Clear policy vital for production of better quality seeds: Expert

Jayarama Emani | The Dollar Business “Enable and encourage new technologies obviously after due assessment, but move ahead and don’t keep matter in limbo,” said Venkatram Vasantavada, COO- Asia & Africa, Advanta Ltd; (A UPL Group Company) a global plant genetics company that sells high quality seeds in about 25 countries. Speaking exclusively to the Dollar Business, a day after Radha Mohan Singh, Union Agriculture Minister spoke on the importance of an appropriate policy support for seed improvements through conventional and biotech methods, Venkatram said, “The government has done some work in this regard. Going forward, it should create enabling mechanisms to fuel the growth in quality seed production. Public sector spending on irrigation, rural infrastructure (storage, post-harvest and connectivity) and credit availability are the key inventions which will encourage farmers to invest in newer technologies as his returns would be better.” Venkatram went on to add that in today’s world, one cannot win alone. Neither the public sector nor the private sector will have the wherewithal and resources to bring solutions to food and nutritional security as well as dissemination of the technologies to the last mile. One should involve all stakeholders and work towards developing models on a win-win situation than few winning all. It will then never be sustainable. On Genetic Engineering, Venkatram said that India has a long way to go and even after the stupendous success of BT Cotton, the next approval in Biotech crops is taking a lot of time. “In fact, it is not about approval but even trails for evaluating are also being allowed selectively,” he said, and added “We are behind by few years due to policy paralysis and need to quickly align all the stakeholders if we want to catch up with the demand for food to feed our growing population.” While seed companies are working on newer technologies like herbicide tolerance, drought tolerance, nitrogen use efficiency, healthy oils and feed, and nutrition enhancement through collaborative and licensing agreements with other companies, the focus now is more on giving seed as a package with not only yield but several defensive traits which will help the plant fight against biotic and abiotic stress, he concluded.    

This article was published on February 14, 2015.