Seeds Bill, 2011 is anti-farmer, says Nitish

Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today flayed the proposed Seeds Bill 2011, saying that its provisions were tilted heavily in favour of the multi-national companies and against the interests of the farmers. “There is no guarantee in the proposed Seeds Bill, 2011, that the seeds produced and marketed by the MNCs will be beneficial to the farmers,” Kumar said at a function organized to celebrate the 123rd birth anniversary of the Swami Shahjanand. There were also no provision in the proposed seeds bill for compensation by the central government or the MNCs to the farmers in the event of loss of crop due to poor quality of seeds, Kumar said. Demanding that the Centre should bring in provisions in the proposed Seeds Bill, 2011, mandating the MNCs to compensate the farmers for their crop loss on account of seeds, the chief minister urged the parliamentarians not to pass the bill in its present form. [caption id=“attachment_219366” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today flayed the proposed Seeds Bill 2011, saying that its provisions were tilted heavily in favour of the multi-national companies and against the interests of the farmers. Reuters”]  [/caption] Stating that the MNCs producing and marketing farm seeds should not be trusted about their quality on face value, Kumar said there was an instance in Bihar last year when the farmers suffered losses in cultivation of maize by using seeds of the MNCs as those did not flower at all. Since there was no legislation to mandate the MNCs to compensate the farmers for the crop loss, the state government had to pay Rs 61,000 crore as compensation to the farmers at the rate of Rs 10,000 per acre, he said. Kumar said the state government would implement the agriculture road map over the next 10 years to develop farm and allied sectors. The road map was now being fine tuned before its implementation from 1 April to give thrust on dairy, animal husbandry, horticulture, fishery, food processing and poultry among others to increase the per capita income of the people, he said. It would also cater to storage, pricing, branding and marketing of the produces of the farm and allied sector so as to generate fair return to the people. The infrastructure like road, communication and electricity in rural areas were other areas of thrust, Kumar said. A resource committee headed by the chief secretary has been set up to assess fiscal requirement and management of resources for putting in place the required infrastructure, he said. PTI