Hyderabad: The COVID-19 pandemic has had an adverse impact on seed production for the next Kharif season, as the process of refining and packing seeds has been badly hit.
The National Seed Corporation Ltd. (NSC) recently brought to the attention of central and state governments that seed sales across the country will be difficult from next month if industries cannot move forward with seed processing. In the current season, the seed crops grown from October are now in the harvesting stage. After reaping the crops, the seeds must be sent from farms to refinement centers. Only after refining and testing their quality, can they be sold for the Kharif season.
The Telangana Department of Agriculture plans to sell 7.50 lakh quintals of seeds directly to the farmers at concessional rates. To implement this, the State Seed Development Authority should buy the seeds from farmers and send them to refineries. Seeds fall under essential services list.
Since the government has allowed essential services to function as usual, NSC President M Prabhakar Rao said that he had written to the Union Agricultural Secretary and State Agricultural Minister to allow the functioning of seed refineries during the lockdown. He said that employees working in seed companies should be allowed on showing their ID cards, and trucks carrying seeds should not be stopped by the police.
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Cotton cultivation will start in Punjab from next month. Seed sales of all crops should start in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana from May. To carry this out, seed companies must be excluded from lockdown.
Since the seeds should be supplied from other states, Mr Rao asked the governments to allow interstate transportation. Keshavulu, Director of Telangana State Seed and Organic Certification Authority has also brought these issues to the notice of the government.
The Department of Agriculture has recently advised the seed companies to prepare 1.10 crore cotton seed packets for sale in Telangana. The companies have requested the government to exempt them from a lockdown.
