Why indigenous seeds should be prioritised in India’s natural farming mission

The Modi government, with a Rs 2,481 crore allotment for natural farming, has taken a big step towards ecology. Further, it also pushes Indian agriculture to re-embrace its traditional agrarian wisdom and save taxpayers money. This very well could be laying the foundation of a “Green Revolution” pillared on indigenous wisdom. But the question is, can this agricultural revolution be created without a mechanism for production and timely availability of organic open-pollinated seeds?

The government’s ambitious plan is to promote natural farming in 15,000 clusters in gram panchayats and “reach 1 crore farmers and initiate natural farming (NF) in a 7.5 lakh hectare area”. It plans to also create “10,000 Bio-input Resource Centres (BRCs)” that will provide “ready-to-use NF inputs for farmers” in the coming year.

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Furthermore, the government has planned to have 2000 demonstration farms and training programs for about 18 lakh farmers, along with other programs for expanding natural farming in India. So back to our question: Who will provide high-quality seeds for this natural farming revolution?

In the current seed economy system, farmers either use market-bought seeds, which are either hybrid or research seeds developed by seed companies or public agrarian institutions, and can be used for two or three successive sowings at best. Meanwhile, the informal seed sector is grading seeds, packing, and reselling market varieties. A small percentage are using open-pollinated or landrace seeds, as most companies or public institutions don’t research or sell open-pollinated seeds.

The reason why seed companies don’t sell open-pollinated or heirloom seeds is that the farmers, after buying them one time, don’t need to buy them again. The open-pollinated seeds adapt as per the local environment and then can be re-sown for eternity. Of course, the seeds in each generation will have slightly different trait expressions. In short, if companies started to sell the open-pollinated varieties, very soon no farmers would buy their seeds anymore. So this natural model is anti-private business. Hence the seed industry globally wants to phase them out because it diminishes their profits and makes the farmer less dependent on the market.

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Now for any global organic certification, it is a must that farmers use only organic open-pollinated or heirloom seeds that have not been treated with chemicals like fungicides, pesticides, etc. This entire infrastructure of production or breeding of organic seeds is missing in India. No doubt there are farmers who are conserving landraces and native varieties, but none of them are multiplying them for mass use. Plus, no efforts or resources have been diverted to scientific research or the promotion of seeds produced from the natural methods. A good example of this downward trend is rice or paddy seeds.

India at one point in time was known to have 200,000 varieties of rice/paddy. Today not even 5 per cent of them are cultivated in India commercially. So there is a deep bottleneck when it comes to genetic diversity in our fields. Most commercial varieties, like 1121, etc, have taken over the arable land. Many of the native varieties of vegetables, legumes, etc, are lost forever or near extinction.

Thankfully, India is still not a signatory of the anti-farmer seed treaty International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), which criminalises farmers from exchanging, selling, or re-sowing seeds; nevertheless, Indian seed laws require American-inspired germination requirements and seed treatments with fungicides. India needs, along with the push for natural farming, a new framework for a farmer-driven model for seed production. Special rules within the seed laws should be created for the production, exchange, and distribution of organic open-pollinated seeds.

The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority (PPFRA) also has empowered farmers to grow and develop their varieties, but more can be done. For example, a new voluntary program for farmers should be launched, linked to local seed banks or state agricultural institutions, where local farmers are given land races to grow and multiply the seed. They should be given financial incentives for the same, and the National Seed Corporation of India should be given the responsibility for marketing these seeds.

The focus should be shifted from industrial seed production to indigenous open-pollinated seed varieties. Private companies that work with farmers to multiply and market indigenous seeds should also be given tax benefits and financial incentives. The breeder rights and royalty should be given to PPFRA, with a portion of the fund to be added to the corpus fund that will promote further research and conservation of indigenous varieties and landraces.

From a production perspective, high input costs are driving food inflation and eating into the profits of farmers. Changing climate also puts additional pressure on the seed producers, because drought- or flood-like conditions put additional stress on the seeds and result in falling germination or improper growth. The case of soybean seed failures in Maharashtra is a good example of this.

Most commercial market varieties are developed in the southern parts of India and hence may not be best suited to tackle biotic stresses in many parts of the country. Hence the natural farming mission should give heavy insistence on local seed breeding and distribution because in the end we want to build capacity with our farmers and move away from dependency on the market.

Evolutionary participatory breeding models should be adopted at the district and regional levels. In fact, all districts should aim to become seed sovereign. This will revitalise the local seed economy and at the same time reduce seed purchase costs for organic farmers. The most important part will be that all farmers, organic or not, will have access to locally grown, climate-resilient seeds, which they could exchange or buy at a nominal rate from their neighbouring farmers or seed-producing farmer producer organisations directly. This would get middlemen and big seed companies out of the seed economy and empower farmers and nature-based economies. An investigation on foreign seed companies’ profit margins and how much money they extract from Indian farmers will make it clear what is truly in our national interest and what is not.

The government can also step in to monitor this local seed economy. It can help by setting up seed production hubs in each district with trained government scientists and extension officers. This, in the long run, will ensure seed sovereignty for the whole nation and also ensure that the natural farming mission has a good foundation.

The author is an independent agri-policy analyst and former director Policy and Outreach, National Seed Association of India. He tweets at @Indrassingh. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.