‘Quality seeds important for revolutionizing agriculture sector, ensuring food security’

Dr K Kesavulu emphasised the importance of four factors- investment support to farmers, irrigation and availability of quality seeds for revolutionizing agriculture

Hyderabad: Dr K Kesavulu, Managing Director of Telangana Seed Corporations and President of the International seed Testing Association (ISTA) emphasised the importance of four factors- investment support to farmers, irrigation and availability of quality seeds for revolutionizing agriculture sector and ensuring food security.

Addressing Annual Meeting 2023 of North America’s leading Seed Societies held in Sesquitan, Canada on Friday as the chief guest, he said the countries that were in need of food security, must focus on those issues.

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The conference was attended by representatives of North American organizations such as Association of Official Seed Analysts (AOSA), Society of Seed Technologists (SCST), representatives of seed industry and food companies, representatives of Canadian Food Corporation, representatives of international organizations such as FAO, ISF, OECD and USDA.

He explained that the Indian state of Telangana State, which was newly formed, has achieved comprehensive development in the agricultural sector in the past 9 years.

It was all made possible by according top priority to investment support for farmers, expansion of irrigation facilities and availability of quality seeds, besides initiating many innovative reforms, he added.

In a very short period of time, the area under agricultural cultivation in Telangana has increased from 136 lakh acres to 226 lakh acres while production has gone up from 154 lakh metric tonnes to 362 lakh metric tonnes, he said.

North America has the largest seed market in the world, accounting for more than 35 per cent market share. It was followed by Europe, Asia-Pacific, South-America and Africa. Although North America dominates the global seed industry with 35 percent of the total share, major growth was seen in the Asia-Pacific and Africa region.

The Asia Pacific region was home for important agricultural economies such as India and China, which is the fastest growing seed market, he said adding that high-quality seed was of utmost importance in the agricultural sector worldwide.

The strength of a country’s agricultural economy can be measured by the timely availability of improved varieties of high quality seeds to farmers, thus, food security is entirely dependent on seed security.

Similarly, seed laws, regulations, permits, seed testing standards in the countries of the world are different and have an impact on the export of seeds to other countries, he said.