It was on June 6 last year, four days after the formation of Telangana State, that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao expressed his resolve at an official meeting on agriculture to make the State ‘seed bowl of the country’.
The slogan which was time and again raised by the government since, to reaffirm its commitment was more vibrant at the recent National Seed Congress in Hyderabad.
A look at the progress in the direction in the past one-and-a-half years showed that a small step taken by the multi-State cooperative society, Hyderabad Agricultural Cooperative Society, to procure 5,000 quintals of soyabean seed from farmers for supply to the government resulted in demolishing the myth that the weather conditions in Telangana were not suitable for seed production. There was 85 per cent germination by the seed and okayed by scientists.
Second, the seed became a threat in commercial market as companies were forced to recall their tenders for supply of 1.5 lakh quintals to the government at Rs 7,500 a quintal. They re-tendered at Rs 6,500 a quintal, the price quoted by HACA, and saving Rs 20 crore to the State exchequer. The companies were involved in supplying two lakh quintals of certified soyabean seed to the government in Telangana every year by sourcing it from Madhya Pradesh. The same was given on subsidy to farmers for cultivation of crop.
Target
The HACA set for itself a target of supplying 50,000 quintals out of the 2 lakh quintals this year and involved 1,300 farmers in seed production in Adilabad and Nizamabad. The farmers were also given a mobile grading machine to ensure that they supplied graded seed which fetched them Rs 5,000 a quintal. They sold the undersized seed as food grain at Rs 3,700 a quintal. On an average, their net income was Rs 4,700 a quintal after deducting their expenditure on foundation seed at one-third subsidy, according to D. Rajesham, managing director of HACA.
Agriculture Secretary C. Parthasarathi said the government initiative in seed production was confined only to soyabean and groundnut because other major crops like cotton, paddy, maize and bajra required high volumes of seed which private companies alone could deliver.
