A scheme to boost production of vegetables, fruits and flowers has paid rich dividends in Karnataka villages, with several progressive farmers opting to grow the high-yielding breeder seeds provided by Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) labs for multiplication by public seed companies as well as the private sector, including multi-national companies. The idea is to set up in the next five years several seed villages with 20 select farmers each.
The subsidy-based regime which enables the horticulture institutes — in this case, the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Horticulture Research (IIHR) — to commercialise their technologies, is bringing revenue to the institutes as well as raising farmers' incomes in pockets.
The drawback is that this technology-intensive scheme is pushing up the cost of vegetables and fruits for domestic consumers.
Under a buy-back agreement with farmers, the institute charges fees from farmers — 60 per cent of which goes to the scientist who developed the technology — and later sells the seeds to companies in the public and the private sector for multiplication, again at a 12 per cent royalty to the breeder.
The process works well, except that the cost of the seeds multiplies manifold as against the traditional or open-pollinated variety.
For example, a kg of high-yielding IIHR seed material of French beans sold to a farmer for Rs. 18 a kg is bought back at Rs. 60 a kg from the farmers and the seed comes to the market at a price of Rs. 80 a kg.
This, scientists admit privately, along with farm mechanisation, are factors contributing to the perennial high cost of vegetables and fruits in recent years which is hitting the middle-class consumers.
Although the programme needs to be worked upon to reduce costs, IIHR director Amrik Singh Sidhu told visiting journalists from New Delhi that it would enable India to achieve a growth rate of over four per cent in the 12th Plan. It would also help India to become the leading producer of fruits and vegetables in the world with improved varieties.
As of now, India at number two produces about 211 million tonnes of fruits and vegetables annually, which is half of China's output. There is potential to improve productivity with 500 public sector-developed varieties of high-yielding seeds in horticulture sector.
The institute has developed 125 varieties of vegetables and fruits and is working on perennial varieties that can maintain production round the year to maintain supplies and arrest price rise. Its latest achievements are release of high-yielding onion, French beans and tomato. There is also plans to develop brinjal seeds resistant to fruit and shoot-borer pest as against an MNC-developed Bt brinjal.
The farmers that the press team met were owners of large landholdings.
Normally, a farmer must be selected through the gram sabha, but that rarely happens. Only those farmers who have the clout, information or are big land owners get to become beneficiaries of the programme.
A visit to a capsicum farm in Dodaballapora village on the outskirts of Bangalore had a farmer, R. Krishna Naik revealing to us that the cost of a kilogram of yellow capsicum works out to Rs. 48 a kg at farm gate on account of the modern techniques and farm mechanisation involved in production of IIHR developed seeds. This, after claiming a grant of Rs. 8 lakh from the government for polyhouse cultivation, drip irrigation, fertigation and mulching (covering ground with plastic sheets for shade). The cost, he added, would go up once the government withdrew the subsidy.
A major shortcoming of the programme was that it was not demand-driven. Seed material was being accessed from the public sector at random and rather than assess the demand of consumers, the requirements of private seed companies and food processors were being given priority. To overcome this, IIHR will go in for Participatory Research Appraisal with consumers.
The IIHR plans to set up in the next five years, 50 seed villages with 50 acre land each belonging to 20 select farmers in each village for growing breeder seeds of 89 horticulture crops including tomato, French beans, cauliflower, cabbage and onions. The aim is to set up 60,000 seed villages all over the country during the 12th Plan from 2012-2017. A good plan but not cost-effective for consumers
