agriculture and in all farming systems. The timely availability of quality seed of the right variety/hybrid in adequate quantity decides the strength and health of an agricultural economy. Quality seeds appropriate to different agro-climatic conditions and in sufficient quantity at affordable prices are required to raise crop productivity. Availability and use of quality seed is not a onetime affair. Sustained increase in agriculture production and productivity necessarily requires continuous development of improved crop varieties/hybrids and efficient system of production and supply of seeds to farmers.

Production of adequate quantity of breeder seed is one of the major responsibilities of National Agricultural Research System to meet the recurring demand of breeder seed of seed industry for production of foundation and certified seeds. This responsibility is shouldered by Indian Council of Agricultural Research at its Research Institutions along with sate Agricultural Universities. With the advancement of development of high yielding crops varieties and hybrids, the demand for breeder seed is increasing year after year. To cope up with the increasing demand /responsibility of breeder seed, the Council created Breeder Seed Production Units in almost all the State Agricultural Universities and crop based ICAR institutes under the AICRP National Seed Projects (Crops) in the year 1979-80. Accordingly the Breeder Seed Production Project came in to existence at UAS, Dharwad during 1979-80 as a part of erstwhile UAS, Bangalore. During 1998-99 voluntary centre for conducting Seed Technological Research was started.

Despite a huge institutional frame work for seed production both in the public and private sector, availability of good quality seeds continues to be a problem for the farmers. As a result, they prefer to rely on farm saved seeds. Seed replacement rate continues to remain in the range of 2-10 per cent in certain states for certain crops, which is much below the desired level of 20 percent for most crops. As it is well known that, seed replacement rate has strong positive correlation with the productivity and production of crops, there is a need to rejuvenate the seed sector through revamping the public sector seed companies, including the state seed corporations and other viable seed supply systems. In addition, it is necessary to develop a regional capability to restore seed systems in response to periodic disaster and emergency situations. The expansion in area under different crops which hitherto Oct. - Dec. 2011

In pursuit of providing professional service to the farming community in the 12 northern districts of Karnataka state, in modernizing agriculture, the College of Agriculture was established in 1947 by the erstwhile Bombay State Government at the Agricultural Research Station, Dharwad about 8 km away from the present University campus. With reorganization of states of India during 1956, the college came under the administrative control of the Department of Agriculture, Mysore State (later named as Karnataka State). The College was affiliated to Bombay University soon after its formation and then to Karnataka University, Dharwad in 1950. It became the constituent college of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore in 1965 and then came under the purview of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad with effect from 1st October 1986, and the day on which a separate University for the northern Karnataka region was formed. The University has multi-fold functions of teaching, research, extension and seed production in the field of agricultural and allied sciences. The University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad covers 28% of the geographical, 27% of total cultivate and 14% of the irrigated area in the State, spreading across 7 districts of northern Karnataka.

Sl.

Group of crops

Number of No. varieties/hybrids released

Cereals and millets

Oilseeds

Pulses

Commercial crops

Fodder crops

Horticultural crops

Total

154

Table 1

and other national and international agencies, the financial outlay under research has increased from Rs. 10 crores to Rs. 129 crores within a period of a decade. University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad is one of the pioneering institute in the country with laudable achievements in crop improvement. A total number of 154 improved crop varieties/hybrids have been developed/identified and released for cultivation.

Improved crop varieties/hybrids released from UAS, Dharwad

A number of agricultural, horticultural and plantation crops represent the rich heritage of the area. There are three major irrigation projects, viz., Upper Krishna, Malaprabha and Ghataprabha, which provide irrigation of about 9 lakhs ha, accounting for 29 per cent of the total cultivated area. The region is endowed with wide diversity in climate, soils and crops. Out of 10 agro climatic zones in Karnataka, the University covers three agro-climatic zones, viz., Northern Dry Zone, Northern Transitional Zone and Hilly Zone.

Realizing the importance of quality seed in agricultural production, University started a separate independent Seed Unit at University head quarter in 1996 with Special Officer (Seeds) as administrative head and twelve Agricultural Research Stations were recognized and brought under administrative control of Special Officer (Seeds) for seed production of different crops and also to undertake research activities related to seed production and technology including post harvest technology research. The irrigation facilities have been created so that the seed production can be taken up in all the seasons with assured production. The total area of seed farms together with area in the university head quarters accounts for 409.08 ha. These Seed Farms act as a satellite stations for production of breeder seeds and other classes of seeds.

Research needs of the farmers are catered through 25 Agricultural Research Stations through spread across diverse agro-ecosystems, 28 AICRPs (All India Coordinated Research projects) and 258 externally funded Adhoc Research Projects. As a result of adhoc research projects funded by ICAR, DST, DBT, BRNS, GOI, GOK

The Seed Unit has the following mandates Ÿ To produce adequate quantities of nucleus, breeder,

foundation and certified/TL seeds of high quality as per national and state requirement Ÿ To maintain the genetic purity of crops varieties

/parental lines of hybrids and planting materials Ÿ To generate basic information on seed certification

standards including seed health Ÿ To make linkage with crop improvement projects,

seed industry, seed certification agencies, NGO's KVK's and farmers. Ÿ To

establish public-private, national and international linkages for strengthening seed

Oct. - Dec. 2011

production and seed research

improved varieties and hybrids is grossly inadequate and is one of the major constraints for enhancing production. The studies made by several workers very clearly indicate that in high volume- low value seeds, predominantly the farmers are using farm saved seeds resulting in about 80 per cent of the area sown with farm saved seeds of old and obsolete varieties. It is more so in crops like groundnut, soybean, chickpea etc. as seed cost alone accounts for 50 per cent of the total cost of cultivation.

타 To augment seed research/production programme to

make it relevant to the needs of farming community. 타 of farming community. 타 To disseminate information through trainings on

seed production, processing, storage and packaging, quality control and seed health and conducting demonstrations and field day.

ACTIVITIES OF SEED UNIT Maintenance of Varieties

During last two decades number of varieties/hybrids has been developed in different field crops which have sown 10 to 40 per cent yield superiority over local cultivars and some possess better resistance to insects and diseases. With the exception of high value - low volume seeds, the seed production of low value high volume crops is primarily left with public sector agencies due to the bulky nature of most of the self pollinated crops, more investment on infrastructure and less remuneration.

Production of nucleus seed

Production of Parental seeds

Production of foundation seed Cer eals, millets, minor millets, pulses, oilseeds, commercial crops, forage crops, vegetables, fruits, ornamentals, spices, medicinal & aromatic plants

Production of breeder seed

Production of UAS SEED

Production of certified seed

Micropropagation & production of seedlings/ planting material

Production of Organic seed

Seed quality testing

Seed processing & storage

To boost the productivity of such low value-high volume crops, farmers need to have access to improved seeds of the right type, at the right time, at the right place and at a reasonable price. For the supply of such seeds, the informal seed sector (farmer managed seed systems) and the formal seed system (seed enterprises) have a great role to play. The informal seed sector is found to be effective in quickly reaching out to the difficult, inaccessible, small holder pockets and would be a sound alternative for entrepreneurs to gradually evolve into the formal enterprises.

Human resource development

MAINTENANCE BREEDING Seed Multiplication System at UAS, Dharwad

SEED SUPPLY SYSTEMS Nucleus Seed

Formal sector

A S

Breeder Seed S E

Foundation Seed

Private sector companies

E D

Certified Seed

For popularizing newly developed varieties and promoting seed production of these varieties, seed minikits of pioneering seed varieties will be supplied to farmers. Seed exchange among farmers and seed producers will be encouraged to popularize new/non traditional varieties. Seeds of newly developed varieties must be made available to farmers with minimum time gap. In this regard seed producing agencies will be encouraged to tie up with Research Institutions for popularization and commercialization of these varieties.

I T

Farmer's participatory seed production. India is one of the few countries where the seed sector has parallely advanced along with the agricultural productivity. However, availability of quality seed of Oct. - Dec. 2011

Farm saved seed

U N

TL Seed

Land Government systems agencies trading and exchanges

Informal sector

Seed Unit Scientists visit seed production plots of each village regularly with 10-15 days interval and provide technical guidance to the farmers regarding seed production during the crop growth. During the crop season, the training programmes are organized to educate the farmers on seed production skills. The Seed Mela's are also organized by inviting all the farmers of that village and of nearby villages to make them aware about improved varieties, importance of quality seed in getting increased yield and disseminating information regarding availability of seed. The seed thus produced is purchased by the University to the extent of 70-80 percent for distribution under various government programmes. The remaining 20-30 percent of the quality seeds left with the seed producing farmers under this programme will be encouraged to distribute the seed to their relative/ neighborers/ other fellow farmers within and outside villages to saturate the nearby areas with quality seeds.

“Seed Village” concept The gap between requirement of quality seeds for the state and their supply rate is large. The supply of seeds by the public sector organizations and private agencies is insufficient to bridge the gap. The gap may be reduced by involving the end users i.e farmers in the production of quality seeds. A group of farmers or villages will be identified under “Seed Village” concept to produce a particular crop/variety. Villages with a potential of producing seeds will be identified around the research stations for easier and quality multiplication of varieties of different crops. The main objective of the seed-village programme is to involve farmers in seed production and there by make quality seed available at a reasonable price. Another objective is to demonstrate and saturate selected potential villages with improved varieties/hybrid seeds of major crops. The implementation of this programme by UAS, Dharwad in Karnataka has been most successful and this concept has been adopted by other institutes at all India basis as “Dharwad Model”. With this concept the University could produce large quantity of quality seeds. University Scientists monitors such activities in all stages of seed production. This activity provided employment to seed growers and to several other villagers for seed processing, bagging and distribution.

Under 'Seed Village' concept, besides the aim of popularization of improved varieties/production technologies, the client (Public - private seed industry /seed indenter) oriented seed production is also undertaken. During the production programme, innovative techniques viz., seed treatment with bioagents, pest controls through IPM/bio-agent are addressed to minimize the cultivation cost. The training on post harvest handling of produce is also arranged. Since the Scientists are visiting the seed villages regularly, the problems faced by the farmers in the crop production of other crops are also addressed. This system enables to develop intimate Scientistfarmer relationship thus resulting in efficient transfer of implementable new technologies including varieties/ hybrids and feed back of new problems to initiate research. In few villages, the farmers established the 'Seed Growers Associations' for strengthening the seed production activities.

For implementation of seed production under Seed Village concept, villages with high potential of production are selected. Before the start of the programmes, through a training programme, villagers are educated about the 'Seed Village' concept and its importance in disseminating the improved production technologies and saturating with quality seeds. Secondly, the University supplies genetically pure seeds of improved varieties on credit/ exchange basis. Thirdly, the breeders of respective crops along with

Year

No. of varieties promoted

No. of villages adopted

No. of farmers involved

Seed produced (q)

2003-04

237

2320

2004-05

450

12687

2005-06

594

18239

2006-07

711

31736

2007-08

1074

55870

2008-09

115

873

32750

2009-10

115

538

23872

Total

185

430

3939

177474

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Custom seed production for public / private seed organization

which would have not reached their if no such linkage exists. The technologies available with either public or private agencies are reaching farmers fields at increased pace and immediate feedback to verity their technologies it they are not well accepted by the farmers or consumers. Some of the public or private agencies may not have infrastructure for proper evaluation of their technologies for further commercialization, but this platform provides such a opportunity to establish efficient linkages. Therefore, there is a need to promote and strengthen such public-public or public-private linkages in the larger interest of the farming community for quick transfer and beneficial technologies to reap their benefits.

UAS, Dharwad has already started implementing the benefit sharing of the University bred products with the public sector and private sector seed companies. Already MOU have been implemented to transfer Btgene into varieties of public/private company varieties, licensing the best hybrids developed by the UASD, licensing of UASD parent for development of hybrid, licensing of best combiner for the development of Bthybrid of public / private companies etc. There seems to be tremendous potential to develop the seed links programmes of public/ private sector. This helps in developing / strengthening research resources and adequate resource income to University.

Seeds required for various government schemes like ISOPOM, OPP, fodder crops seed supply by Government of India, Cotton Micro Mission etc have also been produced and supplied not only to Karnataka state but also to other neighboring states like Andhra Pradesh., Maharashtra, and Gujarat and even to Madhya Pradesh state.

UAS, Dharwad has also ventured into contractual seed production for public/private organizations. Some of the public organizations like Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, India Institute of Horticultural Research, Bangalore have very good research strength and developed many improved varieties/hybrids in different field crops and horticultural crops. However, such organizations lack in field facilities for seed production and distribution. The custom seed production of with such public organizations has helped us to produce and distribute large quantity of seeds of improved varieties/hybrid of field crops and horticultural crops.

Future Vision UAS, Dharwad has the vision to reach the farmers of all the districts of Karnataka with quality seeds of improved varieties/hybrids in some selected seed villages through which they can spread to major cultivated area within short period. This would help in enhancing seed replacement rates to increase productivity of major crops. Karnataka state especially northern part has diverse climate, soil and other natural sources suitable to grow wide ofcia of crops for seed production and distribution.

MOU has also been made with public/private seed corporations/companies like MSSC Ltd., IndoAmerican Hybrids Seeds Co. Ltd for production and supply of foundation and certified seeds of field and vegetable crops. It has benefited many seed production farmers and also the farmers who have used such quality seeds.

Thus, there are many productive regions identified for seed production of field crops, vegetables etc. viz. Ranebennur, Bellary, Yelburga, Bagalkot etc. such potential areas with suitable natural resources can be identified and infrastructurally developed to make them â&#x20AC;&#x153;National Gridsâ&#x20AC;? to meet the seed demand of neighboring states and other regions of nation and to export to other countries to earn foreign exchange. Providing leadership role at state level aiming at seed quality security and capacity building at national level and to become role model with innovative ideas and technologies.

In such public-private partnerships, all the stake holders including the farmers and consumers are benefited because farmers/consumers are provided with better choices of improved varieties /hybrids

In the light of WTO era, our farmers need to be trained in seed/planting material production of high value crops with export potential. The stringent standards can be met with our intervention and quality assurance. We are well equipped with advanced technologies and modern equipments to handle quality assurance of GM crops that would cover more area in the coming years. The Seed Testing Laboratory established will be a created to ISTA, which will help in testing of seeds for international trade.

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Nucleus seed production Sl. No. Crops

Quantity produced (q) 2000-01 2001-02

2002-03

2003-04

2004-05 2005-06

2006-07

2007-08

2008-09

2009-10

Cereals

13.17

13.60

14.87

18.19

20.76

62.75

55.75

44.90

44.20

19.15

Pulses

9.23

9.18

10.08

9.38

22.51

51.95

52.50

20.10

17.30

14.00

Oil seeds

18.86

122.50

297.99

325.60

403.09

726.30

407.88

830.18

867.48

558.08

Fibre crops Total

0.64

0.82

0.86

0.82

0.75

0.82

0.42

0.82

41.90

146.10

323.80

353.99

447.18

841.75

516.95

896.00

929.40

592.05

Production (q)

1000 800 600 400 200 0 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10

25000 20000 15000 10000 5000 0 2000-01

2001-02

2002-03

2003-04

2004-05

2005-06

2006-07

2007-08

2008-09

2009-10

Breeder Seed Production Sl. No. Crops

Quantity produced (q) 2000-01

2001-02

2002-03

2003-04

2004-05

2005-06

2006-07

2007-08

2008-09

2009-10

Cereals

225.51

363.00

266.48

366.45

572.60

1132.00

1066.41

1232.84

908.15

729.00

Pulses

226.55

188.42

288.00

315.00

344.80

355.30

424.05

603.39

812.71

638.70

Oil seeds

588.80

1351.70

3287.00

5388.10

6406.39

9431.10 10246.39 11363.63

8543.40

6997.65

Fibre crops

1342.00

13.58

43.65

30.51

2.47

10.00

Total

2382.86

1916.70

3885.13

6113.20

7354.30 10953.25 11738.42 13217.67 10266.73

8375.35

34.85

1.57

17.81

Foundation Seed Production Sl. No. Crops

Quantity produced (q) 2000-01

2001-02

2002-03

2003-04

2004-05

2005-06

2006-07

2007-08

2008-09

2009-10

Cereals

30.82

154.00

178.06

270.00

625.00

857.00

418.00

1088.00

629.00

281.00

Pulses

7.00

20.00

484.00

200.00

137.40

150.00

225.00

239.00

165.00

225.00

Oil seeds

11.60

59.00

985.73

240.00

1436.00

3263.00

1095.00

943.00

779.00

1440.00

Fibre crops

8.94

18.70

49.00

4.30

1.31

18.00

15.00

0.00

Vegetable crops 0.00 Total

Oct. -- Dec. Dec. 2011 2011 Oct.

58.36

0.00

14.10

3.00

251.70

1696.79

714.30

2199.71

4302.10

1753.00

2270.00

1573.00

1949.00

18 1

Production (q)

5000.00 4000.00 3000.00 2000.00 1000.00 0.00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10

Certified / TL Seed Production Sl. No. Crops

Quantity produced (q) 2000-01

2001-02

2002-03

2003-04

2004-05 2005-06

2006-07

2008-09

2009-10

8650.00 13222.36

7446.70

Cereals

650.00

137.00

1850.00

1050.00

584.00

Pulses

250.00

325.00

335.00

235.00

185.00

Oil seeds

300.00

320.00

385.00

880.00

Fibre crops

10.00

195.00

150.00

60.00

38.00

810.00

1500.00

50.00

337.00

0.00

Vegetable crops

9.00

30.00

45.00

150.00

255.00

315.00

641.80

351.30

365.00

203.50

Other crops

0.00

390.00

200.00

246.00

55.00

47.00

1219.00

1007.00

2765.00

2375.00

Total

8543.00 10829.90

2007-08

908.00

3040.10

1795.00

7737.00 29170.00 47428.80 53263.30 43421.86 23156.20

Pro d u c t io n ( q )

50000.00 40000.00 30000.00 20000.00 10000.00 0.00

Oct. -- Dec. Dec. 2011 2011 Oct.

2001-02

2002-03 2003-04

245.00

6675.00 18204.00 31217.00 42171.00 28608.00 15214.00

60000.00

2000-01

834.50

2004-05

19 1

2005-06

2006-07

2007-08

2008-09

2009-10

Innovative Triggers for Growth of Indian Seed Industry Malavika Dadlani, Vilas A. Tonapi and Arun Kumar M.B - IARI, New Delhi

Preamble

the size and scope of industry, leading research and development efforts through the convergence of breeding and biotechnology, and continued financial discipline are the real growth drivers that will fuel the strategic growth engine of the seed industry in the coming decades.

Innovation creates business opportunities for an organization and growth for the industry as a whole. Explicitly, innovations in organizations happen through policies, technologies and science led applications. The organized seed sector of India has evolved over the last 50 years by adopting and innovating upon the scientific advancements made in the areas of variety development and quality seed production. Realising the role of scientific innovations, more than 100 seed companies obtained government recognition for their R&D units. The industry's interest is also evident from the fact that several Indian seed companies have introduced GM trait in their germplasm and also investing in innovative biotechnology research. Thus, the agriculture in India has been growing steadily with strong support from research institutions and impetus from the government through various initiatives. Agro-based sectors that have witnessed strong private participation in the industry include seeds, fertilizer, farm equipments, warehousing, cold chains, food processing and organic foods. The development of seed market in the last decade has been with special emphasis on the growth of the agro-biotech sector.

Continued Innovations in Seed Policies and Regulatory Environment The first new seed policy which was introduced in India in 1988, led to significant changes in the structure and regulation of the country's seed industry (Ramaswami 2002). The policy envisaged and brought in relaxed seed trade norms within India; reduced import restrictions on germplasm, seed (and planting material), and seed-processing equipment; and encouraged foreign company participation in the seed industry. The policy opened the door for private investment in high-value hybrids for vegetables, cereals, and cotton. The New Industrial Policy of 1991 further relaxed restrictions over India's seed industry by permitting foreign direct investment and technology transfers, while the Export and Import Policy of 20022007 lifted the restrictions on exports of all cultivated (other than wild varieties) seeds except for jute and onion. The National Seed Policy of 2002 proposed a regulatory framework for access to quality seeds through vibrant and responsible seed industry. IT is aimed to increase percent share of India in the global seed trade to 10 percent by the year 2020 by establishing and strengthening the Seeds Export Promotion Zones (AGRICOOP 2002). The proposed Seeds Bill of 2010 aims to further regulate the quality of marketed seed in India by compulsory registration, replacing the Seeds Act of 1966 and Seed Control Order of 1983. The salient features of the proposed bill include mandatory registration of all varieties; registration of seed producers, dealers, and horticulture nurseries; certification of seeds by self and other accredited

The major challenges faced by the Indian farmers are poor profitability due to cost constraints, fragmentation of land and erratic monsoons. Thereafter, the ability to continually discover, develop and deliver products that matter to farmers, meeting customer expectations for traits and performance on an integrated business platform with respect to field crops and vegetables determines the success of seed industry. The real expansion of scale across both crop platforms and geographies provides in the global scenario. Leveraging

Oct. - Dec. 2011

agencies; compensation to farmers for under performance of registered seeds; and penalties for selling substandard seeds and giving false information. In 2001, in line with the TRIPS guidelines, the government passed the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act (PPV&FR Act) with the objective of (1) providing an effective system for protection of plant varieties; (2) protecting the rights of farmers and plant breeders; (3) encouraging the development of new varieties of plants; (4) stimulating R&D investment and seed industry growth; and (5) ensuring the availability of high-quality seeds and planting materials to farmers. The PPV&FR Act provides for protection of novel and extant varieties. Also, since 2002, India has been a party to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which, in harmony with the CBD, aims at the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of their use. Impact of these regulations on germplasm exchange, a key component in the R&D of new varieties, and private R&D investment for crop improvement is still to be seen. The National Food Security Mission launched in 2007 aims to increase production of rice, wheat, and pulses in India. Whereas the strategies of the mission include area expansion and productivity enhancements for wheat and pulses, no area expansion is planned for rice. Instead, for rice, the mission promotes productivity-enhancing technologies such as hybrid rice and a system of rice intensification.

present and future challenges in agriculture production and productivity as well as innovative seed enhancement technologies are expected to have positive impact on the growth of country's seed industry. In India, the acceptance of 'Biotechnology' as a powerful technology option for human welfare in early 80's and the implementation of 'New Seed Policy' in 1988, by the Government of India encouraged the private sector to invest in the R&D in seed industry which tiggered and its growth. The release of Bt-cotton for the commercial cultivation in 2002 has revolutionized the seed business and helped in the growth of the seed industry through the investment of many national and multinational seed companies in Bt-cotton research and its seed business. As a result of this, by 2006-07, India overtook USA to become the second largest cotton producing country in the world, after China. Currently, of the estimated 9.6 million hectares of cotton in India, around 90% is under Bt-cotton hybrids, which transformed India from a cotton importer to a major exporter. Notwithstanding the reservations in some nongovernmental organizations/public fora etc., on the commercial release of GM crops, intensive research is underway in several crops to address the problems of extreme biotic and abiotic stress conditions as well as to cope up with the nutritional imbalences, through genetic manipulation. In this endeavor, many genes that could be utilized for enhancing the crop performance under stress conditions (viz., heat, flood, drought, salinity, etc.,) were identified and cloned (Table 1). Introgression of such transgenic traits/genes in crop plants requires huge investments, but can help in the growth of seed industry.In India, both public (ICAR and SAUs and other public research institutions) and private (national and multinational seed companies) institutions have made huge investments in R&D and have come up with transgenic crops that are in different stages of contained/restricted/confined trials (http://igmoris.nic.in/multiLocReTrail.asp). These developments are expected to give a boost to the Indian seed industry in the coming years. To hasten the process of identifying the suitable genes for conferring tolerance to specific stresses, a viable partnership between the public and private R&D institutions in genotyping and phenotyping of the large collections of germplasm held by these respectively, can be one of the most important drivers for the industry's growth.

Biotechnology and Climate Resilient Agriculture In the present scenario of addressing the issues related to 'climate change and sustainable agriculture', seed is gaining even greater importance globally. Seed acts as a vehicle to transfer the technological advances in plant genetics, biotechnological interventions, physiological modulations, pesticidal treatments and other physical manipulations to physiology, agronomy into agriculture production. Seed serves this purpose effectively only when it has high quality, that helps in proper field establishment of the crop under diverse environmental conditions. This has created new opportunities in seed business aiming for enhancing the seed performance through quality enhancement, conditioning, priming and pelleting / coating with beneficial nutrients, growth promoters, micro organisms and /or crop protection chemicals. Thus, the innovative technologies developed to address the

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Table 1:Regulatory Genes Used for Enhancing Drought Tolerance of Plants (Hussain, 2011) Gene

Species

Phenotype

DREB2/DREB3

Wheat and barley

Drought and frost tolerance

OsWRKY45

Arabidopsis

Drought tolerance

SodERF3

Tobacco

Increased tolerance to droughtand osmotic stresses

OsiSAP8

Rice/Tobacco

Tolerance to Drought, salt and cold stresses

OsCIPK01

Rice

Drought, cold and salt tolerance

OsMYB3R-2

Arabidopsis

Drought, salt, freezing tolerance

HvCBF4

Rice

Drought, salt chilling tolerance

AREB1/ABF2

Arabidopsis

Dehydration tolerance

ZmDREB1A

Arabidopsis

Desiccation tolerance

ASR1

Tobacco

Decreased water loss; salt tolerance

DREB1A

Wheat

Delayed wilting under drought stress

ALDH3

Arabidopsis

Tolerance to dehydration, NaCl, heavy metals

OsCDPK7

Rice

Drought/salinity tolerance Thus, the technologies like seed conditioning or processing, seed0 protection (seed treatments with pesticides), physiological enhancement of seeds (priming) and seed coating/pelleting etc. are concerned under the purview of this new branch. In the recent past, the advances in biological and engineering sciences and collaboration among the scientists on a common seed platform has led to the invention and application of several new technologies for enhancing the quality of the seeds. Such second generation seed treatment technologies will also be critical growth drivers of seed industry in the coming years. Some such technologies are given below:

Boosting seed's natural properties and Promotion of value addition and Value chain Though the cost of seed may only constitute <5 to 10% of the total cost of agriculture production, this determines the effective contribution of all other components in agriculture and the success or failure of production. Hence, ensuring the highest achievable standard of seed quality in the ultimate goal of the seed producers, irrespective of the minimum seed quality standards. Seed being a living entity is bound to deteriorate and losses its vigour and viabilty (performance potential under less favorable conditions) during storage. Even though seed deterioration is inevitable, its rate (the speed at which deterioration takes place) could be slowed down through different technological interventions like seed conditioning, seed processing, seed packing and controlled atmospheric storage. Similarly, the vigour of low and medium vigour seeds could be enhanced through different techniques like seed priming, seed coating and pelleting and seed treatments. The progress in such technologies over the period has led to the emergence of a new sub branch under seed technology, which is broadly defined as "Seed Quality Enhancement".

Oct. - Dec. 2011

The invention of drying beads helps to dry seeds to the required moisture content (even to below 5%) in a comparatively short time. These drying beads are made of zeolite clay that has pore spaces of 1Ă&#x2026;, which selectively absorbs only water molecules from the atmosphere and hence reduces the RH without raising the temperature. For this, drying beads and seeds are kept together in an airtight container/chamber and left for a pre-determined period of time depending on the required seed MC to be attained. As the Drying Beads (DB) create a ?w inside the container, the hygroscopic seeds lose moisture till it reaches equilibrium moisture content (EMC) and attains the required MC. In addition to being effective desiccant, the drying beads have advantage that it can be recharged, reused and could attain the required MC in a

comparatively short time. The chemically inert DB offers enormous potential in making seed drying effective and economical. 2.

Thermal Seed Treatment is being commercially exploited in many countries. The basic principle exploited here is the fact that normally, the seed borne pathogens have lower heat tolerance than the seeds. Under thermal seed treatment, the seeds are exposed to hot humid air for a very short span of time and are immediately cooled back. This kills the seed borne pathogens like Ustilagotritici, U. avenae, U. nuda and several saprophytic fungi without affecting the seeds viability. If left unused (carry over stock) such seed lots can be used for other purposes. However, such treatments require precise regulation of temperature as well as exposure time, to avoid killing the seeds. Also, certain species, which are poor storer, may not be suitable for such treatments.

Polymer Coating improving the flowability and efficacy of seed protectants. The flowability and the ballistic properties of the seed are important parameters of quality, in precision agriculture. Coating seeds with inert synthetic polymers provide an effective way to improve the physical attributes of the seed with respect to its flowability, appearance and overall marketability. Most of the seed protectants (insecticides and pesticides), when coated in dry powder form, are lost as dust during seed treatment, storage and handling. This not only reduces the pesticide retention, and its efficacy, but also is harmful to the users. Due to improved efficacy of the applied pesticides, the polymers coating also reduces the dosage of the pesticides to be delivered with seed and which helps in differential (layer) coating of the seeds with pesticides, bio-fertilizers, growth stimulating hormones, micronutrients etc. Sequential coating is a modification of polymer coating technology which integrates priming, biofortification and pesticidal treatments in a predetermined sequence, keeping the compatibility of different components and ease of application, in mind. As a result of this, the planting value of the seed is maximised through enhanced vigour (priming), better pest protection (pesticidal treatment), better utrient management (biofertilizers, micronutrients) and precision in planting (polymer coating/pelleting). The number and sequence of applications are decided as per the crop and planting needs.

Intellicoat速 Technology is a US patented polymerbased technology used for controlling the time of seed germination through seed coating and is invented and commercialized by US based company 'Landec Corporation'. It is based on the Intelimer速polymers, which differ from other polymers in that they can be customized to abruptly change their physical characteristics when heated or cooled througha pre-set temperature switch. By coating the seeds with Intelimer速 polymers that have required pre-set temperature switch mechanism and helps to control the time of seed germination when coated on seeds. Throughthis technology the synchronization problem of parental lines in hybrid seed production could be overcome. Besides, this technology also helps in relay cropping system.

Magnetic Treatment an effective seed stimulus. Treating the seeds in a magnetic field for a predetermined period has shown enhancement of the seed vigour. Even though the benefits of magnetic stimulation as biological systems is old and well known, it has not been exploited

Mixture of rice seeds with drying beads. Source: http://www.ajofai.info 3.

Electron dense seed coating treatment is an alternative to pesticide seed treatment, which disinfects the seeds from storage insects as well as fungi. In this treatment the seeds are passed through the electron generators, as a result of which a thick electron coating is formed on the surface of the seeds that kills the insects, its eggs and fungi. It also slows down seed deterioration by quenching the active free radicals inside. This technology is being commercially exploited for storing the food grains. In case of carrot, this technology has been shown to control the Alternariadauci and A. radicina without affecting the germination performance of the seeds. Like thermal treatment, this technology also has great potential in storing food grains, without affecting quality and safety for consumption by human/animal/bird etc. However, development in large-scale electron generators needs to be created at affordable cost.

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Effectiveness of thermoseed treatment in controlling the seed borne diseases in different crops, Treatment effect Thermoseed速

Crop

Pathogen

Wheat (Spring and winter)

Tillalia Caries Stagonospora nodorurn Ustilago tritici Fusarium spp. Fusarium nivale Fusarium culmorum

(common bun.) (leaf and glume blotch) (loose Smut)

+ + +

(Snow mold)

+ +

Drechslera graminca Drechslera teres Bipolaris sorokiniana Fusarium spp. Ustilago nuda Ustilago hordsi

(leaf stripe) (nel bloch)

(loose smut) (Covered smul)

+ + + +* +

Oats

Drechslera avenae Ustlago avenae

(leaf spot) (losse smut)

Rice

Magnaporthe grisca Cochiobolus / riyabeanus Gibberella fujikuroi

Barley

+ + + + +

+- Effects equivalent to chemical seed treatment: -= Limited effect +- Limited experience with highly infected seed

Source: http://thermoseed.com

Seed coats that facilitate the seed germination at a specified soil temperatures Source: http://www.intellicoat.com

Effectiveness of polymer coating in delivering the bio active chemicals (insecticides, fungicides and growth enhancing chemicals) Source: http://www.incotec.com

Oct. - Dec. 2011

commercially mainly because of the operational difficulties of the technology for treating large quantities/ volume of seeds. Several studies have shown that exposing low vigour old seeds to a magnetic field of 100-200 mT for a short period (1-4 h) can significantly improve germination, vigour and growth of the seedling, thus indicating the potential use of this technology, particularly for carry-over seed stocks, which may otherwise get wasted if the germination falls below the standard even by < 5%. Hence, there is a requirement of bringing the biological scientists and engineers on a common platform to device a workable solution for this. 7.

Microwave Energy Treatment technology is being commercially adopted for disinfecting the food grains from storage insects like Triboliumcastaneum, Sitophilusoryzae, S. zeamais, S. granaries, etc. This particular technology holds a lot of promise for its application as seed treatment provided the duration and suitable intensity of microwave radiation can be worked out that disinfects the seeds without affecting its viability. Some preliminary studies have shown beneficial effects of microwave treatments for breaking the hard seededness and release of dormancy.

Cold Plasma Coating: This technology still is in its infancy stage wherein the seeds could be coated with different (hydrophobic/hydrophilic) gaseous polymers under high energy and low temperature. Under such conditions the gases attain the plasma state and get coated on the seed surface. Application of this technology has been shown to control the speed of germination in maize and soybean. However more in-depth studies are needed before applying this technology commercially for seed quality enhancement.

Physiological Enhancement of Seeds: Enhancing the physiological status of the seeds through priming/pre-germination/midterm hydration manifests into high vigour status of the seeds. The major problem associated with these technologies

Oct. - Dec. 2011

is that the treated seeds can't be stored for longer period as they lose the desiccation tolerance during the treatment. This problem was overcome to some extent in pre-germinated seeds, where in after the radicle emergence, the seeds are induced desiccation tolerance by exposing them to low temperature/incubation in PEG. After which such seeds could be dried back to normal moisture content and stored for nearly six months under ambient conditions. This technology has been granted US patent to Sandoz Ltd. (Basel, CH) in 1996. 10. Molecular Impulse Response (MIR) is a patented, non-chemical, energy-based seed enhancement. Marketed under the trade name "StressGuard速", it can provide improved tolerance to drought and flood, heat and cold, acid soil, and other stress effects, often increasing germination, accelerating maturity, and raising yields. Weak seed lots can often be improved, and there is no maximum shelf life for the seed. MIR uses an extremely low energy electron shower to create a short-term rise in free radical levels inside the cells of the seed. This causes the cell's natural defenses to produce more anti-oxidants. These disable the free radicals, and leave the cell with less free radicals and more antioxidants than before the process began. (In principle, it is comparable to the way a vaccination or inoculation works for disease.) Now the cell is better able to resist these damaging free radicals in the future. Since virtually all environmental stresses do their damage at the cell level primarily by increasing free radicals, MIR produces a seed and subsequent plant that is better able to resist the damaging effects of stress. Common results of this include better early and late vigor, increased uniformity, accelerated maturity, and better yields. Since no foreign material is added to the seed, it is ideal for use in organic agriculture. 11. Seed Quality Enhancement through application of biological agents to crop seeds focus on rootcolonizing bacteria, commonly known as rhizobacteria. PGPR comprise those rhizobacteria that induce beneficial effects on plants during colonization. Benefits of PGPR include promotion of plant growth and biological control of plant diseases. In addition to causing yield increases, specific PGPR often induce early season growth promotion that can be manifested in various forms, including enhanced seedling emergence, increased biomass of roots and/or foliage, and earlier flowering. Biocontrol may result from disease escape, as in the case of enhanced seedling emergence in the presence of seedling diseases. With nematodes and some other root-infecting

pathogens, biocontrol may result from tolerance when a given plant has a larger root system. More research has been conducted on the pseudomonads, despite their poor survival in commercial formulations. In contrast, the bacilli form endospores, which are tolerant of heat and desiccation, thereby giving the bacteria prolonged viability in many formulations. Flowable seed treatments (FS) provide superior adherence but require hydrolytically stable and insoluble actives. New product developments like gels offer easy application, homogeneous distribution, high uniformity and high standards of safety. Continuous working at optimised formulations and new formulation types will lead to products with increased biological activity and seed safety.

dryland areas, where farmer saved seeds had been predominant, can assist in a big way in improving crop yields in India and developing countries. Rapid adoption of biotech crops by smallholder farmers is a business opportunity for organised seed sector to harness the largely untapped areas in the rainfed ecosystem to garner multifold profits for the seed industry. Contrary to the general perception that ~70% farmers use their own farm-saved seeds in majority of the low value high volume crops viz., wheat and rice, a recent study (2011) showed that in Haryana only 12% seed are farm-saved, ~74% purchased from private agencies and the rest from the public/Govt. Agencies. This clearly indicates that the farmers are receptive and willing to adopt new varieties/hybrids if better gains are assured. Molecular breeding has much potential in development of new varieties, but Improvements in seed systems are vital for improved crop genetics to reach farmers. It is, therefore, essential to enhance the uptake and diffusion of trait specific lines and quality certified seed to farming communities in order to boost crop productivity. However, the mechanism of seed delivery had been predominantly public sector driven and a more effective and sustainable private sector approach needs to be pursued seriously.

12. Molecular Manipulations: Regulations of gene expressions offer great potential to achieve high performance of the seed through enhanced vigour, imposition and release of dormancy as desired and also to acquire or induce resistance against pests and pathogens. Regulated synthesis of specific polypeptides by employing gene switches, acquisition of systemic resistance through application of certain chemicals (ASR) or induction of the plant's defense mechanism (ISR) by certain microorganisms or the application of artificial seed coat, are some such futuristic technologies, which are going to be applied more and more in coming years.

Enabled IPRs and Policies of PublicPrivate Partnership in Sharing Value Added Germplasm for Crop Genetic Improvement

Creating Markets in Remote Areas by Improving Access to Trait Specific Varieties and Quality Seeds

IPRs are a means of promoting innovation by granting innovators with temporary access to market power over a technology product to accrue profits and recoup their investment in research and development (R&D). In the agricultural sector, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the protection of IPRs have influenced private investment in R&D as intended, particularly with respect to crop genetic improvement. Hybrids are the key form of biological IPR in agriculture. Since the yield gains conferred by heterosis tend to decline dramatically after the first generation (F1) of seed, the farmers purchase new F1 seed each season to continually capture such yield gains. However, hybridization does not necessarily provide protection to organizations/breeders of new hybrids from competitors who can access parent seed in various ways and then sell "look-alike" hybrids. Protection of plant varieties including the parental lines under the PPV&FR Act, 2001, provides safeguard to such misappropriation.

The availability and access to certified seed of improved varieties can increase crop yields up to 30 percent. Certified seed also guarantees other added benefits such as cleaned seed that is free from weed and diseased grains and pure seed that is not contaminated with seeds of other crops or varieties. Agricultural biotechnology enabled trait specific varieties for

Recent advances in genetics have made it possible to limit seed usage by farmers in different ways. A technology known as V-GURT, for example, renders the subsequent generation of seed sterile, thus preventing

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Ÿ Introduction of new and potent trait specific seed

farmers from saving seed without remuneration to the innovator. Similarly, T-GURT restricts the use of a particular trait integrated into the seed such that expression of the trait can only be turned on by the external application of a (usually, chemical) inducer, thus requiring farmers to purchase the seed-cuminducer package from the innovator. To date, none of these GURT technologies are permitted in the seed market owing to their potential adverse impact on biodiversity, farmers' rights and other social concerns, and most companies have placed a moratorium on development (FAO 2001). In addition to incentivizing private investment, IPRs can facilitate rapid movement of germplasm, a critical component in plant breeding and crop improvement. Biological IPRs can play a role in wide and timely dissemination of improved seeds, which may also lead to increased productivity in farmers' fields. As is evident from Bt cotton, IPR regimes will contribute to increasing agricultural productivity and improving food security. Hence more and more stacked gene products and trait specified hybrids and varieties are need of the hour to usher in food and nutritional security, and these products will be the growth drivers of seed industry in India.

technologies Ÿ Increased adoption of hybrids in field and vegetable

crops Ÿ Precision in production technology Ÿ Investment to innovate and create value for the

farmers and better Science communication Ÿ "Conducive regulatory environment through Ÿ -Minimal regulation and better compliance Ÿ -Freedom to link price with 'value to customers' Ÿ -Harmonization

of various laws and Uniform enactment of central laws across all states

Ÿ -Encouragement, through financial incentives, for

investment in infrastructure Ÿ Creating successful public private partnerships Ÿ Capacity building for better quality assurance Ÿ Introduction of new seed bill and compulsory

Epilogue

registration of varieties to weed out duplicate vars. and discourage unscrupulous players

The business advantage offered by hybrids is not enough to encourage private investment in all crops. There is need to enhance both by the industry and governmental agencies investment in upstream science and technology as well as business development. Quality-based monetary incentives by the government can also be introduced. In conclusion, the prime growth drivers for Indian seed industry will be:

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Ÿ Streamlining of regulatory processes to accelerate

the development and introduction of new GM technology Ÿ Robust PPP models to better serve the farmers by

removing the various productivity constraints through technological interventions

Future Growth Drivers for Indian Seed Industry

Pramod K Agrawal Prasha Agri-Consultants Pvt. Ltd.

Abstract There are about 500 seed companies in India belonging to public and private sectors. The combined turnover of seed industry is estimated to be Rs. 15,000 croes in 2011. Out of which Rs 13,000 crores comes from crop seed and Rs. 2,000 crores from vegetable seeds. It places India at 3rd position in the world after china where as IFS (2010) has put India at 6th position (1.5 billion dollars= Rs 675 crores, one US$= Rs. 45). Various Indian authors also estimated Indian seed industry turnover as Rs 6000 to 8000 crores. According to the present estimate we are at 3rd position in the World when only 25% of the required seed is sold through organized sector. If it is increased to 40-50% we may be number one in the world. And we have capability to be number one. The seed industry took a big leap forward after the commercialization of Bt cotton in 2002. Having seen the success of Bt gene, many companies are looking for incorporating useful trait in their products for commercialization. But so far success eluded the companies. It is hoped that round-up ready flex gene may be commercialized in 2012. Technology for value addition in products have become a central point for product development. However development of technology and its integration in products are expensive, a cost small companies can not afford. Paddy and maize are expected to drive further the growth of Indian seed industry. Paddy occupies 44 million hectare in India. In 2011 the turnover from paddy is calculated to be about Rs 2000 crores, and it may reach to about Rs 4000 crores by 2016. Similarly maize turnover presently is about Rs 700 crores which could be doubled in next 4 years. Area in maize, being a C4 crop, may increase to mitigate the impact of climate change.

was only company which (Established in 1912) was selling seed in paper pouch of flower and vegetable seeds in its own brand. In late 1950's on Government of India request The Rockefeller Foundation and USDA provide technical support to strengthen plant breeding research. Consequently first 4 maize hybrids were released in 1961 which changed the seed scene in India. The National Seeds Corporation Ltd. was established in 1963 primarily to produce the foundation seed of released Maize, Bajra and Sorghum hybrids. It may be said that it was the beginning of the evolution of organized seed industry in India. Plant breeding research for improvement of varieties was conducted primarily by public sector organizations i.e. agricultural universities and Indian Council of Agricultural Research's (ICAR) institutes. The germplasm was stored and preserved by these organizations and was freely available on demand. In 1988 a questionnaire was sent to 42 private seed companies to review the status of Plant Breeding Research and only 12 responded. According to the survey no private company had plant breeding activity before 1947. Between 1948 to 1970 only 3 companies started plant breeding research whereas between 1971 to 1985 6 companies started plant breeding research ( P K Agrawal, 1988, Plant Breeding and Breeder Seed Production: A case Study, Division of Seed Science and Technology, IARI, New Delhi, pages 21). However the scene changed dramatically and private sector companies are now an active player in Plant Breeding Research. These companies spent about 8-10%of their turn over on research. Private Sectors are paying attention primarily on development of hybrid varieties (it makes business sense), in some cases on open pollinated research varieties of Paddy, Wheat and Soybean also. Where as the public sector State seed Corporation concentrated on high volume low value seeds of self

Background Seed industry before 1960 was primarily an unorganized sector and whatever seed was sold was non -branded. Farmers were using their own saved seed for planting and most of the cultivars were non-hybrid. The business was primarily family owned. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Suttonâ&#x20AC;? Oct. - Dec. 2011

pollinated crops . The contribution of private sector in overall turn over of seed started increasing rapidly.

were also established from this loan money. All these development, no doubt, changed the seed sector considerably. It was estimated in 1988 that the turnover of 4 hybrids seed, namely sorghum, pearl millet, maize and cotton was Rs 100 crores (P K Agrawal, 1988, Seed Tech News, Vol 18, number 1) which in 2011 increased to about Rs 5000 crores, a 50 times increase.

It was realized that quality seed is a vital input for increasing food production. It was also realized that the potential for the use of quality seed is big and the infrastructure for seed production, certification, quality assurance and marketing is very limited. So was the investment for the development of seed sector. Therefore, the Government of India took some bold decision which are following:

The scenario changed in 2002 with the introduction of Bt Cotton in India. Increased usage of Hybrid Bt cotton seeds throughout the country resulted in productivity increase of 39% from 308 kg/hectare (2001 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 02) to 568 kg/hectare (2009 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 10, ISAAA, 2009, brief # 41). And it put India as the second largest producer of cotton in the world

To allot Breeder Seed of public bred varieties/hybrids to private sector for the production of foundation and commercial seed. A new seed policy was announced (1988), after the then Prime Minister Mr. Rajiv Gandhi visit to Turkey. Under it, import of Germplasm was allowed. Also foreign investors were allowed to establish equity participation up to 51% in priority sectors (from July1991), including seed sector. This resulted in entry of MNC in seed business in India.

There are more than 30 companies which have licensing agreement with Mahyco Monsanto Biotech India Ltd. (MMB) to access Bt gene for use. It brought about a change in psyche of Indian farmers who now view seed as an investment rather than cost. The seed cost as compared to the total cost of cultivation is low and it is estimated to be not more than 8%. This change in psyche has opened up a host of opportunities for the Indian seed companies which now aim to extend the success story of cotton to other crops by introducing researched and improved varieties of seeds.

The Government of India invited the World Bank, Washington, DC, USA for a loan to strengthen infrastructure for seed production. It resulted in establishing 33 breeders seed production units which provided adequate facilities to produce breeder seed for production of foundation and certified/truthful labeled seed. Private sector expanded rapidly. State Seed Corporations and State Seed Certification agencies

The adoption of Bt cotton was very rapid in India and the success story is unparallel. So far 780 Bt cotton approved for cultivation ( 779 hybrids + 1 variety) up to 2010. It involves 6 cotton events.

Table 1. Events Approved for Use for Commercial Bt Cotton Seed Production

Source: ISAAA, 2009

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Out of several events listed in the above table, most popular are MON 531 and MON 15985 (gene source: MMB) , most of the cotton hybrids which are sold in the market are transformed using the above two events.

has been increased incidence of sucking pest attack due to dense plant canopy. It is therefore suggested to design appropriate plant architecture with sympodial branches.

It is estimated that 86% of total cotton cultivated out of 11 million hectares is planted by Bt cotton ( Bhagirath Choudhary & Kadambari Gaur, 2010, ISAAA). It is believed that 3.6 crores packet (One packet is of 450 gm) of Bt cotton was sold during 2011 planting season.

Indian Seed Industry Turn Over Indian Seed Industry is a vibrant industry. It consists of players from public and private sectors. Public Sector companies sells mostly varieties which are high volume low value seeds. While private sector companies deals in low volume high value seeds which are hybrids. There are about 500 seed companies in India, some of them have very good facilities for research and spent about 8-10% of their turn over on research,

The fact that Bt cotton has saturated almost 90% of India's cotton area also arouses serious concern regarding the scope of expansion of this technology in the country. However, an innovative agronomic approach holds great promise in further yield enhancement. Multi location trials conducted in 3 different states of India (Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka) for 2 years revealed that even at varied between-row and between-plant spacing whereby the number of plants per acre was almost doubled, there were no significant reduction in per plant productivity. Rather, a 2-4 quintal /acre yield benefits were recorded owing to more plant per unit area. Hence, it is obvious that there is provision for increasing the crop seed rate from the recommended 450 gm/acre to even up to 700800 gm/acre seed rate, with the benefit of a much higher yield. Hence, the key to ensure progressive returns from such advanced technologies lie in development of innovative agronomic practices and using intelligently seed technological tools at the user end. However, there

Seed Industry turnover is estimated to be worth Rs 15,000.0 crores ( Pramod K Agrawal's estimate, 2011, Table 1) out of which Rs. 13,000 crores is of crop seeds and Rs. 2,000.0 crores is of vegetable seeds in 2011 (Fig., below ). It is almost double to what has been reported so far. There has been various reports that estimate Indian seed industry turn over as Re 6500 to Rs 8,000 crores (P S Dravid estimates is Rs. 6500 crores, Monish Jain: Rs. 8000 crores, {Indian Seed Congress 2011, Souvenir, Page 27, 113}, it is highly undervalued. The International Federation of Seedsmen estimates Indian seed industry turnover as US$ 1.50 billion and places it at 6th position in the World (IFS 2010). However, Rs 15,000 turn over ranks Indian seed industry at 3rd position (Rs. 45=one US$) in the World after China.

Table 2. Turn Over of Indian Seed Market (Estimate of Dr Pramod Agrawal, 2011)

Oct. - Dec. 2011

The turn over of Rs 15,000 crores is achieved when only about 25% of the required seed is supplied by organized sector. If it is increased to 40-50% we may be number one in the World so far as the turn over is concerned. India has the potential to be number one provided a massive extension work is done and seed companies tries to reach to â&#x20AC;&#x153;unreachable areasâ&#x20AC;? of the country. Fig 1: Estimated Turn Over of Indian Seed Industry in 2011 (Rs. Crores) {Pramod Aggarwal, 2011} The turn over comes from hybrids and self pollinated varieties including pulses. About one fifth turn over comes from hybrid Bt cotton.

Fig 2: Percentage Turn Over Seed Crop Segment to Total Turnover

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Verification of the Turn Over

Paddy

The turn over was then verified with the turn over of seed companies and state seed corporations, NSC and SFC, the verification number is given below:

Paddy is the most important staple food crop for more than half of the world's population. In fact, paddy is an important part of the staple diet in the six most populous countries - China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan & Nigeria - which together account for more than half of the global population addition (1.1% per annum) of 77 million people every year. It is believed that worldwide paddy production could catch up with the increasing demand by increasing usage of hybrid paddy seeds. Hybrid paddy yield's about 15% - 20% more than the commercial varieties and could hold the answer to food

타 There are about 500 seed companies in India, out of which 243 seed companies are members of NSAI (SSC are excluded), there is lack of authentic information on their turn over hence a guesstimate was done which gives a turn over of Rs. 10830 crores.

타 There are 15 State Seed Corporations (SSC), one NSC and one SFC. Their combined turnover is Rs. 3034 crores. By adding these two , turn over comes to Rs 13, 864 crores which is pretty close to Rs. 15,000 crores.

Growth Drivers Future growth drivers could be any crops if hybrid is p r o d u c e d w i t h y i e l d a d v a n t a g e . H o w e v e r, consideration the interest of the consumers and seed companies I would like to view Paddy as number one followed by Maize that would add to the top and bottom line of seed companies in coming decade provided: 1. Good Paddy hybrids is available which have the yield advantage and not based on 25A male sterile system. 2. The seed yield of these hybrids should be good (more than 1.5 tons/ha) so that the cost of seed production is reasonable. 3. Good paddy research varieties with excellent genetic purity and yield

security despite constraints such as decreasing land, water and labor availability.\

4. Good maize hybrids suitable to a wider geographical areas is available. 5.

These hybrids should have a wider appeal

these hybrids should be resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses.

Trait integration to add value

China was the first to achieve success in the hybrid rice when it commercially released the three-line rice hybrid for cultivation in 1976. In fact, this technology has enabled China to retain its position as the world leader in rice production even when records reveal significant reduction in total rice-growing acreage in China since 1978. Now, it is reaping the benefits of the two-line hybrid rice technology which has been successfully commercialized since 1995.

Cotton may also add to the future seed industry growth provided : 1.

plant type is changed to accommodate higher plant population,

sucking pest resistant hybrids are available

and support price/commercial price is competitive for farmers to grow more cotton. Government policies always influenced farmers choice for crop cultivation. Therefore it should be conducive to grow cotton (a non food crop).

India started concentrated efforts on hybrid rice development in 1989. Several hybrids from public and private sector are available for cultivation, with the private sector being the dominant player. In spite of the availability of several hybrids, a very limited area is under hybrid cultivation: about 1.8 million hectares out of about 44.0 million hectares (4.1%). One major reason for this low adoption is the unattractive yield advantage that this technology offers. It is a mere 1.0 to 1.5 tons/ha over varieties. Hence, currently the cultivation is restricted to few areas of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Haryana. There is a general lack of acceptability in southern parts of the country due

Considering the above logic I would like to justify the statements by giving some facts and figure about paddy and maize.

Oct. - Dec. 2011

to region specific grain quality requirements (the grain of our current rice hybrids are of sticky in nature where as consumer preference is of free flowing rice grain and grain has aroma which is not preferred in many parts of the country) and lack of sufficient yield advantage.

India is a major player in global paddy market. With about 44.0 million ha under paddy cultivation (highest in the world) India is the 2nd largest paddy producer next only to China. Interestingly, China has 33% less acreage but enjoys 35% higher paddy production as compared to India because of introduction in large acreage of hybrid varieties . The productivity for paddy in India has been stagnant at 3.3 ton/ha, less than half that of China. Therefore, there is need to conduct research on

It is expected that better hybrids will be evolved to give at least 3-4 tons yield/ha advantage over the research varieties with enhanced ability to fight drought and diseases. Our most of the hybrid rice is developed by using CMS or the 3 line system. CMS is 25A which provides stickiness to the grain. Therefore there is a need to find out a good alternative of 25A. If it is achieved the area under hybrid rice may touch 10-20% of the rice cultivated area in India in next 5 years Paddy acreage has grown from 30.0 million ha. (1950) to about 44.0 million ha (2000) in last five decades and have been stagnant at 44.0 million ha since last five years. Area in some of the states is given in the following table.

evolving better plant type

CMS line development

Seed production technology to obtain higher seed yield

Disease resistance

Agronomic research to enhance paddy production

Paddy seed turnover is calculated to be of Rs. 2180 crores in 2011. It could be increased to Rs 4,200 crores in next 4 years (Table 4) if 50% of the cultivated acreage is covered by research varieties and 10% by hybrid varieties. The seed requirement is given in the table 3.

Table 3: Paddy Acreage in Different States (Ministry of Agriculture, Govt. of India).

Table 4 . Paddy Seed Requirements (total hectare under Cultivation: 44 million) Note: It is assumed that about 50% area of paddy will be in research variety and 10% area will be in hybrid by 2016. S

Variety /Hybrid

% area under branded seed

Seed Require. for 50% of area, million hec

Seed Rate, kg / hec.

Total Seed requirement, Tons

Research

6 ,6 0 , 0 0 0

4 .4

6 6 ,0 0 0

No .

Variety 2

Hybrid

Therefore,marketforpaddyseedishuge.Andtheturnoverofpaddy isgiveninthe table4: Oct. - Dec. 2011

Table 5: Expected Value of the Paddy Seed Market by 2016. S.No

Seed Type

Expected need,

Selling Rate,

Value of the

Tons

Rs / Ton

Market, Rs. Crores

Resaerch

6 6 0 ,0 0 0

5 0 ,0 0 0

3300

6 6 ,0 0 0

1 ,5 0 ,0 0 0

990

T o tal

4290

Paddy 2

Paddy Hybrid

Note: Its turn over will surpass Bt cotton In order to achieve the turnover of Rs 4200 crores from paddy seed, attention for selling paddy seeds should be given to those areas where there is less penetration of quality paddy seeds/ and or there is a big scope of selling paddy seed ( Table 2)

Table 6: Maize area and production of few selected countries (FAOSTAT, 2009)

Maize

Country

Maize area, ha

Production, Mt

Yield, Mt/ha

World

159,531,007

817,110,509

5,12

USA

32,209,277

333,010,910

10.34

Argentina

2,337,175

13,121,380

5.61

China

30,478,998

163,118,097

5.35

Brazil

13,791,219

51,232,447

3.71

Mexico

7,200,000

20,202,600

2.81

India

8,400,000

17,300,000

2.06

Globally India has 4th largest acreage and 5th largest corn producer. Its yield is low, almost half to that of Argentina or China. Corn yield in USA is highest in the World and about 5 times to that of India. Therefore maize offers great opportunity to further enhance yields through hybrid varieties particularly with Single cross hybrids. Corn is grown in many states in India (Table 5) In 2010-11 corn was planted in 8.1 million hectare (Reuters) with a production of 16 million tons ( Bloomberg).

Maize (Corn) is the most cultivated grain in the world with the USA and China accounting for more than 60% of the global production. Over the past several years world supply has been unable to meet demand and this has been compounded by the ever increasing alternative uses of corn for production of motor fuel particularly in USA.

The concept of hybrid vigour was first commercially exploited in corn in USA. First commercial hybrid seed corn was sold in 1924 in USA by Henry Wallace. Seed Companies did a massive extension work in convincing farmers in USA to plant hybrids for better yield. It was not a cake walk. The substantially higher yield and mechanization-friendly plant characters led to extensive adoption of these cultivars in USA. The entry of still higher yielding and more uniform single cross maize hybrids, as compared to the initially developed double cross hybrids, led to the successful establishment of hybrid technology in agriculture, which was soon adopted in almost all other crops.

Global corn production has almost doubled over the last two decades from 400 million tons(1990) to 817 million ton (FAOSTAT, 2009) and average yields have gone up from 1.95 ton/ha. (1960) to 5.12 ton/ha. (FAOSTAT, 2009). This increase in productivity has been largely due to the introduction of single cross hybrids.

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Almost 40 years later the first hybrid maize seed was produced in 1961 and sold in India. The maize growing conditions are very different in India than USA. Area and production of maize in India is given in the table (Table 6) . The "States" has been arranged in the table

based on yield/ha. With almost 8 million ha of land under maize cultivation there is a great opportunity to enhance its production by innovative technology including agronomic and seed technology tools.

Table 7: Area, Production and Yield of Maize in different States of India (2008-09) {Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Department of Agriculture and Cooperation} State

Area mha

% to all India

Production m tons

% to All India

Yield, kg/ha

Andhra Pradesh

0.85

10.42

4.15

21.04

4873

Tamil Nadu

0.29

3.51

1.26

6.37

4389

West Bengal

0.09

1.11

0.34

1.74

3782

Punjab

0.15

1.85

0.51

2.60

3404

Karnataka

1.07

13.08

3.03

15.35

2833

Bihar

0.64

7.84

1.71

8.69

2676

Himachal Pradesh

0.30

3.64

0.68

3.43

2273

Jammu & Kashmir

0.32

3.86

0.63

3.21

2005

Rajasthan

1.05

12.88

1.83

9.27

1736

Uttar Pradesh

0.80

9.78

1.20

6.07

1499

Gujarat

0.50

6.10

0.74

3.75

1481

Jharkhand

0.22

2.64

0.30

1.54

1407

Madhya Pradesh

0.84

10.29

1.14

5.80

1361

Others

0.41

4.98

0.64

3.23

1560

All India

8.17

100.00

19.73

100.00

2414

Ÿ Brewery (1%)

Corn in India is used as ( Ref: Sai Kumar, Chikkappa and Manivannam, 2010, NSAI Magazine Oct. Dec, 2010)

Ÿ Seed (1%)

Ÿ Poultry feed (bulk user, about 49% of

One question which is frequently asked is whether Indian companies will be able to compete with the multinational seed companies operating in India with respect to maize research, seed production and sale. My thinking is that Indian and multinational seed companies may co-exist in this vast market available in India. Selling price of maize seed varies from Rs 50 to 250 per kg (Table 7)

production)

Ÿ Human Consumption (25%) Ÿ Animal Feed (12%) Ÿ Starch Industry (white corn) {12%}

Table 8. Approximate selling Price of Maize in India S No

Price segment

Selling Rate, Rs/Kg

Low Price: Composite, varieties etc.

40-70

Medium Price: Hybrids, double cross, 3 way cross etc

80-100

High Price, double cross, 3 way cross and Single cross

100-150

Premium Price: single Cross

150-250

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Of course MNC has a wide collection of germ plasm and a very massive research network. It provides them an edge but they are operating in premium price segment where as low, medium and high price segment is still available for Indian companies for which there is a vast acreage available. It is hoped that demand for corn seed is expected to be more than 30 mt by 2015 (Rath and Joshi, NSAI Magazine Oct.- Dec. 2010, page 24-25).

abiotic stresses , particularly drought, either by conventional breeding or biotechnological tools, offers particularly promise. Global warming is likely to aggravate the environmental stresses for wheat and rice in future (Ortiz et al, 2008,. Climate change : can wheat beat the heat? Agriculture, ecosystem and Environment 126,{1/2}:46-58). In this scenario maize a C4 plant may have an increased role in future agricultural landscape.

Incorporating tolerance against the main biotic and

A plant that utilizes the C4 carbon fixation pathway in which the CO2 is first bound to a phosphoenolpyruvate in mesophyll cell resulting in the formation of four-carbon compound (oxaloacetate) that is shuttled to the bundle sheath cell where it will be decarboxylated to liberate the CO2 to be utilized in the C3 pathway. A C4 plant is better adapted than a C3 plant in an environment with high daytime temperatures, intense sunlight, drought, or nitrogen or CO2 limitation. Most C4 plants have a special leaf anatomy (called Kranz anatomy) in which the vascular bundles are surrounded by bundle sheath cells. Upon fixation of CO2into a 4-carboncompound in the mesophyll cells, this compound is transported to the bundle sheath cells in which it is decarboxylated and the CO2is re-fixed via the C3 pathway. The enzyme involved in this process is PEP carboxylase. In this mechanism, the tendency of rubisco (the first enzyme in the Calvin cycle) to photorespire, or waste energy by using oxygen to break down carbon compounds to CO2, is minimized. Examples of C4 plants include maize, sorghum, sugarcane sunflower, broccoli etc. .

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Future Growth Drivers for Indian Seed Industry Background The Indian Seed Industry has come a long way since its inception with an establishment of National Seeds Corporation in 1963. The Seed Industry which was dominated by the Public Sector had exhibited a modest growth during the first 25 years reaching a turnover of about Rs.600 crores by 1987. The key growth driver during this period was ushering of green revolution leading to rapid conversion of area under high yielding varieties of rice and wheat coupled with introduction of hybrids in jowar, bajra, maize, cotton, sunflower and few vegetable crops. The compounded growth rate during this period averaged about 8% - 10% albeit on a very narrow base. Thereafter came the announcement of New Seed Policy in 1988, wherein the Government of India liberalized the sector by encouraging the seed industry to import seeds as well as technology, the entry of multinationals, the large Indian companies and establishing research and infrastructure by the private sector. This resulted in rapid growth in demand and supply of seeds, primarily in hybrid field as well as vegetable crops. The number of seed companies went up to almost 350-400 and the industry grew to a size of almost Rs.2,000 crores (by 2000) and Rs.2,500 crores (by 2002), thus having a growth rate of over 10% /p.a. during this period.

Growth Factors in the Last Decade During the last decade (2002-2011), the industry witnessed a further rapid growth of almost 12-15% p.a. on account of following factors: (i)

25% to 60%) resulted in increased demand for maize seeds. In terms of volumes, it went up from 27,500 MT to 90,000 MT (260% growth) and by value from Rs.65 crores to Rs.720 crores (more than 10 fold growth). (iii) There was initially a rapid growth in hybrid rice markets particularly in UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh etc. resulting in almost 7-8 fold increase in volumes as well as value. (iv) The markets for open pollinated varieties have also grow from Rs.1100 crores to Rs.2,600 cores as a result of increase in seed replacement rate. (v) As a result of increased usage of high value hybrid vegetable seeds so also increased acreage under vegetable crops, the market has grown from Rs.600 crores to Rs.1400 crores. Thus, the present industry size is estimated to be around Rs. 9000 crores reflecting a strong growth rate of 20% over the last year.

Composition of Market by Crops Segment Amongst the hybrid crops, Bt.Cotton commands major share followed by Hy. Maize, Rice, Bajra, Castor, Sunflower & Jowar. There has been insignificant hybridization in the other crops, even though small sales are reported in respect of Hy.Wheat, Mustard & Pegeonpea. Table 1 : Market Size for Hybrids of Field Crops Cotton in lakh pkts. Others in MTs Value in Crores

Introduction of transgenic Bt. Cotton in 2002 resulted into rapid switch over to Bt. Cotton hybrids, coupled with increase in area under cotton crop from 7.6 million ha. during 2002 to over 12.0 million ha. by 2011. Due to increased coverage under Bt. Cotton hybrids, the seed demand for hybrid cotton increased from 125 lakh pkts. to almost 400 lakh pkts. in terms of volume (220% growth) and in value terms from Rs.375 crores to Rs.3,200 crores (750% increase).

(ii) Introduction of single cross hybrids in maize and increased coverage under hybrid maize (from Oct. - Dec. 2011

P. S. Dravid J.K. Agrigenetics

Crop

Volume

Value

Cotton

400

3300

Maize

90,000

720

Rice

22,000

330

Bajra

15,000

220

Castor

5,000

125

Sunflower

3,000

100

Grain sorghum

6,000

Sorghum Sudan Grass

40,000

125

Others

---

30 5,000

willingness to invest in better technologies including improved seed had driven the growth of seed demand.

In case of OPVs, the market has grown to a level of almost Rs.2,600 crores. The major crops being Rice, Wheat, Soybean. (in crores) Crop

Volume

Value

Rice

4,50,000

900

Wheat

2,50,000

500

Soybean

2,15,000

500

Groundnut

45,000

100

Pulses

18,500

Mustard

8,200

Others

480

TOTAL

2,600

Future Growth Drivers The Indian agriculture is at the cross roads facing a major challenge of substantially increasing the yield by meeting the following three important goals:

타 Provide food, nutritional and water security for all. 타 Produce more food, feed and fibre with fewer natural resources like land, water and energy.

타 Drive inclusive growth that improves farmer's lives i.e. Generate income. Since there is a wide gap between the present average yield levels vis a vis potential and world's best yields, there is enormous potential for agricultural growth in India.

In case of vegetable seeds, the hybrid vegetable seed market is estimated to be Rs. 900 crores of which almost 80% comprises of Tomato, Chilli, Okra, Cabbage & Cauliflower. The market for open pollinated varieties is estimated to be Rs.500 crores, comprising of large number of crops.

Seed Industry would play a very crucial role towards closing this gap. Following factors can be considered to be the growth drivers for the industry in future.

Technological breakthroughs

Major Growth Drivers of Indian Seed Industry in Past

As in the past, technological breakthroughs will be one of the most important factors that would be influencing the growth of seed industry. Since multipronged approach is required for improving agricultural productivity, there are several dimensions on which technological breakthroughs would be required. Some of the important ones are as follows:

Before we dwelve upon the future growth drivers, let us take stock of the recent past (i.e. 2002-11 period), growth drivers, which could be summarized as under: i.

ii.

Availability of better technology through seed: Availability of better technologies like Bt. Cotton, single cross maize hybrids, hybrid rice, hybrid vegetables etc. which have resulted in substantial improvement of farmer incomes has been pivotal in driving the growth of seed industry.

(i) Pest & Diseases : In majority of the crops, resistant sources for major pests and diseases are available either through cultivated varieties or through wild varieties. There is a need to do genomic mapping and developing functional maps of genes with traits of commercial significance. Having done this, the breeding programs could be directed towards incorporation of various traits into cultivated varieties/ hybrids by using techniques of molecular breeding.

Government programs for promoting use of hybrid seeds under subsidy schemes under NFSM & Other schemes. These schemes have driven the growth of hybrid rice, maize, bajra, jowar & vegetable seeds.

Presently, lot of work has been completed for the crops of global importance such as Rice, Wheat etc. However, there is a need to undertake similar exercise in the crops of importance for Indian agriculture viz. Millets, Pulses, Oilseeds etc.

iii. Large increase in MSPs & booming global commodity prices. The Government has made substantial increase in MSPs of food grains, pulses, oilseeds and cotton. In addition, there has been a boom in global commodity prices of maize, cotton, soybean, wheat & rice. This has resulted in better farm income & higher investment in better technology including superior seeds.

The technology of genome mapping is advancing rapidly. Even though, eventually the costs are expected to reduce dramatically, the present level of initial investments are very high. Lot of capacity is available in public sector. Hence, if public institutions take up this work on massive scale and make available the information as well as the germplasm lines/ varieties having the required traits to private and public breeding companies, the need based seed development work could be taken up.

iv. Increased per capita incomes and rise of middle class has led to increased consumption of protein/ vitamin rich food (milk, eggs, fish, meat, pulses, vegetables & fruits) This in turn had increased demand and increasing output prices of maize, soybean, vegetables, pulses etc., thereby increasing acreages under these crops and farmers Oct. - Dec. 2011

(ii) Tolerance to abiotic stress: Due to climate change, we are finding increased frequency of floods and drought and temperature fluctuations on both high and low side. Furthermore, due to indiscriminate use of chemical and fertilizers, tracts of areas have become saline and alkaline so also due to increased sea levels on account of climate changes, the coastal areas are also getting affected with salinity.

(viii) Hybridization in new crops: Hybrid vigour has been successfully exploited to improve the yield of several crops. Similar technological breakthroughs could be achieved in Rabi Sorghum, Wheat, Mustard, Pigeaopea etc. This would call for intensified & focused efforts through public-private partnership, to develop hybrids in the new crops to expand the markets.

There is a need to take up the work of developing varieties having resistance to abiotic stress and incorporating these traits into cultivated varieties/ hybrids. This work could also be taken up by using the molecular breeding techniques as well as transgenic programs.

(iii)

(iv)

(v)

(vi)

Favourable Regulatory Environment for GM crops The procedure for regulatory clearances of GMOs is still evolving. There is a need to bring in clarity as to what all tests are to be carried out for food crops as well as non-food crops and the stages at which the tests need to be completed, before getting the clearance for conduct of the trials in the next stage.

Nutrient uptake efficiency: There is a need to improve the efficiency of nutrient uptake so that cost of the cultivation could be brought down and environmental damage could also be minimized. There is a need to develop genes for improving the nutrient uptake efficiency which need to be incorporated into the cultivated varieties and hybrids.

Furthermore, there is no clarity as to how the individual product would be commercialized once the event is cleared from bio-safety & environmental safety angles. At times, the approvals are also getting delayed because of pressures from stakeholders.

Quality of products: As the per capita incomes rise, giving right quality product, demanded by the consumers will become an important goal. This would call for focused breeding & niche marketing for nutritional quality, in order to overcome the problem. The food grains having better nutritional quality could be developed to ensure the nutritional security for the masses.

In view of this, there is a need to bring in Science based approach as well as clarity and transparency in the entire approval process so as to enable the Industry / technology providers to plan out their activities accordingly. Favourable regulatory environment will drive the growth of GM Seeds.

Favourable Govt. Policies As mentioned in the previous section, the following Govt. Policies will play a very crucial role in stimulating demand for seeds.

Medicinal Properties:

There is a need to exploit medicinal properties of several crops that are grown to develop phyto chemicals which will be of immense value for health care as well as animal & plant protection industry. This could be achieved by identifying and incorporating the required traits in the cultivated crops/ hybrids through molecular breeding as well as transgenic approach.

(a) With the new varieties that are getting introduced, it may call for modifications in the agronomic practices, There is a need to intensify agricultural extension so that farmers will get the full benefit by cultivating the new varieties. Seed companies could play an important role in collaboration with the Agriculture Extension System. Suitable PPP models need to be developed for Agricultural Extension.

Labour shortage: With economy growing at a rapid pace, Indian agriculture would be going through tremendous labour shortage. This would call for new techniques of weed management, spraying, harvesting etc. In order to take care of these problems, herbicide tolerance varieties will have to be developed. Similarly for improving mechanical harvest, appropriate varieties/ hybrids having suitable plant architecture will be required to be developed.

(b) Rural Credit and Crop Insurance: The new technologies may require higher level of investment and easy availability of credit. Similarly, farmers will have tobe protected for the crop failures. Govt. policies in these areas will be very crucial for ensuring health & growth of seed industry. (c) Restrictive export/ import trade practices tend to depress the prices of commercial crops. This reduces the profitability of growing commercial crops. The Govt. should take pragmatic view and

(vii) Improving Agronomic traits: There is tremendous scope for improving plant architecture and various agronomic traits in order to improve the yields. Oct. - Dec. 2011

encourage international trade in & agricommodities so that the farmers are able to get better realization from the crops which would in turn beneficial to the Indian agriculture and seed industry.

New geno types will have to be developed to address these challenges. Biotechnology will play an important role in developing these new genotypes.

Bottlenecks in Seed Production due to improved profitability in commercial cultivation

(d) R&D Support: As mentioned in the previous paras, Govt can extend support for research & development by taking up several important projects like Genome mapping, Functional genomic high throughput phenol-typing etc. This would help the industry to improve efficiency in breeding to develop right products for the right markets to improve the productivity of agriculture.

Since the farmers have started cultivating high yielding hybrids of Cotton, Maize, Vegetables & Rice in irrigated areas, they are finding that the commercial crops have become more remunerative in comparison with the hybrid seed production. This would tend to increase the procurement cost. This calls for more efforts for improving the productivity in seed production to contain the seed production cost. Diversification into new areas for seed production will also help in improving availability.

Favourable Minimum Support Prices and Improving Govt. Procurement Machinery.

Non-uniformity in registration procedure by various State Govts.

Global Commodity markets: Commodity markets are going to play a very important role either to stimulate or impede the growth in agriculture. One needs to have close watch on the commodity markets so as to ensure that farmers are able to cultivate various crops at the most competitive prices so that their income levels are optimized under the boom and bust..

At the this juncture, different State Govts. are having different procedures for registration of new products. There are arbitrary rules made by some of the State govts. making the non-availability of new products in the market. In view of these variations, there is a need for Central Govt. to step in, to ensure that uniform procedures are practiced across the country by different State Govts. It is all the more necessary as the new seed bill has still not come into force.

International Markets The Seed industry has potential for global research & development as well as production for supply of seeds to various countries, having similar agro-climatic conditions like India. Having reached in similar markets, the next level of efforts could be put to enter into developed countries having temperate/ semitemperate climates.

Strengthening Infrastructure On account of increase in the volumes and need to produce high quality seeds, it has become necessary to invest heavily in seed processing plants and drying units. Several companies have established very good infrastructure to take these activities. However, lot of small & medium players are finding it very difficult to establish processing infrastructure because of huge capital outlay.

Conclusion We have listed out several growth drivers for the industry in the previous section. In order to ensure sustained growth, concerted action from the industry as well as Government is called for.

The present limits of 25% of capital subsidy, subject to ceiling of Rs.50.00 lakhs is very much inadequate. Since the capital costs for establishing processing units has gone up substantially, the Govt. should increase the subsidy ceiling limit at least to the level of Rs.5.00 crores and balance may be made available to the Industry on loan at concessional interest rate.

From Industry side, the following initiatives are required:

타 Sustained investments in Research & Development to work towards technological breakthroughs listed in Section 5.1.

Climate Change Global warming is resulting into more frequency of droughts and floods and extreme changes in the temperature either on lower or higher side.

타 Strengthening R&D as well as processing infrastructure.

타 Diversification into new seed production areas.

Global warming is resulting into more frequency of droughts and floods and extreme changes in the temperature either on lower or higher side.

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타 Taking up extension services to provide total crop solution.

Ÿ Aggressive forays in International markets.

Ÿ Favourable minimum support price & improving Govt. procurement machinery.

Ÿ The Government

needs to create favourable business climate by way of following initiatives:

Ÿ Enhancing rural credit & crop insurance schemes. Ÿ Streamlining State Govt. regulations.

Ÿ Science based predictive regulatory system for Genetically modified crops.

Ÿ If both Industry & Government act in partnership

Ÿ R&D support for molecular breeding.

mode, Seed Industry can grow at a rapid pace and enabling Indian Agriculture also to grow rapidly to meet the challenges of future.

Ÿ Fiscal incentives for building infrastructure.

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Challenges and Promises of the Future: Ajay Vir Jakhar, Chairman Bharat Krishak Samaj We farmers support advancement and application of new technology. We believe and understand the popular quote that it is a fact that it is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change. Farmers are receptive to change. Policy makers will act when they are confronted with a crisis.

Khalil Gibran, "Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible." Agriculture began not more than 8-10,000 years ago when we started to select, collect & use bigger & better seeds in the Fertile Crescent. The next big step was the invention of the plough and the water wheel. Agriculture later evolved drastically with improved sea voyages when plants were transported from one continent to another; like the potato.

With progression of Agriculture, over thousands of years we have been destroying the bio diversity. Without doubt, agriculture is the most widespread destructive activity on earth. For example every insect Application of nitrogen fertilizers and other chemical that eats or destroys a crop is termed a pest. We use applications helped feed the population boom of the pesticide to kill them. Every plant not sown by a farmer last century. Now we have come to a time of gene in the field is considered a weed and we use a modification. While comparing discoveries, I think grafting of plants was an intervention that was far more weedicide. There is no agriculture practice which is advanced for its time thousands of years ago than what perfect, other than gathering food maybe. But we need to farm & increase is genetic modification agriculture productivity to today. There are many new practices and technologies feed a growing & demanding like zero drill, nano technology, A practice or an applicpopulation. tion has a use in time and precision farming and better application The problem in words of with new inventions and of and making available existing Bob Dylan is, "People progress, old ways get knowledge to the farmer seldom do what they believe redundant and get that can play a vital role. in. They do what is criticized. That is the way convenient and then of things. Look at the repent". There are a lot of combustion engine in a things that we know are wrong, yet we follow them car; it is the most wasteful application of fuel to because they are convenient like indiscriminate use of transport goods or people. For over 100 years the world pesticides, chemical and fertilizers that destroy the soil, has depended on it. If a new better method of powering yet they take place. For example, we all know it takes cars was invented, the inventors and we the generations of users of the combustion engine would be blamed for over 8-15 times of calories to convert grain to meat. Yet thousands of years. In the same way, the use of DDT and consumption of meat is increasing as economies endosulphan in agriculture is criticized today. expand. Short term planning and a bid to attain Unfortunately, even the green revolution is criticized immediate gains is a problem of a democratic setup. We today for over use of inputs, what people do not realize require a vision of 50 years and not just a 5 year plan. is that it is lack of extension services and the farmers' Research funding has an enormous impact on desperation to increase production to attain a net profit, agriculture and on the future. It needs to be accelerated. The quality of the future hinges on decisions of today. which is responsible for over use of inputs. What is definitely true is that we will be trying to feed more people, but without the benefit of four critical advantages our predecessors took for granted - cheap energy, abundant water, availability of untapped arable land and that is without listing a stable climate.

Dr. Norman Borlaug manipulated the length of the wheat shaft to kick-start our own green revolution. These new seeds were resisted. All new ideas will face opposition. That is how it has been & will be in future.

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I was very surprised a few years ago, when I realized that petroleum, is the single most important input in modern food production - it serves both as a fuel for tractors, food transportation and as the chemical base for fertilizers and pesticides. This is gradually becoming so scarce and expensive that many of the assumptions underlying a global industrial food system are now in question. Cheap energy is not an option anymore.

agriculture. Everything we imagine is real. We can turn our dreams to reality - that is what the human race is good at. When electricity was discovered, did anyone think globe would be blanketed with light bulbs? When quantum mechanics was discovered did anyone anticipate semi-conductors and the ensuing electronic revolution? The holy grail of the seed industry would be to take the gene from a crop that produces its own nitrogen like pulses and give it to rice and wheat. This would allow us to feed the world without the use of nitrogenous fertilizers which will the next milestone for agriculture. We should not judge a technology from where it is today, it is the future which beckons us. Just like the Wright brother's plane in the early 1900's & the internet in 1970's, I think we are just at the beginning of a very long & exciting journey.

To sustain ourselves we need to develop interventions & practices that will allow us to farm without or with minimum use of petroleum products. We aim to sustain ourselves and everything else is a consequence of that action. Every change must make immediate economic sense to the stakeholders to be accepted and succeed. Two important questions need to be understood if not answered; can food be grown in the developing world, where the hungry can actually get it at prices they can afford? Second question as Alex Evans recognizes, is not how much one acre can produce in one year. The vital issue is how much one acre can produce for a thousand years. Fostered well, soil can give forth food indefinitely.

It will have to be a marriage of modern science and traditional practices. There are many new practices and technologies like zero drill, nano technology, precision farming and better application of and making available existing knowledge to the farmer that can play a vital role. If we could just reduce the gap that exists in the laboratories of the seed companies and universities on one hand and the farm on the other; more the half the battle would be won. No one theory, practice or application can solve our problems. Problems will always exist, after all problems are the price of progress.

Solutions can from places least expected like plant bio technologies. Promises of Crops that use less water, manufacture their own nitrogen requirement, are pest resistant, climate resilient, increase yield thus allowing us the choice not to bring more land & forests to

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Agricultural Biotechnology and Smallholder Farmers in Developing Countries Marco Ferroni and Vivienne M Anthony

Agricultural biotechnology holds much potential to contribute towards crop productivity gains and crop improvement for smallholder farmers in developing countries. Over 14 million smallholder farmers are already benefiting from biotech crops such as cotton and maize in China, India and other Asian, African and Central/South American countries. Molecular breeding can accelerate crop improvement timescales and enable greater use of diversity of gene sources. Little impact has been realized to date with fruits and vegetables because of development timescales for molecular breeding and development and regulatory costs and political considerations facing biotech crops in many countries. Constraints to the development and adoption of technology-based solutions to reduce yield gaps need to be overcome. Full integration with broader commercial considerations such as farmer access to seed distribution systems that facilitate dissemination of improved varieties and functioning markets for produce are critical for the benefits of agricultural biotechnology to be fully realized by smallholders. Public-private partnerships offer opportunities to catalyze new approaches and investment while accelerating integrated research and development and commercial supply chain-based solutions.

[4], the bulk of the required growth in global production will have to come from intensification because land and water are finite assets already overused in many places. Sustainable intensification can be defined as 'producing more output from the same area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts and at the same time increasing contributions to natural capital and the flow of environmental services' [5]. These are requirements with many implications, but the place to start is yield. Yields must be raised and yield gaps reduced and closed as part of intensification not least to raise the efficiency of water use, for the correlation between water use efficiency and yield of grain and other field crops per unit of land is high, and to prevent further carbon emissions from the conversion of additional land to cultivation [6]. The scope to reduce yield gaps (the difference between realized productivity and the best that can be achieved with improved genetics, technology and farming practices) is large precisely because yield gaps are large. In recent studies of yield gaps for major crops in developing countries, specialists from national and international research institutions assessed production constraints and their relative importance [7,8""]. Theoretical yield gaps for maize can be as much as 8 t/ha in South Asia due to a range of constraints including limited water and nutrient availability, inadequate protection of the crop from pests and

Introduction The outlook for the world's food security is characterized by unprecedented growth in the demand for food in developing countries and challenges on the supply side that include lagging productivity growth in agriculture [1], a deteriorating natural resource base, and uncertain production prospects due to climate change [2]. The world must grow more food, in addition to taking other measures such as reducing post-harvest losses and waste in the supply chain. The needed growth in production must come about sustainably [3] and in large measure must derive from small farms, the chief grower category in developing countries, particularly Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Increases in food production can in principle come from agricultural intensification, the expansion of the agricultural frontier, or a combination of the two. But while there are untapped reserves of land and water

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diseases, insufficient or inadequate use of labor or mechanization and knowledge deficits that result in poor crop management (Figure 1). Waddington et al. [8**] found that in the 6 crops surveyed in SubSaharan Africa and South and East Asia, the yield gaps were greatest for sorghum, cowpea and chickpea grown by smallholder farmers. They were particularly pronounced in marginal drier areas of Sub-Saharan Africa.

up since it is equally applicable on small or large farms and has simpler operator stewardship requirements than, for example, agrochemicals. Improving crop genetics is part of the solution and should be integrated along with the creation of functioning markets and distribution systems for seed, access to fertilizer, tools and appropriate mechanization, with micro-irrigation, precision farming, agricultural extension support and links to output markets playing a role. Agricultural biotechnology contributes new ideas, techniques and processes to drive solution finding and is highly relevant for the needs of smallholder farmers in developing countries [15,16",17]. If broadly defined, agricultural biotechnology includes fermentation techniques, tissue culture, mutation and recombinant techniques, genomic science, use of molecular markers for breeding and genetic modification using transgenes to create biotech crops. The pace of genomic science and discovery is escalating with faster methods for sequencing and gene discovery. The genomes of 13 food crop species including rice, maize, sorghum and soybean have been sequenced [18]. Eight have been published since 2008. The first tuber crop and the most recent to have been completed is potato {Solatium tuberosum) in July 2011 [19]. Gene and marker discovery needs to be specifically targeted to the needs of smallholder farmers with particular focus on environmental stresses reducing yield, nutrition improvements and biotic factors that affect yield and post-harvest quality. This paper focuses primarily on the deployment of new genetics for smallholder farmers by molecular breeding and development of biotech crops.

Solutions to close the yield gap must address the needs of smallholder farmers. Agricultural biotechnology holds some of the answers. But the task of developing and delivering biotechnology, or any technology, that works in, and is relevant for, specific geographies and settings is huge. Worldwide there are about 450â&#x20AC;&#x201D;500 million smallholder farms that operate up to 2 ha of land under very heterogeneous conditions [9â&#x20AC;&#x201D;12]. Asian countries have a particularly high percentage of small farms [13], followed by Africa where there is considerable variation in average farm size across countries. Some regions of Latin America display a lower percentage of farms below 2 ha, for example 20% in Brazil. Historical trends and other considerations suggest that smallholder farmers will continue to contribute a major proportion of the food supply in the developing world, especially in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, for at least the next several decades [14]. So it is appropriate and necessary to focus on them and develop solutions that can sustainably raise yields in their fields.

Molecular Breeding Molecular breeding, in particular marker assisted selection, backcrossing and recurrent selection are mainstay activities by private sector seed companies and agribusinesses. These methods are highly applicable to create new improved varieties with economic benefit for small holder farmers in developing countries [20]. A recent specific example of potential economic impact from molecular breeding for smallholders in Sub-Saharan Africa is combined resistance to cassava mosaic disease, green mite and post-harvest physiological deterioration. Cassava is a major food source for fg. 250 million people but breeding is difficult and lengthy, taking typically 12â&#x20AC;&#x201D;16 years. Increased selection efficiency can accelerate breeding cycles and the speed of introduction of new varieties. Rudi ^/j?/. [21*] have estimated that molecular breeding could reduce the breeding cycle by a?. 4 years, leading to economic benefits of over $200 million in 25 years for Nigeria and Ghana. Rice breeding can also take 10-15 years. Use of molecular breeding to increase salinity tolerance and phosphorus levels in rice varieties in India and South East Asia has been predicted to reduce

How can agricultural biotechnology contribute towards solutions that will close the yield gap for smallholder farmers? The answer is that this will primarily occur through creation of quality seed of improved varieties that are highly adapted to local conditions and resilient to biotic and abiotic stresses and climatic variations. Seed as a vehicle can carry not just inherent genetic benefits but also additional technology such as seed care and coating. Seed is smallholder friendly and in principle easy to scale

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the breeding cycle by 3-6 years with concomitant economic impacts [22].

Climate change and the worryingly narrow genetic base of many food crops are currently receiving greater attention [29â&#x20AC;&#x201D;31]. Out of the fg. 150 domesticated food plant species, only 30 crops produce 95% of human food needs with just 4 crops (rice, wheat, maize and potatoes) accounting for about 60% (http://www.fao.org/nr/cgrfa/cthemes/plants/en/).

As yet there are few cases where varieties produced using molecular breeding techniques have reached smallholder farmers [23]. An important example is the introduction of the water submergence gene subl into rice. A marker assisted back crossing programme introgressed the ability of lowland rain fed rice to tolerate short term flooding during monsoon rains and increase yields from 1 to 3 tonnes per hectare. Subl was released in megavarieties in India (Swarna-subl), the Philippines, Indonesia (IR-64-subl) and Bangladesh (BRll-subl) during 2009-2010 [24]. Molecular assisted selection has also enabled four rice bacterial blight resistance genes (Xa4, Xa5, Xal3 and Xa21) to be stacked into popular parental lines used in hybrid rice breeding in India [25].

Molecular breeding provides unique potential to expedite incorporation of native traits from wild relatives to achieve yield gain and nutritional advantages, as well as broadening the gene base and agricultural biodiversity for greater crop resilience to pest, diseases and climate change [32]. Increased selection efficiency can accelerate breeding cycles and the speed of introduction of new varieties when conventional methods can take years to remove unwanted characteristics from the background germplasm. Other benefits from using molecular markers include the possibility of enabling more consistent evaluation of lines without environmental variation affecting phenotypes, development of diagnostic tests for resistance to pests and diseases without requiring challenge by the biotic agent, and more accurate selection of complex traits [33]. To achieve the predicted benefits of molecular breeding, there is a need for it to be fully integrated with the best traditional breeding methods and other expert disciplines, as part of an interdisciplinary team approach to address the crops and needs of small farmers. This way of working has been identified as a major challenge [34]. In developing countries, more research and development capacity, information systems with analysis support and infrastructure are needed [35], together with a strong focus on simplifying and optimizing methods to reduce costs [36]. Given the scale, complexity and cost of the genomics and genetic marker revolution, a key for critical new developments reaching small farmers in developing countries is supporting the mission of open sourcing of key genomics information, databases and research tools and formation of public-private partnerships to bring new genetics to the market place.

Rice is a major food source of key importance to smallholder farmers in South and East Asia and is also at the forefront of development of molecular breeding technology and gene discovery. It was the first cereal genome to be sequenced and provides an important baseline for comparative functional genomics with maize, sorghum and wheat. Major developments in genome wide single nucleotide polymorphism marker technology (SNPs), high throughput SNP genotyping and genome wide association mapping (GWAS) are transforming the landscape for defining and enabling the use of genetic diversity for plant breeding [26]. Recently, the largest genome wide association study publicly available on Oryz^z j^/*&^ has shown major differentiation between the five subpopulations of rice. High throughput systems enabled evaluation of 44,100 SNPs, 413 varieties from 82 countries and 34 morphological and agronomic traits to be phenotyped [27**]. The differences were greater than those between some other food crop species and their close wild ancestors. Accessing diverse genetics is key to crop improvement and importantly resilience to changing environmental conditions such as climate change and associated biotic stresses. African NERICA rice varieties produced from interspecific crosses between 0. Jdz/f&j? and the wild African rice, Oryz^z gAz^/7V/Âťg are an excellent demonstration of benefits of using biodiversity to deliver benefits for smallholders. Yield improvements under harsh environmental conditions have led to NERICA varieties having the fastest ever adoption rate with more than 700 000 ha currently grown by rice farmers in Africa [28].

Biotech Crops In contrast, in 2010 a record 148 million hectares of land were planted to broad acre biotech crops developed by means of transgenic agricultural biotechnology. This growth from less than 2 million hectares in 2006 represents the fastest process of adoption of any new crop technology in the history of modern agriculture [37**]. About 15.4 million farmers planted insect or herbicide resistant biotech crops in 2010 and 90%, or 14.4 million, were smallholders in developing countries (Table 1).

Historically, national plant breeding programs in developing countries in some crops have tended to maximize the use of genes already in domesticated varieties, breeding lines, land races and local gene banks. This may be due to the technical challenges of using genes from wild relatives, lengthy timescales for success or a lack of sustained public research funding.

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The share of global biotech crops grown in developing countries has increased consistently every year from 14% in 1997 to 30% in 2003 and 43% in 2007. In 2010, 48% of the global cultivated surface was in 19 53

developing countries, the largest areas being in Brazil, Argentina, India and China. This trend of adoption is expected to continue, outpacing growth in industrialized countries. In 2010, the remaining area was cultivated in 10 industrialized countries, representing some 80% of the market in value terms. The cultivated area was dominated by the broad acre crops of maize, cotton and soybean, with the latter accounting for over 50% of the planted surface.

commercially grown, and, more recently, the high profile case of Bt eggplant, or brinjal, in India [44]. Because of the susceptibility of brinjal to the fruit and shoot borer insect, multiple insecticide applications are required to prevent uneconomic losses of yield in this crop. The Indian Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee recommended the commercial release of Bt brinjal (Event EE1) in 2010, but the Ministry of Environment and Forestry halted its approval [45]. A range of other vegetables such as tomato, broccoli, cabbage and okra are also under development in India [37**].

In countries such as India and China, pest resistant crops expressing the insecticidal toxin genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiemis (Bt) have generated

Factors Shaping the Availability of Agricultural Biotechnology for Smallholder Farmers

substantial beneficial economic and environmental impact [38], benefiting many of the ca. 6.3 million small farmers that are estimated to be growing Bt cotton in India [38].

There are a number of factors that affect the development and delivery of biotechnology for smallholder farmers by both the public and private sector. The first one, briefly addressed below, relates to investment and funding levels that affect research capacity and the ability to develop improved varieties and traits. A second category of factors arises from the lack of predictable regulatory frameworks, attendant high development costs [46*], liability risks (especially for the private sector) and inadequate stewardship expertise for biotech crops [47]. Intellectual property is sometimes considered an impediment, but a deeper look reveals that for many developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, intellectual property is not typically an insurmountable barrier if research is conducted there [48]. A third class of limiting factors that is a manifested in many countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, arises from the lack of performing seed systems and seed markets, not to mention agricultural support services, for farmers to readily access improved genetics.

The first impact assessment relying on panel data, spanning 4 years and 4 Indian states and analyzing not just yields and gross margins but adoption patterns and living standards, shows that Bt cotton conferred large benefits to small farmers in these domains [39,40*,41*]. Kouser and Qaim [41*] used four-year panel data to also show that Bt cotton has notably reduced the incidence of pesticide poisoning among smallholder farmers and associated health care costs. Empirical evidence from various countries confirms both that Bt cotton has allowed pesticide savings and that adopters in China have suffered less often from pesticide poisoning than non-adopters [42,43]. Although the first biotech crop to be commercialized was a genetically modified tomato for processing as a con sumer tomato paste, there have been comparatively few introductions of biotech fruits and vegetables since then. Notable cases with potential benefits for small farmers in developing countries include virus resistant papaya in China, now

Table 1 Global area of biotech crops grown and cultivation by smallholders, 2010 [37]. (Note: there are an estimated additional 10 million farmers in developing countries growing other crops benefiting from a reduction of cotton bollworm populations due to Bt cotton insect control.) Crop

Global biotech crop area (hectares millions)

Developing countries

Number of smallholder farmers growing biotech crops (millions)

Soybean Maize Cotton Canola Sugar beet Alfalfa Squash Papaya <0.1 Total

73 46 21 7 0.5 0.1 <0.1

China India Pakistan Myanmar Philippines Burkina Faso Other countries (13) 0.2

6.5 6.3 0.6 0.4 0.3 0.1

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148

14.4

Investment in Research and Development

reach the market because of poor performance or lack of grower interest but because of regulatory approval uncertainty and prohibitively high and uneconomic development and regulatory costs — a d& ^»f/o barrier for technology deployment for smallholder farmers, even for high-value crops.

There are continuing reports and attempts at awareness creation in international fora and among decision-makers about the reality of underinvestment in public agricultural R&D in developing countries over the past 15—25 years — China and (to a lesser extent) India and Brazil being exceptions [49—52,53*]. This literature offers arguments not just with reference to the potential food security and humanitarian implications of the declining trend in public investment, but in terms of economic assessments that demonstrate multiple factored returns to spending on agricultural R&D [54]. During the period in which public outlay lagged, the private sector invested heavily in genomic science and techniques that can enable improved crops for farmers, the value chain and consumers, targeting business opportunities and crops with the greatest returns to investment, but ignoring 'orphan' or underutilized crops [55]. There is growing recognition that the imbalance between public and private research investment and the targeting and treatment of different types of crops must be reversed. Public-private partnerships are increasingly recognized as promising mechanisms to address the imbalance, catalyze investment and cocreate science solutions to deliver fruits from agricultural biotechnology to smallholders in developing countries [55—58,17].

This is exemplified in the most recent survey of costs of invention, development and registration of a new trait in internationally traded crops such as maize and soybean by private sector companies during 2008—2012. The estimated cost of a new trait approved for cultivation in two countries and for import approvals in at least five others was a staggering $136 million. Regulatory scientific studies, registration and regulatory affairs accounted for 25.8% of this total, $35.1 million. The time taken for registration has also increased, from a mean of 3.7 years for events sold before 2002 to a current estimate of 5.5 years [60*]. Opinion and debate on acceptance of transgenic agricultural biotechnology remains polarized both 'for and against' and is often not aligned with rigorous review and balanced, empirically grounded assessment of socio-economic and community benefits, human safety, environmental considerations such as non-target safety, gene flow, biodiversity and associated risks. At a time when biotech crops have been grown extensively in the Americas and Asia for over 13 years, the precautionary principle prevails in many countries even for the traits embodied in these crops. A pragmatic approach is proposed by Godfray ^^/. [61] and if adopted could move the debate forward: Genetic modification is a potentially valuable technology whose advantages and disadvantages need to be considered rigorously on an evidential, inclusive, case-by-case basis: Genetic modification should neither be privileged nor automatically dismissed.

Regulation and Stewardship for Biotech Crops Since 1996, over 900 registration approvals have been granted for 183 events in 24 crop species, mainly for events in broad acre crops (CERA. GM Crop Database; ISAAA GM Approval Database) [37**]. Very few registrations have been given for commercialization of modified fruits or vegetables since the 1990s. Approvals of suitably developed and stewarded highvalue vegetables and fruits could carry significant benefits for small farmers, because of the relatively high prices these crops often fetch when sold in the market.

In addition to governments' policy on regulation, key factors influencing future availability of biotech crops for smallholder farmers in developing countries is stewardship capability, and liability of technology providers. Stewardship includes not just management of biosafety and compliance with regulatory authorities' requirements but also product quality and integrity along the whole product life cycle right from early research ideas to the withdrawal of crop varieties [62]. The need for stewardship is fully founded. Unapproved events entering the trade channel can have serious consequences. In 2006, the co-mingling of the herbicide tolerant research event LLRice601 led to the reduction of US rice trade to Europe to only 10% of normal levels with major economic and international consequences [63]. Multi-million dollar lawsuits from rice growers followed. With the expected rise in numbers of commercialized events around the world [64], including potentially Bt rice in China [65], concern is growing about the potential for low-level

Miller and Bradford [59*] conducted an analysis of 77 fruit, vegetable and other specialty crops to understand the factors driving the lack of traits being commercialized. During 2003—2008 over 300 research papers were published describing over 250 unique transgenic events for these kinds of crops. Some 20% of the papers were from China and India. Research addressed not just input traits such as herbicide tolerance and insect resistance but also output traits such as yield, postharvest quality, modifications to compositions of oil, starch, protein and nutrients. The primary conclusion was that the traits did not fail to

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presence of numerous events in trade channels and the food chain in countries without regulatory authorizations [66]. International harmonized solutions need to be found. Otherwise the private sector will remain very cautious about supporting technology releases to the public sector to assist smallholder farmers in developing countries, especially for food crops that could cross national borders or enter international trade channels.

partnerships between governments, donors and the private sector to develop, or 'kick-start', seed and other input markets where they do not exist. The history of how this unfolded in India during the past 40 years holds relevant lessons for Africa today.

Conclusions and Prospects Agricultural biotechnology through molecular breeding and biotech crops has the potential to change the crop production landscape for smallholder farmers in developing countries. Biotech crops such as Bt cotton have already demonstrated their ability in key countries such as India to

Seed Systems and Capacity Once improved seed is developed, it needs to be produced and disseminated among farmers. This can be done through projects on a small scale, but requires the intervention of the private sector and market-based transactions for large-scale coverage and impact. India's seed industry reaches millions of small farmers every year, making major contributions to yield gains in the country's smallholder-dominated agriculture [67,68]. In much of Sub-Saharan Africa, however, seed markets are still in rudimentary stages of development. It can take many years for improved varieties to find their way to farmers' fields for reasons essentially having to do with 4 sets of challenges: the establishment of seed companies in what are uncertain, high-cost environments; the production of seed, which is plagued by a lack of access to germplasm and credit, among other factors; the marketing of seed, where poor infrastructure is a problem; and the demand for seed at the farm level, which is low because of the absence of supporting services, including agricultural extension, and problems with marketing on the output side [69]. So the set of needs to bring technology to small farmers on a large scale is clear: improved linkages between public breeding programs and the private sector to foster the exchange of germplasm and breeding lines [16**] and

improve economic returns and farmer livelihoods. Comparable opportunities for vegetables and fruits for large growers and smallholders alike remain unrealized due to regulatory and development costs as well as uncertainty regarding the acceptance of transgenic technology. Molecular breeding offers much potential to accelerate the development and introduction of improved varieties and as an enabler for greater genetic diversity, but the full benefits are yet to be established. To truly address yield gaps, agricultural biotechnology approaches must be part of an integrated broader thrust that galvanizes public and private investment for the development and provision of technology, which must include the creation of seed systems and markets supported by agricultural extension and other services for farmers. A commitment to increased and sustained funding of agricultural R&D is required. Barriers need to be broken at the policy and operational level to enable public—private partnerships to be formed for transformational change in research, product development, and the delivery of seed-embodied technology to farmers.

Acknowledgements We are grateful to Partha DasGupta and Yuan Zhou for their contribution to literature searching and assisting with the paper. Funding for preparation of this manuscript has been provided by the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture.

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Proceedings of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations International Technical Conference on Agricultural Biotechnologies in Developing Countries: Options and Opportunities in Crops, Forestry, Livestock, Fisheries and Agro-industry to face the Challenges of Food Insecurity and Climate Change (ABDC-10); Rome: 2011.

29. Frison EA, Chervas J, Hodgkin T: Agricultural biodiversity is essential for a sustainable improvement in food and nutrition security. Sustainability 2011, 3:238-253.

17. Yuan D, Bassie L, SabalzaM, MiralpeixB, Dashevskaya S, FarreG, Rivera S, Banakar R, Bai C, Sanahuja G ef a/.: The potential impact of plant biotechnology on the millennium development goals. Plant Cell Rep 2011, 30:245-247.

30. Maxted N, Kell SP: Establishment of a Global Network for the In Situ Conservation of Crop Wild Relatives: Status and Needs. Rome: FAO Commission on Genetic Resources Definition of Agricultural Biotechnology; 2009.

18. Feuillet C, Leach JE, Rogers J, Schnable PS, Eversole K: Crop genome sequencing: lessons and rationales. Trends Plant Sci 2011, 16:77-88.

31. Maxted N, Kell S, Brehm JM: Options to promote food security: on/farm management and in situ conservation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. Background Study Paper No. 5. Rome: FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture; 2011.

19. The Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium: genome sequence and analysis of the tuber crop potato. Nature 2011, 475:189-195. 20. Elcio P, Guimaraes EP, Ruane J, Scherf BD, Sonnino A, Dargie JD (Eds): Marker-Assisted Selection. Current Status and Future Perspectives in Crops, Livestock, Forestry and Fish. Rome: FAO; 2007.

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Rudi N, Norton GW, Alwang J, Asumugha G: Economic impact analysis of marker assisted breeding for resistance to pests and post-harvest deterioration in cassava. Afr J Agric Resour Econ 2010, 4:110-122.

32. FAO: The Second Report on the State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Rome: FAO; 2010.

33. Jena KK, Mackill DJ: Molecular markers and their use in marker-assisted selection in rice. Crop Sci 2008, 48:1266-1276.

48. Farre G, Ramessar K, Twyman RM, Capell T, Christou P: The humanitarian impact of plant biotechnology: recent breakthroughs vs. bottlenecks for adoption. Curr Opin Plant B/o/2010, 13:219-225.

34. Moose SP, Mumm RH: Molecular plant breeding as the foundation for 21st century crop improvement. Plant Physiol 2008, 147:969-977.

49. Pardey PG, Alston JM, Piggott RR (Eds): Agricultural R&D in the Developing World: Too Little, Too Late?. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute; 2006.

35. Ribaut J-M, de Vicente MC, Delannay X: Molecular breeding in developing countries: challenges and perspectives. CurrOpin Plant B/o/2010, 13:1-6.

50. Pardey PG: Reassessing public-private roles in Agricultural R&D for economic development. World Food Security: Can Private Sector R&D Feed the Poor? The Crawford Fund Fifteenth Annual International Conference; Parliament House, Canberra, 27-28 October 2009: Australia: Crawford Fund; 2010.

36. Collard BCY, Mackill DJ: Marker assisted selection: an approach for precision plant breeding in the twentyfirst century. Philos Trans R Soc B: Biol Sci 2008, 363:557572. 37.

James C: Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops .. 2010. ISAAA, Brief No. 42. Ithaca, NY: ISAAA; 2010. The major source of current information on biotech crops showing trends of adoption by country and crop, and highlighting progress and issues.

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Brookes G, Barfoot P: GM Crops: Global Socio-economic and Environmental Impacts 1996-2009. Dorchester: PG Economics Ltd.; 2010.

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Qaim M: The economics of genetically modified crops. Annu Rev Resour Econ 2009, 1:665-693.

53. Beintema NM, Stads G: African agricultural R&D in the new millennium. Progress for Some, Challenges for Many. IFPRI; 2011.

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54. World Development Report 2008. Agriculture for Development. Washington, DC: World Bank; 2007. 55. Naylor RL, Falcon WP, Goodman RM, Jahn MM, Sengooba T, Tefera H, Nelson RJ: Biotechnology in the developing world: a case for increase investments in orphan crops. Food Policy 2004, 29:15-44.

41. Kouser S, Qaim M: Impact of Bt cotton on pesticide poisoning in India: a panel data analysis. Paper Prepared for Presentation at the 15th ICABR Conference, Sustainability and the Bioeconomy; Frascati (Rome), Italy, June 26-29: 2011.

56. Spielman DJ, Cohen Jl, Zambrano P: Will agbiotech applications reach marginalized farmers? Evidence from developing countries. AgBioForum 2006, 9:23-30.

42. Pray C, Huang J, Hu R, Rozelle S: Five years of Bt cotton in China: the benefits continue. Plant J 2002, 31:423430.

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Choudhary B, Gaur K: The Development and Regulation of Bt Brinjal in India (Eggplant/Aubergine). ISAAA Brief No. 38. Ithaca, NY: ISAAA; 2009.

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45. Jayaraman K: Bt brinjal splits Indian cabinet. Nat Biotechnol 2010, 28:296.

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60. McDougall P: The cost and time involved in the discovery, development and authorization of a new plant biotechnology derived trait. A Consultancy Study for Crop Life International', Midlothian, Scotland, September: 2011.

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Spielman DJ, Hartwich F, von Grebmer K: Public-private partnerships in international research. International Food Policy Research Institute Research Brief No. 9. 2007.

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Oct. - Dec. 2011

Source : Reproduced from "Current Opinion in Biotechnology 2011, 23; 1-8: with the kind permission of the authors.

Indian Seed Industry Drivers of Future Growth

S.V.R. Rao, Nuziveedu Seeds Private Ltd

State of Indian Agriculture: especially below poverty line population which constitutes around 28% of the Indian population. With practically no more land to farm and some depletion of the agricultural land, this miracle is not easy to achieve. Science and technology have to play a big role. High productive seeds, private sector involvement and expenditure on long stalled irrigation schemes are the keys to achieving higher production. Hence a Second Green Revolution that maximizes productivity and generates income and employment opportunities for the rural population is need of hour. As the most critical of all farm inputs in agricultural production, SEED holds the key for increased productivity. Coupled with biotechnology and other crop improvement technologies, seeds offer tremendous opportunity for improving the productivity of Indian Agriculture.

Indian agriculture has come a long way since the Green Revolution of the late 1960s. India presents an interesting scenario: both GDP and food grain production in the country have risen faster than the growth in population over the last 50 years. But now the situation is becoming alarming as the agricultural growth has been static in recent years. The enormity of

Indian Seed Industry Current Status and Future Growth Indian seed Industry is one of the most mature and vibrant one in the world currently occupying the 6th position with nearly 9000 Crore turnover. During the past 5 years the Indian Seed Industry has been growing at a CAGR of 12% compared to global growth of 6-7%. In value terms the major growth has come from the increased adoption of Bt cotton hybrids, single cross corn hybrids and hybrid vegetables. The volume growth has mainly come through increased Seed Replacement Rate in crops like Paddy and Wheat. Indian seed industry is undergoing wide ranging transformation including increased role of private seed companies, entry of MNCs, joint ventures of Indian companies with multinational seed companies and consolidations.

the problem is indicated by the fact that the during the 10 year period 1997-98 to 2006-07, our food grain production has grown at an average annual rate of only 1%. Interestingly, while the nation rejoices at the recovery in food grain production at 241.6 million tons in 2010-11 with 6.6% growth, the fact remains that it is only marginal increase over the production of 233.88 million tons in 2008-09. The total demand estimate for food grains will touch 280 million tons by 2020. To achieve the forgoing amount of production a growth rate of 4% in agricultural sector has to be maintained over next 15 years. It is very important that the economic growth fosters social equity. For this the agricultural growth should be in the forefront of our national GDP growth.

Indian Seed Industry is poised to grow at a CAGR of 17% for next 4 years. By 2014, India will rank at No 3 or 4 in the Global Seed Business.

Therefore the focus of the Second Green Revolution or the so called "Evergreen Revolution" is on ensuring food and nutritional security to the Indian populace Oct. - Dec. 2011

Fig-1 61

types out of total 60 types of soil in the world. This diversity gives us opportunity to conduct breeding and evaluation research for most parts of the world. More importantly, the Indian farmer is innovative and quick adopter of new technologies. The example of adoption of Bt cotton is quoted worldwide. The inherent strength of the country is a combination of values, culture and traditions apart from physical properties. This has been demonstrated to the whole world by attaining self sufficiency in food grain production through the Green Revolution.

The optimism is based on the following facts: 1.

Though there may not be significant increase in the market size of Hybrid Cotton, the value additions like Herbicide tolerance will significantly improve the market value.

Adoption of high value single cross maize hybrid seed is growing fast.

With the IPR in place through PPV&FR Act more private bred open pollinated varieties in rice , wheat and soybean will be available to the farmers.

The Seed Replacement Rates will improve with the raising farming income and profitability.

New Biotech traits will further boost the Seed Market Value.

2. Improvement in Seed Replacement Rates (SRR) While the seed replacement among hybrids in crops like Cotton, Sunflower, Bajra, and Jowar is 100%, the SRR in OPVs is suboptimal in Indian Agriculture. The growth in SRR for some crops is shown below (fig-2). To achieve the future growth, the industry along with public extension system needs to improve the SRR from current status by 2 to 17% depending on the crop.

This growth is expected as a result of many drivers, some of which have been addressed below. All the drivers should work in tandem to achieve the goal. They are interlinked and not exclusive. For example, the improvement in SRR will happen through technology upgradation and extension work and the government policies will be crucial in achieving this growth.

The Growth Divers: 1. Inherent strength of India India is blessed with 2nd largest arable land, 15 major agro-climatic zones in the world and 46 soil

Fig. 2

The situation is more complicated if we see the variation between the States. (Table-1) Table-1 Showing SRR in different Crops and States Crop

National

Highest SRR

Average SRR

Lowest SRR

State

Paddy

Uttarakhand

Wheat

Maharashtra

J&K

Maize

100

Karnataka

Orissa

Jowar

Tamilnadu

Bajra

100

Gujarat

Karnataka

Sunflower

100

Oct. - Dec. 2011

The immediate need is to improve SRR in food crops like Paddy, Wheat and Pulses. The private Industry has entered into this area with significant R&D investments after PPV & FR Act enactment, and we can see the growing market for proprietary varieties in these crops. Maize is another crop where the SRR is very low in certain agro-climatic zones like Rajastan the state with largest maize area. Suitable hybrids for this region shall see steep growth in SRR.\

technology means any innovation in seed which the farmer finds good value for money. It can be a biotech trait and/or new hybrid/ variety and/or value addition to seed. Apart from Public investments in R&D, there has been spurt of major investments by private sector in Biotech/Breeding Research. The private industry is also sponsoring research in the National and International research institutions either individually or through consortium platform. We can expect hybrids in rice with wider adaptability with fine grain quality. This will push the growth of seed industry in a very significant way. Biotech traits on several important crops are ready for launch at various stages of regulatory process. Some of them are listed below (Table-2):

3. New Technologies Seed is the basic carrier of technologies to improve productivity. The whole world was amazed to see at the rate of adoption of Bt cotton. Here the new Table-2- List of GM Crops under development in India

Crop

GM Trait (s)

Cabbage

Insect Resistance

Castor

Insect Resistance

Cauliflower

Insect Resistance

Corn Cotton

Insect Resistance Herbicide Tolerance Insect Resistance Herbicide Tolerance â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Next GM after Bt

Eggplant

Insect Resistance

Groundnut

Disease Resistance

Mustard

Male sterility

Okra

Insect Resistance

Potato

Disease Resistance

Rice

Insect Resistance

Tomato

Disease Resistance

Oct. - Dec. 2011

EVENTS

National Seed Association of India

Annual General Meeting 2011 The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the National Seed Association of India (NSAI) was convened on Saturday 01 October 2011 at NASC Complex, Pusa Campus, New Delhi. The AGM was chaired by

the NSAI activities to the next level. The minutes of the Annual General Meeting 2010 (30 October 2010) and Extraordinary General Meeting (23 February 2011), circulated among the members, were presented for confirmation, as proposed by Mr. Satish Kagliwal and seconded by Mr. Rajvir Rathi and Dr. F.B. Patil.

Mr. Harish Reddy, General Secretary, then presented his report (Copy of the NSAI Annual Report 2010-2011 attached). He highlighted various activities of the Association, particularly the Indian Seed Congress 2011, which was a huge success. NSAI's recognition as a representative of the Indian seed sector is increasing with the Government of India (Min. of Agriculture) inviting NSAI for consultations in many policy framing exercises. The recognition of NSAI is also on the increase in the eyes of international agricultural community President, Dr. Ramasami. A for seed sector, with large number of NSAI delegations from USA, member companies Netherlands, Germany, participated in the meeting. besides the International The AGM began with a S e e d Fe d e r a t i o n , warm welcome to the interacting with NSAI on p a r t i c i p a n t s b y Vi c e a regular basis. The P r e s i d e n t , M r. M . G . importance of NSAI in Shembekar. Mr. Shembekar the national agricultural a p p r e c i a t e d t h e l a rg e agenda is reflected in the turnout and said this requests from organisers reflected the interest of the of various agricultural members in the NSAI Dr. Ramasami outgoing president welcoming seminars / conferences / the new incumbent Dr. Subharaoa. activities. He appreciated events, for partnership the working as a team by NSAI members in meeting in form of human resource support as invited speakers various challenges faced by the industry. The success in and logo support for better visibility and reach. The Bt. Cotton seed price correction is an example of this NSAI magazine and the website are receiving much coming together. Success of Indian Seed Congress appreciation and compliments for better knowledge (ISC'11) has again established the cohesiveness of the and information dissemination. These instruments of industry and interest in the science and technology communication and visibility for the Association are driven industry. He thanked all the members for the increasing attention for better content and support extended to NSAI becoming a member of the presentation. Mr. Reddy also thanked all the members APSA Executive Committee for the first time. for their support and the Presidents of all the four former Associations for their leadership in bringing President Dr. Ramasami then introduced to the AGM NSAI to the current level. The Secretary's Report was the new NSAI Executive Director, Mr. Raju Kapoor. He presented for adoption and accepted as proposed by Mr. welcomed Mr. Kapoor to the NSAI family and hoped K. Niranjan Kumar and seconded by Mr. Pawan Kansal. this strengthening of the Secretariat will help us take

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Mr. G. S. Gill, Treasurer presented the NSAI statement of accounts for 2010-2011 (attached & circulated among members earlier). In his presentation, he focussed on the three main streams of revenue generation for the association. The membership renewal fee has been the main source of revenue. This has seen a small decline due to non renewal of membership by a few companies. Partly offset by new members enrolment, this major stream needs attention, through a concerted drive for new members and retaining the existing ones. The savings from the Indian Seed Congress has increased this year. It has been decided to share these savings with the host state association, as an incentive for their better involvement and co-operation. The revenue from

appreciation in the minds of rural public is still not as much as desired. He hoped that the new GC will strive to address this gap. Dr. Ramasami stressed that the new Seed Policy, the PPV & FR Act and the National Biodiversity Act, all impact our industry's progress. We must understand the requirements of these important legislations properly to be able to progress. NSAI has been organising regular interactions with the concerned agencies and hoped that these will help. He felt that the operational problems in the state are increasing. While NSAI is taking steps to interact with the states to find solutions, the members in their respective states must create good congenial environment for operation and build our credibility across the country. In the open session, several members made suggestions for an improved role for NSAI. These included NSAI to take a leadership role in the Asian region, as well as for African nations, who look up to India for guidance in the seed sector; starting of a legal cell; constituting sub committees for improving our membership base etc.; organising regular interactive meetings with the state officials; capacity building of our members through advanced training programmes; state / zonal representation on the GC for members; etc. Mr. Satish Kagliwal, Co-Chair of the National Organising Committee (NOC) for the Indian Seed Congress 2012 (ISC'12), along with his Team launched the brochure and logo for ISC'12 and invited all the members to actively co-operate and support the organisation of the third edition of ISC at Pune on 10-11 February 2012. He announced that Union Agriculture Minister, Shri Sharad Pawarji has kindly agreed to inaugurate the ISC'12.

Enthusiastic Voters in NSAI Elections

advertisements in the NSAI magazine and on the website has also increased during the year. The NSAI Corpus collected by joining of hands together by the four participating associations, was utilized for building the assets in the form of our new office in New Delhi. A few (three) companies have contributed to the building fund and we look forward to more support in this regard. NSAI has been able to invest about Rs. 1.75 crores in fixed deposits. The Treasurer's report was adopted as proposed by Dr. K. S. Narayanswamy and seconded by Mr. Rajvir Rathi.

The outgoing GC members were then felicitated with mementoes by President Dr. Ramasami. Mr. M. Prabhakar Rao, Past President felicitated Dr. Ramasami. The major attraction of this year's AGM, the NSAI Elections 2011, to choose the members to the NSAI Governing Council for 2011-13, were then conducted. Dr. Arvind Kapur, the Returning Officer announced the process and other details. He informed that while there

The President handed over the cheque for Rs. 8.00 lakh to the ISC'11 Team as 10% of the savings from the event. He said that by sharing of savings with the host State Seed Associations, we are able to strengthen the state bodies in supporting the cause of the seed industry in the states. President Dr. Ramasami in his address complimented the growth of the Indian seed industry and hoped that with the current growth rate India may soon become the third largest seed economy in the world, from the present fifth position. We have a large prominence in the cotton and corn, and our growth in vegetables, sorghum, millets etc. is increasing. He was happy that the agricultural community in the country has started appreciating the role of NSAI. However, while the government and others are recognising our role, the

Electing the right team.

Oct. - Dec. 2011

are 17 candidates for the five vacant positions in the ordinary member category, there are two associations vying for the single seat in that category. With only one nomination for Mr. Manish Patel in the associate category, there was no voting required for this category. In their presentations before the AGM, eleven candidates from among the ordinary members namely, Mr. Prabhakar Rao; Mr. Uday Singh; Mr. M.G. Shembekar; Mr. Satish Kagliwal; Mr. Bhaskar Rao; Mr. Rajvir Rathi; Dr. Rakesh Chopra; Mr. Sharat Chandrana; Mr. Satyanarayan Rathi; Mr. Rakesh Killan; and Mr. Alok Marodia withdrawing their candidature, only six candidates remained in the field for five seats. In the association category, with the withdrawal of MASA, only AP Seedsmen Association, represented by its President, Dr. P. Sateesh Kumar, remained in the field. Voting was then held for the ordinary members category. Finally, Dr. Arvind Kapur announced the results of the Elections as follows:

Members: Mr. G. S. Gill Mr. M. Sabir Dr. D. B. Desai Mr. Bhupen Dubey Mr. Pawan Kansal Mr. Venkataswarlu Dr. Manish Patel Dr. P. Sateesh Kumar Mr. K. Niranjan Kumar (in the casual vacancy of Dr. Ramasami) Mr. Alok Marodia (Co-opted)

Ordinary Members: (Five): Dr. D. B. Desai; Dr. K. S. N a r a y a n a s w a m y ; M r. B h u p e n D u b e y ; M r. Venkataswarlu and Mr. Pawan Kansal

Mr. Vaibhav Kashikar (Co-opted) Mr. S. K. Roongta (Special Invitee)

Associate Members: (One): Mr. Manish Patel

Mr. Satyanarayan Rathi (Special Invitee)

Association Members: (One): Dr. P. Sateesh Kumar

Dr. K. V. Subbarao, the new President then addressed the AGM. He appealed to all members for their active support to take the growth of NSAI further. He said that while NSAI has in the recent years achieved a lot of progress, the road for getting the true recognition for the significant role being played by the seed industry in national agricultural growth agenda, is long. He said making NSAI responsible to the general Public and regulators, creating collaborations and expanding NSAI brand to newer global territories would be his immediate priorities. He was confident that the enthusiasm and interest of our members will help us in achieving our goals.

These elected members and others whose term still continues (Dr. M. Ramasami; Mr. Harish Reddy; Dr. K. V. Subba Rao; Mr. G. S. Gill; Mr. M. Sabir and Mr. N.P. Patel) then held a meeting to constitute the Governing Council. The meeting of the newly elected and other GC members then elected the office bearers and nominated the co-opted members and Special Invitees to the GC. Dr. Ramasami tendered his resignation from GC. This casual vacancy was also then filled by Mr. K. Niranjan. This nomination , however would need to be ratified by the next AGM/EGM. Dr. Ramasami will continue to be invited to the meetings of Office Bearers and GC as a 'Special Invitee', as per NSAI R & R. The final Governing Council for 2011-2013 was then introduced to and welcomed by the AGM. The new GC is as follows: President

Dr. K. V. Subba Rao

Vice President

Mr. N. P Patel

General Secretary

Mr. M. Harish Reddy

Treasurer

Dr. K. S. Narayanaswamy

The proceedings of the AGM were then concluded with a vote of thanks proposed by Mr Raju Kapoor, ED. The AGM was followed by a 'Special Lecture' delivered by Mr. T. Nanda Kumar, former Secretary of Agriculture, Govt. of India on 'Agricultural Growth and Role of Indian Seed Industry'. The Lecture was chaired by Dr. P. L. Gautam, Chairperson, Protection of Plant Varieties & Farmers' Rights Authority.

President complimenting the NSAI Election Committee

Oct. - Dec. 2011

EVENTS

decline in the area for production due to increased urbanization / industrialization, and more pressure on availability of water for irrigation in view of few programmes for development of irrigation infrastructure and reduced number of rain days in a year. An important related dimension is the food inflation. This is being ascribed to both supply shortages in comparison to the demand, as well as, the improved purchasing power of the consumers.

NSAI Special Lecture

New policy initiatives are required to manage these aspects of food security. The four key areas of policy interventions â&#x20AC;&#x201C; incentives, institutions, investments and infrastructure, have their own challenges. Are the incentives in the right basket? The institutions dealing with extension and other support areas are collapsing. There has been decline in the investments in agriculture in the recent times. The investment in infrastructure has shown some improvement in eastern India, but to get the region to reach the productivity level in Punjab is a challenge. The only instrument which can drive the agricultural growth in these situations is technology. Discussing the issues for the seed industry, Mr. Nandakumar agreed that the private sector's focus on high value low volume seeds makes business sense. He was of the opinion that there needs to be a level playing field for public and private sector. The Seed Bill, which is pending approval, should enforce a market driven policy, coupled with responsibility for ensuring quality and product performance. With increased investments in R & D by private sector, the product delivery is better. He felt that increased trust between the Government and seed industry would further improve the efficiency of the seed sector.

Mr. T. Nandakumar, Former Secretary (Agriculture), Government of India (Presently, Member, National Disaster Management Authority) delivered the 'NSAI Special Lecture' on 01 October 2011 at New Delhi. The lecture was well attended by a large number of NSAI members, who were gathered in the city for the Annual General Meeting that day. Several senior officials from ICAR and Ministry of Agriculture also attended the lecture. Dr. P. L. Gautam, Chairperson, Protection of Plant Varieties & Farmers' Rights Authority chaired the lecture. Mr. Nandakumar in his lecture stressed for a 4 percent growth in agriculture, if the nation has to achieve a growth rate of 9 percent, as projected in the approach paper for the 12th Five Year Plan. This is also necessary for an overall inclusive growth, as the expected growth rate for manufacturing and service sectors is around 10 percent. In this regard, we also need to look at the contribution of agriculture to national GDP, which is going down. The reduced agricultural GDP contribution of around 16 percent still employs more than 50 percent of the population. An increased productivity, in terms of higher value per unit area, is thus necessary. The component wise growth rate would obviously differ in view of changing basket of products on an Indian thali. We also need to keep in mind the

Oct. - Dec. 2011

EVENTS NSAI State Interaction Meetings The NSAI is committed to reach out to all the stakeholders in the seed industry and is offering itself as a platform for the stakeholders to identify & resolve the growth retardants and promote the growth enablers for the seed industry for an inclusive growth. The NSAI has begun to reach out to all the State Governments, State Associations and other interested parties on one to one basis towards the said objectives. So far we have been able to conduct inter-action meetings in the States of Gujarat, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi. The other States will also be covered regularly moving forward. These meetings are expected to throw up several important initiatives that will benefit the stakeholders in future.

Oct. - Dec. 2011

Honours & Awards Sushil Karwa of Krishidhan Seeds Bags 'Yuva Udyog Ratna Puraskar'

Shri Sushil Karwa Receiving the "Yuva Udyog Ratna Puraskar" at Nashik on 10th November 2011

The All India Marwari Yuva Manch (AIMYM), conferred the prestigious 'Yuva Udyog Ratna Puraskar' to Shri Sushil Karwa, Managing Director, Krishidhan Seeds Pvt. Ltd. The award ceremony took place at the International Marwadi Convention organized by the AIMYM in Nashik. The award was presented at the hands of Shri Prithviraj Chavan, Hon. Chief Minister of Maharashtra State in the presence of Shri Narayan Rane, Hon. Minister of Industry and Mr. Balasaheb Thorat, Hon. Minister of Revenue, Maharashtra State, Shri Rajendra Darda, Hon. Minister of Education, Shri. Sameer Bhujbal, Member of Parliament, Nashik, Shri. Dilip Gandhi, Member of Parliament, Ahmednagar, Shri. Jainarayan Karwa, Chairman, Krishidhan Group of Companies.

Oct. - Dec. 2011

NEWS Punjab Govt announces 50% subsidy on vegetable cultivation

Swarna Sub1: flood resistant rice variety In Tamil Nadu every year, out of the 15 lakh hectares (ha) of rice cultivated during samba season an area of 3 to 5 lakh hectares gets affected by flood during the North East monsoon.

The Punjab government today announced a 50 per cent subsidy on vegetable farming to boost production in the State. Disclosing this here today, the Agriculture Minister, Mr Sucha Singh Langah, said the government would provide a grant under the National Agriculture Development Scheme for farmers to making net houses for cultivation of vegetables.

In particular, the flood-prone tail-end areas of delta districts and some of the coastal districts like Thiruvarur and Nagapattinam are often affected due to flood, and as a result very low rice production and productivity is recorded.

He said under this scheme, a one-time grant of Rs 50,000 for a net house covering a 500 square metre area would be provided to small and medium farmers.

Water stagnation Even though many high yielding improved rice varieties are available for cultivation, they suffer due to floods and continuous water stagnation.

Weeds threaten cotton crop in Maha Cos work on resistant seeds

If the stagnation of flood water remains for more than a week, the present day varieties are unable to tolerate and thereby yield levels are drastically affected.

Natural phenomena

Seed producing companies on said they are working on developing weed-resistant cotton varieties as weeds are threatening the crop production in key growing regions such as Marathwada in Maharashtra.

As this natural phenomenon is beyond human control, to overcome this problem, TNAU, Coimbatore has introduced Swarna Sub1, a rice variety that can resist floods and therefore will be a boon to these areas. The new variety can tolerate 14-17 days of water stagnation during floods. It is ideal for growing under SRI conditions.

Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech (MMB) is working on a technology to develop in-the-seed insect protection and herbicide tolerance for weed management, a MMB spokesperson said. Similarly, another seed company Advanta is working on bringing out herbicide tolerant cotton hybrids into the market by 2013. "Advanta is also working on developing hybrids tolerant to Glyphosate sprays," Advanta Spokesperson Smita Jayadevan said. While agrichemicals major Syngenta offers weedicides like Fusilade and Gramoxone. Syngenta offers broad spectrum weedicides like Fusilade and Gramoxone to check weeds in cotton and other crops, Syngenta spokesperson Ravi KC said.

Submergence tolerance The Swarna Sub 1 variety is similar to Swarna rice variety grown in eastern parts of the country in all characteristic features except submergence tolerance. Popularization of Swarna Sub1 cum seed distribution campaigns were organized during July 2011 through the Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) of Thanjavur (Needamangalam) and Namakkal (Sikkal) districts. Seeds of Swarna Sub1 were distributed to around 100 farmers who cultivate rice in flood prone conditions.

Chairman of pro-GM seed companies body ABLE-AG Ram Kaundinya said that weeds in cotton crop is a perennial problem and plant biotechnology could be the answer to it. The weed problem has aggravated

For more details on this variety readers contact Dr. Robin, Professor & Head, Department of Rice, Mobile: 94422 24409. Oct. - Dec. 2011

the woes of farmers who are fighting with labour shortage and absence of low-cost technology to boost crop production. "Labour shortages will grow in the future and through GM technology we cannot only check the problem of weeds but also increase productivity," Kaundinya added.

poor social and physical infrastructure. With existing knowledge and technology, ICRISAT and its partners worldwide have proven that the average yields of its nutritious and climate-resilient crops can be increased two to three-folds. Since ICRISAT's inception in 1972, over 735 improved crop varieties have been released with partners in more than 78 countries, contributing to sharp increases in crop productivity.

Cotton is the second major cash crop in Maharashtra after sugarcane. "We are facing problems due to weeds, which is further aggravated due to labour shortage. If this situation persists then the cotton productivity will be affected," Mangoo Chavan, a farmer in Paithan taluk of Aurangabad said. Labourers do not want to remove 'gajar' grass as it causes cough and skin problems and there is no specific low cost treatment to check weeds, he added.

Aligned with this year's poverty eradication day theme "From Poverty to Sustainability: People at the Centre of Inclusive Development," William D Dar, ICRISAT Director General.

Agriculture Officer in the taluk Dinesh Lomte said that there is a problem of weeds especially, the parthorium or Gajar grass, which spreads rapidly. "Gajar grass can be removed by glyphosate, a herbicide, but using it also burns the crop," Lomte said.

“To fight poverty and the world food crisis, we need to promote drought-tolerant crops on a large scale, convince farmers that these are their best bets for higher income, and enable them to set up strategic food reserves to cope with future crises in food,” he emphasized.

Another farmer Gulab Rao Khandagle from Phulambari taluk, echoed similar problems. A K Ahire, Agriculture Officer in Phulambari said weeds are an issue of concern and there is no specific weedicide available to check it and at the same time ensure that the cotton crop is not affected.

Through a strategy called Inclusive Market-Oriented Development or IMOD, ICRISAT seeks to help the poorest of the poor to connect to markets and enable them to achieve sustainable food security, as well as to reduce the vulnerability of dryland communities especially during emergencies like drought.

"We are suggesting farmers to go for inter-cropping and use herbicides like Round Up to check weeds apart from manually removing weeds," Ahire said.

Along this line, Dr Dar added that the international development community must go beyond quick fix solutions by pursuing science-based sustainable approaches to fight poverty and hunger. In India, over the last three decades, the collaborative research between ICRISAT and national partners has resulted in the improvement of pulses production in the country. From 1976-2010, 197 improved varieties of sorghum (35), pearl millet (80), chickpea (37), pigeonpea (20) and Groundnut (26) have been released by ICRISAT with Indian partners, raising production and incomes of millions of smallholder farmers.

ICRISAT to develop drought tolerant crops to fight poverty HYDRABAD: International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) joins hand with international research institutes for the development of five highly nutritious drought tolerant crops--chickpea, pigeonpea, pearl millet, sorghum and groundnut-- to reduce poverty, hunger, malnutrition and envrionment degradation in the dryland tropics.

Govt to redraft National Food Security Bill

The initiative taken by the ICRISAT is onbehalf of the World Food Day and International Day for the Eradication of poverty as there are a billion people malnourished and 70 million more people pushed into extreme poverty throughout the world by the current rising food prices.

The Union Government has decided to redraft the National Food Security Bill to keep an option open for supplying more than 3 kg of subsidised foodgrains to general households in case of increased output. “We have received public comments and views of State Governments on the draft Food Bill. We have decided to make some changes while finalising the bill,” the Food Minister, Mr K.V. Thomas told PTI.

Most of the world's poor and malnourished are smallholder farmers, particularly in the dryland tropics of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT works across these regions which are homes to more than 600 million poorest of the poor. The dryland tropics are characterized by very low yields, degraded soils and

Oct. - Dec. 2011

In cases of general households' entitlement to subsidised foodgrains, the Minister said the word

“minimum” would be inserted in the draft so that the government can increase the allocation if production rises.

“Bt cotton has seen the fastest adaptation of technology in India,” said Mr Barwale, adding that adoption of the technology had brought down use of pesticides by 10,391 tonnes.

In the present form of draft Food Bill, the Food Ministry has proposed that the government would supply 3 kg of rice and wheat per person per month falling under general households category at a price not exceeding 50 per cent of the minimum support price (MSP).

However, there were challenges in cotton production such as reducing labour costs, finding solution to sucking pests and introducing mechanisation. On the sidelines, he said that Mahyco was ready with roundup ready flex cotton which will help overcome the problem of weeks.

The draft National Food Security Bill seeks to provide a legal entitlement to subsidised foodgrains to 75 per cent of the country's rural population and 50 per cent of urban India.

It has undergone trials at multi-locations but has been asked by the Genetical Engineering Appraisal Committee to repeat it this year.

Mr Thomas said the Government has decided to remove the condition of extending benefits to general households only in States where the Public Distribution System (PDS) is modernised. “The present draft restricts benefits to general households in States having modernised PDS. Now, the benefit will be extended to all States,” he said.

Mahyco is ready with Bt Okra (lady's finger) and the company was waiting for the Centre to approve the introduction of Bt Brinjal, which has run into opposition from various sources. “First Bt brinjal has to be approved, then we will follow it up with Bt okra,” he said.

Besides, he said the cash-handout of Rs 1,000 a month for six months to pregnant and lactating women would be extended to the entire country instead of 52 districts.

The company is in an advanced stage of trials on Bt rice, while experiments on herbicide-tolerant rice and wheat were at formative stages, he said.

The changes to be made in the proposed Food Bill were discussed with the Congress President and UPA Chairperson, Ms Sonia Gandhi, he added.

Earlier on Monday, experts at the conference they were worried over the fact that Bt cotton is now accounting for 93 per cent of the total area under cotton.

The proposed bill would cost the government exchequer more than Rs 1,00,000 crore annually in subsidies.

“Such a dominance could lead to elimination or disappearance of old and traditional varieties,” said Dr C.D. Mayee, Chairman of the National Organising Committee of the conference. “Bt cotton cannot be a panacea for everything,” he said.

Bollgard II cotton acreage at 84 l ha: Mahyco

The Conference is being held in Asia for the first time. Over 200 delegates from abroad and 600 within the country, mainly scientists, are taking part in the meet that discusses “Technologies for Prosperity.”

Bollgard II cotton has been cultivated in 84 lakh hectares in the country this year, according to Mr R. Barwale, Managing Director of Mahyco India Ltd. This is over 70 per cent of the 118 lakh hectares under cotton this year.

Bollgard III may come to India only around 2020

Bollgard II was introduced in the country in 2006 when 50,000 hectares were covered and acreage under Bollgard I then had peaked to 51 lakh hectares, Mr Barwale said at a plenary session at the fifth World Cotton Research Conference on Tuesday.

Bollgard III, the advanced version of genetically modified cotton from the US agri-science major Monsanto, is likely to be commercially released in the global market in 2016-17. For India, it could take some more time and could be introduced around 2020, according to a Monsanto official.

Bollgard I was introduced in the country in 2002, marking the entry of the first genetically engineered crop. Then, 29,000 hectares were brought under it. Bollgard contains the Bacillus thuringiensis, a gene that controls bollworms in cotton.

“Bollgard III will have resistance to bollworm, army worm and pink bollworm. It will also be herbicide tolerant,” said Dr Roy Cantrell, Global Cotton Breeding Lead of Monsanto.

Bollgard II is an improved version of Bollgard I and is claimed to provide relief against spodoptera and heliothis pests in cotton. Oct. - Dec. 2011

Bollgard III has got the approval of the US and Australian Governments for regulatory field trials. “It is

at a stage where the genes are being analysed. In Brazil, it is under the consideration of the regulator,” said Dr Cantrell, who is here in connection with the Fifth World Cotton Research Conference.

countries to analyze their seeds genetically. In the Analytical Service Center we will also carry out tests to monitor the effectiveness of our disinfection methods such as Thermo Seed.

The work on Bollgard III is at the third stage in the US and Brazil and these countries could see the commercial release of the variety in 2016-17.

The Wako Riken Incubation Plaza is a multi-tenant building, supporting innovative international companies involved in research and marketing of new technologies. It provides accommodation for several different state-of-the-art high-tech companies and technologies.

India may have to wait until 2020 to get the new version of Bollgard. Currently, Bollgard I and II are being used by Indian farmers with Bollgard I's use declining slowly. The use of Bollgard II has increased with the variety being sown in over 70 per cent of the total 118 lakh hectares under cotton in the country.

This location provides INCOTEC with a great opportunity to communicate and co-operate with these companies and the staff of the Riken research institute. INCOTEC's research group will certainly benefit from this.

“For India, research is on to decide what genes to include. It is at a very early stage,” said Dr Cantrell. Work is on to introduce a herbicide tolerant variety, the Roundup Ready flex, he said.

First hybrid vegetable varieties for Africa

Monsanto is also looking to introduce “Refuge in the bag” cotton in the market. Farmers are supposed to fence Bt cotton plantings with non-Bt cotton varieties to ensure that no cross pollination of other fields or crop takes place. “The Refuge in the Bag will help the non-Bt variety grow amidst the Bt variety. This also can take care of concerns over surrounding fields,” said Dr Cantrell.

In its demo field in Tanzania, RZ Afrisem is currently displaying the first aubergine varieties that have been specially developed for the African market. In honour of this unique innovation, RZ Afrisem – a collaboration between Rijk Zwaan and East West Seeds – was recently visited by a delegation from AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa).

A section of breeders is of the view that with hybrids being used widely across the globe, especially in India, the concerns of Bt cotton tainting other crops could no more be an issue. In case of hybrids, growers have to go for new seeds every year and therefore, there is no cause for concern, they say.

Up until recently, virtually no vegetable varieties were being bred specifically for African growers. By developing commercial hybrid varieties with improved traits for tropical regions of Africa, RZ Afrisem is now transforming this situation. The newly developed varieties generate a higher yield and exhibit better resistances to diseases than the varieties traditionally cultivated in tropical Africa. Now that the first hybrids of African aubergines are a reality, the next step is to stimulate their seed production.

“However, Governments will have to approve the Refuge in the Bag process. In the US, it is a non-issue since you don't need a refuge area for cotton, though you will need one for corn,” said Dr Cantrell. Asked about reports of poor performance of Bollgard I currently in India, he said it was one of the reasons why farmers were shifting to Bollgard II.

Providing insights into possibilities The RZ Afrisem demo field is currently open to any vegetable growers who are interested in visiting it. In addition to displaying the improved varieties, the demo field also hosts demonstrations of a range of different cultivation techniques. By comparing their current situation with the new possibilities, growers gain insights into how they could take their own cultivation activities to a new level. One of RZ Afrisem's key aims is to ultimately provide African growers with a better chance of a sustainable livelihood.

INCOTEC opens new high-tech facility in Japan On November 4th, 2011 the opening ceremony was held for INCOTEC's newest facility in Japan, at the Wako Riken Incubation Plaza. INCOTEC Japan will use the new facility to install novel and very innovative technologies like ThermoSeed which will be used for research on new crops and smallscale treatment for commercial purposes. This facility will also be the Analytical Service Center for INCOTEC in the region where we will produce analytical tools (such as gels) for customers in Japan and surrounding

Oct. - Dec. 2011

On 19th November, the RZ Afrisem demo field was visited by the president of AGRA, an organisation that is focused on supporting the African agricultural sector. Since AGRA's activities overlap considerably with those of RZ Afrisem, President Dr. Namanga had previously paid a visit to the Rijk Zwaan headquarters in De Lier, The Netherlands. This time, in Tanzania, he

was very impressed by RZ Afrisem's activities and the concrete results it had achieved so far. He pledged to investigate opportunities for RZ Afrisem and AGRA to work together more closely in the future.

The African Governments too, seem to have shifted their focus to development of knowledge and manufacturing units in their respective countries. Mr Nurallah Abubakar, Executive Director in Nigerian Ministry of Agriculture, says that his country would like to build sustainable ecosystem for agriculture. “We are looking at partnerships to take back good agricultural practices,” he said.

African nations look to India for seeds, farm inputs

Icrisat (International Crops Research Institute for SemiArid Tropics) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) are coordinating the field visits by African countries and interactions.

HYDERABAD: Mr Dellings Phiri, Managing Director of the Malawian Seed Co Malawi Ltd, along with the company's Commercial Manager, Mr R. Chiwa, was busy taking down notes, receiving brochures from Indian seed, agriinput and agri-tech firms at the India-Africa Economic mission meet. They are part of a delegation that represented eight countries in Africa.

Mr Abdul Rahman Ilyas, Chief Operating Officer of Agribusiness and Innovation Platform (AIP) at Icrisat, says that he has plans to organise this event twice a year.

Researchers learn how pathogen causes speck disease

None of these delegates wants Indian investors to come there and buy land. In the last few years, a trend had virtually emerged in most of the 54 countries in Africa that made the Dark Continent a happy hunting ground for rich countries and foreign companies with deep pockets to buy land, grow crops and export produce back home.

The crystal structure of the AvrPtoB-BAK1 complex is shown superimposed on a tomato leaf that has symptoms of bacterial speck disease. Genome engineering - via proncleus injection of TALENs into mouse, rat and rabbit oocytes www.polygene.ch

This delegation, however, is not interested in selling lands in Africa. It is interested in forging alliances and setting up units in the tiny African countries to improve productivity using better seeds, inputs and technologies.

The work helps explain how Pseudomonas syringae, a bacterial pathogen, has evolved to cause disease and may open the door to breeding tomato varieties that are resistant to speck disease, which can prompt costly losses in tomato crops.

Ask Mr Chiwa, who is in his early 30s. He replies in flawless English: “We have realised that there is no need for re-inventing the wheel. We see similarities in agroclimatic conditions between India and Malawi. So, it makes sense for us to look at what can be replicated,” Mr Chiwa told Business Line, taking time off from busy interactions with Indian agro-biotech firms here.

The research -- conducted at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Science (BTI) at Cornell in conjunction with scientists at Tsinghua University in Beijing -- is published in the December issue of the Cell Host and Microbe.

Mr Phiri, who represents the agricultural arm of the $200-million group, says realisation is slowly dawning on Africa on the importance of growing the native industry rather than selling land. Ms Idit Miller, Vice-President and Managing Director of EMRC, subscribes to this view.

"Our work presents clear evidence of a molecular arms race or coevolution between a host plant and a pathogen," said Greg Martin, an expert on tomato disease resistance at the Cornell-affiliated BTI, a Cornell professor of plant pathology and plant-microbe biology, and lead author of the paper.

The Brussels-based non-governmental organisation that exclusively focuses on helping African countries forge alliances abroad for its growth. “Large tracts of land still remain untapped in Africa, particularly in the poor sub-Saharan region. Africa needs technological inputs to develop this land. India can step in and help,” she said.

The paper describes the crystal structure of AvrPtoB -- a protein injected into plant cells by Pseudomonas syringae that interferes with the plant immune response and allows the bacteria to multiply. The paper also provides an understanding of how AvrPtoB binds and interferes with the plant proteinBAK1, which acts with immune receptors to activate plant defenses.

EMRC is leading the five-day initiative in India, its second here. About 60 Indian companies have sent their representatives. ITC, Jain Irrigation, Nuziveedu Seeds, Vibha Seeds, Advanta, Nandan Bio and Sri Biotech are some of the companies that took part.

Some tomato varieties are able to resist infection by Pseudomonas syringaebecause they express proteins Fen and Pto, which detect AvrPtoB and mount a defense.

Oct. - Dec. 2011

cultivated and wild rice yields markers for identifying agronomically important genes” has been published online in Nature Biotechnology on Dec. 11.

The structures characterized in Martin's research revealed that two domains of AvrPtoB have a structural similarity, suggesting they arose from an ancestral avrPtoB gene. The paper also identifies part of BAK1 that is structurally similar to the defense protein Pto.

(www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nbt.2050.html)

Commission authorises GM maize and GM cotton for food / feed use

Genomic evidence found for domestication history of asian cultivated rice

EU - The European Commission adopted today three Decisions authorising GM maizes MIR604xGA21, Bt11xMIR604, Bt11xMIR604xGA21 and one Decision authorising GM cotton 281-24-236/3006-210-23.

As one of the earliest domesticated crops by human being, rice has undergone significant phenotypic and physiological changes during the process of transformation from wild rice to cultivated rice that contains two major subspecies “indica and japonica”. However, the genome-wide variation patterns involved in the process remains a puzzle.

These four Decisions cover the authorisation for food and feed uses and import and processing, but not for cultivation.

In order to clarify the issue, the Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) resequenced the genomes of 40 Asian cultivated rice accessions and 10 wild rice accessions in collaboration with worldwide research bodies including CAS Institute of Botany, Berkley University and Cornell University.

The products in question received (between May 2010 and June 2010) a positive safety assessment from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and underwent the full authorisation procedure set out in the EU legislation. As Member States did not succeed to return qualified majority decisions either in favour or against these 4 authorisations - in a Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health (SCoFCAH) in February 2011 and then in the Council meeting of 15 December 2011 -, the files were sent back to the Commission for final decision.

Using a strict pipeline, they identified around 15 million candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in all 50 accessions and obtained 6.5 million high-quality SNPs after excluding sites with missing data in any accession, representing the largest highquality SNP data set ever obtained in rice. Among the 6.5 million high-quality SNPs, 4,124,470 were found in cultivars. A large proportion (2,953,712; 71.6%) of these SNPs were also found in wild rice accessions, indicating that most genetic variation in cultivated rice is derived from the variation in wild rice.

The authorisations are valid for 10 years, and any products produced from these GM maize and GM cotton will be subject to the EU's strict labelling and traceability rules. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are organisms, such as plants and animals, whose genetic characteristics are being modified artificially in order to give them a new property. Food and feed which contain or consist of such GMOs, or are produced from GMOs, are called genetically modified (GM) food or feed.

Millions of SNPs in representative wild and cultivated rice strains provided an unprecedented opportunity to finely resolve the domestication history of cultivated rice. The analysis of the SNPs not only gave support to the hypothesis that japonica and indica were independently domesticated, but also further suggested japonica was domesticated from the Chinese strain of O. rufipogon. Besides, they also identified thousands of candidate genes that may have been artificially selected during the domestication of one or both of the two cultivated subspecies.

In order to ensure that the development of modern biotechnology, and more specifically of GMOs, takes place in complete safety, the European Union has established a legal framework regulating genetically modified (GM) food and feed in the EU. This framework pursues the global objective of ensuring a high level of protection of human life and health and welfare, environment and consumer interests, whilst ensuring that the internal market works effectively.

The data generated in the research provide valuable dense molecular markers for rice breeding and for identifying agronomically important genes in rice. The paper entitled “Resequencing 50 accessions of

Oct. - Dec. 2011

NEW NSAI MEMBERS

Goldking biogene Pvt. Ltd. DF-1,2,3,4, Krishna Complex, Opp. Essar Petrol Pump, Sarkhej Sanand Road, Ahmedabad-382210

Virgin Seeds Pvt. Ltd. 1st floor, E-Wing, Bharat Bazar Complex, API Corner, Aurangabad-431001 (Maharashtra)

Karnataka Maize Development Association 131, 6th Main, 4th Block, Jayanagar, Bangalore-560011

Griba Nursery India Pvt. Ltd. B2/105, Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi-110029

Pokar Agrotech Pvt. Ltd. 305, Akik Tower,Opp.Rajpath Club, S.G. Highway, Bodakdev, Ahmedabad-380015 (Guj)

Bansal Seeds Pvt. Ltd. Vill & Post Pratappur, Ramnagar Road, Kashipur-244713 U.S. Nagar (Uttarakhand)

Green Gold Seeds Ltd. Gut No. 65, Narayanpur Shivar, Waluj, Tq. Gangapur, Dist. Aurangabad-431133 (M.S)

Strategic Decisions MGMT Consultants Pvt. Ltd. 6th floor, JMD Regent Square, Mehrauli Gurgaon Road, Gurgaon-122002

Harvest Plus Building No. 303, C/o ICRISAT, Patancheru-502324 (A.P)

Sasya Gentech Pvt. Ltd. 15/2A, Ganakallu, Srinivasapura- Kengeri Post, Bangalore-560060

Nongwoo Seed India Pvt. Ltd. No. 2018,B Sector, Double Road, (Mother Dairy Road) Yelahanka New Town, Bangalore-560106 Managing Director

Dayal Seeds Pvt. Ltd. Near Partapur Flyover, Partapur, Meerut-250103 (U.P)

Swami Seed Agencies 12, Ramdwara Mandir, Main Bazar, Opp. Indra Market, Old Subzi Mandi, Delhi-110007

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Mangalam Seeds Limited 202, Sampada Complex, B/H Tulsi Complex, Mithakhali's Six Roads, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad-380009

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15 Trimurti Plant Sciences Pvt. Ltd. 6-3-347/22/b, Dwarakapuri Colony, Punjgutta, Hyderabad-500082 (A.P)

Derivium Tradition Securities (India) Pvt. Ltd. Eucharistic Congress Bldg. No.III, 10th floor, 5th Convent Road, Colaba, Mumbai-400039

17 Classic Hybrid Seeds Co. 105, Kaling Nr.Bata Show Room, B/h Mount Carmel School, Ashram Road, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad

Leela Seeds 401, Sheel Complex, 4, Mayur Colony, Mithakhali Six Road, Ahmedabad-380009

19 Shri Seeds (India) Farms Pvt. Ltd. 227/228, Ellora Commercial Centre, Salapose Road, Nr. G.P.O. Ahmedabad-380001

Tropica Seeds Pvt. Ltd. 2/77, Kannimangala Village, Bangalur, Hosur Taluk-635103 Krishnagiri District, T. Nadu

21 Gujarat Hybrid Seeds 202, "Aagman" Mayur Colony, Mithakhali Six Road, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad-9

Ganesh Agri Seeds 109, Ashwamegh Avenue, Nr. Mithakhali Underbridge, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad-380009

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