Telangana model of farm sector success presented at ISTA meet

ISTA functions with the objectives of developing, adopting, and publishing standard procedures for sampling and testing seeds

Hyderabad: Underscoring the success of Telangana model of agriculture development at the annual meeting of the International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) held from May 29 – June 1, in Italy, K Keshavulu, President of ISTA and Managing Director of Telangana Seeds Development Corporation said the state had emerged as the food basket of India in a record time.

The 29 th State of India could register a growth of 160 per cent from 2014 to 2022, thanks to a host of measures initiated by the state government to revive the fortunes of the peasant community. “My experience from the transformation of Telangana made me aware that seed is an equally important component to address the issue of food security”, he added.

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Provision of food and nutritional security for the constantly growing millions with limited resources in the face of climate change is major challenge. The global population reached over 8.0 billion in 2022 and is expected to cross 9.9 billion by 2050. Like the Indian State of Telangana, the world must promote fair economic opportunities for this growing population at every stage of the food production chain, he stressed.

ISTA functions with the objectives of developing, adopting, and publishing standard procedures for sampling and testing seeds, he said. ISTA’s membership represents different countries, distinct economies and is a diverse collaboration of seed scientists, experts and analysts from universities, research centres and seed testing laboratories in the public sector as well as from the private seed industry around the world.

It is truly a global representation of seed technology and science community, he said adding that ISTA has also collaborated for many years with international affiliated organisations including the Food and Agricultural Organisation with the aim of improving quality seed access to farmers worldwide for achieving food and nutritional security goals, he said.