Hybrid seeds in India
Why in news ?
The increase in the share of private companies in India’s seed market has promoted use of these seeds. Hybrid seeds could threaten the country’s crop diversity and the hardy traditional varieties suited to grow in their native climate.
What are hybrid seeds?
In agriculture and gardening, hybrid seed is produced by deliberately cross-pollinated plants which are genetically diverse.
Hybrid seeds are used to improve the characteristics of the resulting plants, such as better yield, greater uniformity, improved color, disease resistance. An important factor is the heterosis or combining ability of the parent plants. Crossing any particular pair of inbred strains may or may not result in superior offspring.
Hybrid seeds in India:
- The origin of hybrids can be traced to India’s Green Revolution in the 1960s, when the government’s effort was primarily to increase agricultural productivity. For this, the National Seed Corporation was set up to develop, store and distribute high yield variety seeds.
- Till the 1980s, the public sector had a firm control on the seed market and supplied open pollinated variety (OPV) seeds to farmers.
- From the 1990s onwards, the government allowed development and distribution of hybrid varieties by private players.
National Seeds Corporation Limited (NSC):
- National Seeds Corporation Limited (NSC) was incorporated in 1963 to undertake production of foundation and certified seeds.
- It is wholly owned by the government of India under the administrative control of the ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare.
- It is a Miniratna Category‐I company.
Benefits of Hybrid Seeds:
- Natural Resilience: It is very much less affected by the different types of environmental stress such as insects and plants diseases etc.
- Better Yield: They produce plants with larger fruit, higher yields, disease resistance, and longer shelf life than heirlooms.
Disadvantages of hybrid seeds:
- The yield of hybrid seeds decrease after 2-3 years.
- Sometimes the yields of hybrid varieties are exaggerated.
- The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001, has changed community ownership of seeds to individual, which favours seed breeders and developers.
Issue with Hybrid seeds
- Use of hybrid seeds can also damage diversity of crops over the years.
- It requires more technical skills for hybrid production.
Source – The Hindu
