Seed traceable technology likely by June 2020: Official

Hyderabad: The Centre is likely to come out with a technology that would facilitate the traceability of seeds by June 2020, said a senior official of the ministry of agriculture here Wednesday. "The major step which the country is going to take is in terms of traceability of seeds. The government is coming out with a software systemin association with seed manufacturers associations and we expect it by June 2020," Sanjay Agarwal, Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture said.

He was addressing the inaugural session of the 32nd International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) Congress-2019 being held here. "Seed traceability should be there so that when a farmer buy seeds, through a barcode or QR code they should be able to see from where the seed has come (originated)," Agarwal said. The official said India produced about 3.80 million tonnes of seeds against the requirement of 3.50 million tonnes.

"India meets the requirement and also exports. But in terms of quality of seeds there is lot more to be done. We are collaborating with various institutes to produce quality seeds especially in horticulture," he further said. A senior official of the Ministry of Agriculture said there were as many as 135 seed testing labs and 25 seed certification authorities in different states in the country. Minister of State for Agriculture Kailash Choudhary said the Centre has taken several steps to ensure quality seeds are produced so that crop yield it is also increased. "Our government is continuously working in the direction," he said.

He thanked Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao for holding ISTA-2019 conference here and appreciated the work done by seed scientists for better productivity of crops. Telangana Ministers Niranjan Reddy and Mohammad Mahmood Ali also spoke during the inaugural session.