Hyderabad: Enabling Child and Human Rights with Seed Organisations (ECHO) convened a multistakeholder consultation on Minimum Wages in the Seed Supply Chain on here on Wednesday. The event brought together leading seed companies, civil society organisations, and industry stakeholders to share learnings, outcomes, and best practices from the multi-season Minimum Wages Pilot Project in corn seed production.

The consultation was supported by ECHO’s founding member companies—Bayer, Syngenta, East-West Seed India, BASF Nunhems, Advanta, HM CLAUSE, SeedWorks, and Glocal Research—who presented their initiatives and learnings, highlighting progress made and challenges encountered in promoting wage compliance across the seed production landscape.

The event focused on insights from the Minimum Wages Pilot Project in Corn Seed Production (2022–2025), a multi-season effort that engaged seed producers, labour contractors, farmer networks, and local government agencies across Andhra Pradesh. Through structured presentations, companies shared how the pilot facilitated stakeholder alignment, capacity building for field teams, improved documentation, and the identification of pathways for gradual improvements in minimum wage practices.

Dr Davuluri Venkateswarlu, General Secretary of ECHO, said, “Addressing wage fairness in the seed sector is not just a matter of compliance—it is a matter of human dignity. This consultation has been an important step towards building a supply chain that respects the rights of every worker and sets a benchmark for ethical agriculture.”