The seed economy is critical to Indias development. The reasons are many. Apart from a few projects,canal irrigation is expanding slowly and is concentrated only in select areas. Ground-water use is under stress. Cropped area is at best constant. A slowly growing agriculture,at 3 per cent a year at the outside,is constraining the sustainability of the economys level 8 per cent growth. In such a situation,seeds,nutrients and crop protection are the main sources of growth.
Our seed systems are honed for cereals and we are particularly good in self-pollinated crops first wheat and now paddy. But,here,the next round of technology needs the spread of super seeds,hybrid paddy and so on since the land under cultivation of grains should come down to release land for crops where demand elasticity is more like fruits,vegetables and feed for animal husbandry products. It is quite a tall order and we are only now dimly understanding it.
India is too big for the world to feed its growth and we can only use trade to adjust at the margin. The department of agriculture has on its website and pulses portal given some details of an excellent pulses development programme,to raise yield to,say,12 to 15 quintals per hectare. I am glad that William Dar,the director-general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT),has recently endorsed this for the development,in different agro-climatic regions where pulses are grown,of seeds with the highest yields in the world,which are above two tonnes per hectare. If we get on the drawing board now,it would take four to five years. We need such strategies for many crops in the public-private partnership (PPP) mode.
To meet such needs,both money and mobilisation of scarce technical talent are required. We also need great management and organisational abilities to cover the last mile in a long-haul problem. Sometimes I despair but we have to constantly remind ourselves that when we set clear goals,commit resources and persevere,our systems perform. Since entry costs are high,this is probably not a highly competitive industry. Since product obsolescence too is high,the PPP mould is probably very effective. The hybrid paddy project was being developed two decades ago,but it failed because of lack of perseverance once the technology was jointly developed by public-sector groups like the seed corporations and companies like Indo American Hybrid Seeds,Lever and so on. Recently,the Sadguru Foundation has reported that tribal farmers are taking to hybrid maize that gives yields up to two-and-a-half tonnes per hectare. Under Project Sunshine in Gujarat,seeds developed by an MNC were distributed at subsidised rates to tribal farmers.
Given the long-term nature of the problem and the fact that large investment is needed to develop new molecules,a degree of regulation will be needed. Investors need a reasonable assurance of returns or they will not commit financial and,more importantly,experienced managerial and technical resources. For pulses itself,I expect the research plan to cost hundreds of crores of rupees,if the experience of hybrid paddy is any indication. Such PPP projects will need public-resource commitments in terms of meeting the so-called viability gaps. Also,public-sector involvement is essential for sustainability and environmental-safety aspects. A Central organisation working on what are called long-range,marginal cost principles,which have been advocated for power projects,for example,could work out fair pricing solutions. Anybody doing better than the average efficiency cost estimates,giving a fair rate of return,would keep the profits. It has been demonstrated time and again that the nation gains in such strategies. For example,pricing strategies which rely on group efficiency cost norms have given very powerful returns in terms of energy savings in the nitrogenous fertiliser industry and after eight years of discussion,it is reported that a committee under a planning commission member is suggesting this approach,which was the basis of pricing which a committee that I chaired had recommended many years ago.
It is important that the approach of a national regulator suggested in the proposed Seeds Bill is properly designed and implemented by law. Instead,we are going through an extremely destructive regulation of states like Andhra Pradesh,Gujarat and Maharashtra,through state price control acts. This is short-sighted. By cutting down normal profits in the industry after R&D has been done,this will discourage investment in the sector. Then,there are,of course,the Luddites who dont want any research in this area at all. The stand that the chief minister of Bihar,Nitish Kumar,has taken on hybrids and GM seeds and the plea for state autonomy which will kill the goose that lays the golden egg is not very well advised.
The writer,a former Union minister,is chairman,Institute of Rural Management,Anand express@expressindia.com
