Wheat sowing: Plan to increase use of certified seed from 17pc to 50pc under study

Punjab Agriculture Department (PAD) is embarking upon an ambitious plan to increase the use of certified seed in wheat sowing from present meager 17 percent to 40-50 percent in the current season by ensuring the provision of high-quality certified seeds through cooperation of public and private seed organizations.

"We are trying to improve the ratio of certified seed for considerable jump in production starting with the wheat crop this year under Rs 12 billion national package for the all-important national staple food," said Punjab Agriculture Minister Malik Nauman Langrial while talking to Business Recorder here on Tuesday.

"Wheat sowing is going to start next month and we want to change the ratio of using 83 percent of wheat seed from farmers' own reserves from the previous crop. We will try to improve this ratio up to 40-50 percent for this season and have convened a meeting in the next two days with the public and private sector seed companies."

This will help increase wheat production from the current average of 30 maund per acre to around 40 maund per acre ensuring the better financial position of individual farmers, agriculture sector as well as the national economy.

He said the government may adopt the policy of replacing the seed reserves of farmers by certified seed from different government and private organizations. It will cost a differential of Rs 750 per 50 kilogram bags to the government, he added, and said that similar policy is also being introduced for other important cash crops like cotton, rice, sugarcane and oilseeds.

Agreeing with the point that the climate change is playing havoc with the crops in the province, he said and added that the new seed varieties to be approved by the government will be heat tolerant. He said a rust resistant variety of wheat seed has also been approved in recently approved 31 new varieties by the Punjab Seed Council.

He regretted that the council met here on Monday after a break of almost two years as the previous government kept ignored the agriculture sector. He also hoped that next meeting will also approve cotton varieties having resistant against different viruses including white fly and pink bollworm.

Answering a query, he said in the past authorities would reject a seed variety if it failed to win approval from all four agriculture laboratories, one of them in private sector, in the province. "But, now a policy decision has been taken that a variety will need to pass tests of any of the three laboratories so that the private sector may be encouraged to more get involved in research and development work."

About the Kisan Card project the government plans to launch for providing directly targeted subsidy to the farming community, Langrial said a campaign for registration of 5 million farmers is in full swing and hopefully the scheme will be formally launched soon.

The minister said the cards would not only be used for providing targeted subsidy to the farmers but also to extend them loan facilities and most importantly for procuring their produce at officially designated rates.

He disclosed that with input from farmers the government has decided to undertake as a pilot project an initiative for setting up a dedicated market called "Kissan Mandi" where certified seed, authentic pesticides and fertilizers as well as farm machinery would be available at subsidized rates.

The process for selecting tehsil of a district has been initiated and the scope of the scheme would be expanded if proved to be a success in the pilot project. He said that soil health cards are also being prepared by the provincial agriculture department and under this programme one million farmers would be given soil health card of their land. He hoped that digitization on which department is working will help resolve various issues being faced by the growers such as passing on the subsidy to them, crop zoning etc.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019