Seed Supply Preparedness for Yasangi-2020-21, Telangana State

The APC & Secretary (A&C) Dept. has made a detailed review with Joint Director of Agriculture (Seeds), and Managing Director,Telangana State Seed Development Corporation on 27/10/2020 regarding seed availability and positioning for Yasangi-2021 as well as the steps taken to ensure that quality seeds as per the requirement are made available to the farmers. They were also directed to monitor it on day-to-day basis about quantity and quality of seeds on time.

The details are as follows:-

Seed is the most critical of all agricultural inputs and determines the performance and efficiency of other inputs for enhancing productivity and production and thereby income of the farmers. It is therefore, essential that quality seeds appropriate to the agro-climatic conditions are produced in the sufficient quantities and made available to the farmers timely for achieving higher agricultural production.

Seed Production and distribution is not a onetime affair but a continuous process. To  produce quality/certified  seed and to develop  State as Seed Bowl, a long term Seed Production Plan is prepared by involving various Research Institutions,Government Department/ Agencies and Private Seed Producing Companies. There are three stages of seed production i.e., Breeder Seed, Foundation Seed and Certified Seed which are strengthened in the state to produce required quantity of seed.

The Hon’ble Chief Minister has been promoting Telangana State as seed bowl of the country and also the world more so because of favourable climate conditions, suitable soil types for diverse crops and congenial weather conditions for long-term storage and the enthusiastic seed producing farmers. Presently the Telangana State supplies about 60% of the nation’s seed requirement and has exported 590.16 qtls of sorghum & Maize seeds to Egypt and Bajra Seeds to Russia with a value of 102 crores during 2019-20.

During 2013-14 before formation of Telangana State the area covered during Yasangi was limited to 40.50 lakh acres which is increased to 53.22 lakh acres during 2019-20 i.e. a quantum jump of 32.88% due to various initiatives of Telangana State government ex. Free power supply, increased irrigated areas due to construction of irrigation projects etc.The important Yasangi crops in the state are Paddy, Bengalgram and Groundnut covering 83.41% of the Yasangi area and during 2019-20 Yasangi about 12.82 lakh qtls of quality seed was made available to farmers for the above crops. The total quantity made available during Yasangi-2019-20 was 13.37 lakh qtls including all crops.

During current Yasangi the estimated requirement of seed for the above three crops is as follows:

(Area in Lakh Acres; Qty in Lakh Qtls)

Whereas during current Yasangi for all crops covering 65.69 lakh acres is 17.68 lakh qtls of seed is required against which the state has a stock of 22.11 lakh qtls with the supplying agencies i.e., TSSDC, HACA, NSC, MARKFED, PJTSAU and Private agencies. Detailed statement is enclosed as Annexure –I.

Further, in case of any emergent / additional requirement immediate arrangements will be made by the department.

Quality Control Work

1. To ensure quality seed supply to farmers task force teams have been formed both at state level (6 No.) and District level (33 No.) with Departmental officers along with Police Department officials and officers from TSSDC/TSSOCA and raids are being conducted on Seed Processing Units / Storage units / Godowns / unauthorized premises / transport agencies since March 2020 in all the Districts.
2. Result of action taken as on date is as follows:

3. The targeted seed samples are being drawn by all the seed inspectors in the state to ensure the quality of the seeds.
4. 8134 samples have been drawn and analysed out of which 167 samples were found substandard. Prosecution is initiated in all the cases.

Instructions have also been issued to all the concerned officers in the state to ensure that timely quality seeds are made available to farmers during Yasangi-2020-21.

ANNEXURE-I