The Indian government has launched a new programme called the National Mission on High-Yielding Seeds as part of the Union Budget for 2025-26.
About the National Mission on High-Yielding Seeds
- Aim: To improve research, and develop seeds that are high-yielding, pest-resistant, and climate-resilient seeds, ensuring food security and sustainable farming practices
- Budget: ₹100 crore has been allotted for the National Mission on Hybrid Seeds in the Budget 2025-26.
- Focus: The mission is focused on enhancing hybrid crop development through advanced research, an improved seed production network, and widespread adoption of new varieties
- Goals:
- Strengthening Research: The mission aims to develop new high-yielding seeds.
- Improving Resistance: It will focus on creating seeds that resist pests and climate stress, ensuring they remain productive even as environmental conditions change.
- Commercial Availability: To increase the availability of over 100 new seed varieties to farmers, released since July 2024 and encouraging them to adopt these varieties.
- 23 varieties of cereals, 11 pulses, seven oilseeds, sugarcane etc.
- Develop Seed Industry: The mission is expected to boost India’s seed industry, fostering growth in both public and private sectors.
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- Implementing Centers: The Indian Council on Agricultural Research (ICAR) will research these seeds.
- Regional Centres of Excellence: They will play a key role by providing technical expertise, conducting field trials, and supporting farmers with knowledge transfer, ensuring they benefit from the latest advancements in seed technology.
- Significance:
- Build Climate Resilience: High-yielding seed varieties are crucial for building climate resilience as it entails reduced reliance on irrigation, tolerance to adverse weather conditions (drought, floods, salinity)
- Higher Productivity: HYVs promise more crop per unit of resources ie. Land and water. Higher nutrients uptake, lower crop losses, increased productivity will ultimately help in boosting farmers’ incomes.
- Control Land Use Change: High-yielding varieties of seeds produce more crop per unit of agricultural land, which can help reduce land-use change
- Ensure Food Security: HYVs will ensure more productivity with less resource used resulting in increased availability of food ensuring food security.
Concerns Regarding the Initiative
- Promote Monocultures: Monoculture Plantation harms traditional crop diversity by replacing indigenous seed varieties. There are high chances that the High Yield Variety Seeds will lead to long term crisis for the agricultural biodiversity.
- Example: The HYVs introduced as part of the Green Revolution in Punjab has caused serious damages to the ecosystem.
- Vulnerable to Diseases: Monoculture plantation may make crops vulnerable to diseases and pests causing serious crop failures ruining entire fields.
- At the Cost of Seed Biodiversity: India has a rich history of traditional and indigenous seeds that have adapted to local climates and soil and are often more resilient to pests and use fewer chemicals.
- Promoting high-yielding seeds might lead to a decline in native seeds as farmers will start using commercially supplied seeds causing the demand for traditional varieties to drop and disappear over time.
- Reduce Pollinator Diversity: Shifting to uniform seed varieties might reduce pollinator diversity, as different crops and their flowering cycles help support populations of bees and butterflies.
- Seed Sovereignty: There are concerns that small-scale farmers may become too dependent on corporate seed companies if they are unable to access or cultivate indigenous seeds.
- Genetic Diversity: Prolonged usage of HYVs will result in reduced genetic diversity in crops as the farmers will stop growing the crops with comparatively less yields resulting in biodiversity loss.
- Availability to Farmers: Producing high-yielding varieties of seeds needs extensive scientific research possibly limiting its availability for farmers to use freely.
- Example: A 2023 report titled Concentration and Competition in U.S. Agribusiness, found that between 1990 and 2020, prices paid by farmers for crop seed increased by an average of 270%.
About High-yielding varieties Seeds
- High-yielding varieties are those that enable increased food production per unit area and alleviate pressure to add more arable land to production systems.
- Development: HYVs seeds originated in Mexico in the 1960s by Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug, who is known as the “Father of the Green Revolution”.
- He developed semi-dwarf varieties of wheat in Mexico by crossing tall Mexican wheat with short Japanese wheat
- Characteristics: HYVs have certain characteristics like,
- Higher crop yield per unit area; Higher quality of crops; Improved response to fertilizers; Early maturation; Resistance to droughts and floods; High reliance on irrigation and fertilizers (see intensive farming); Dwarfness (smaller size); Resistance to many diseases and insects.
- Benefits:
- Increased yields: HYV seeds are bred to increase productivity of crops resulting in higher yields than traditional seeds.
- Resistance to Pests and Disease: HYV seeds are cross bred specially to make them resistant to common pests and diseases, reducing the need for chemical pesticides.
- Climate Resilience: HYV seeds are developed especially to make them resistant and resilient to floods and droughts,
- Water conservation: HYV seeds mature earlier than traditional seeds requiring less water than traditional varieties because the crops grow for a shorter time.
- Farmers Income: HYV seeds help farmers grow more food grains in a small piece of land, which increases their profits.
- Increased Productivity: HYV seeds were introduced to developing countries in the mid-20th century, resulting in a great increase in food grain production.
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Way Forward
- Protect Traditional Seeds: Government should invest in community seed banks and support farmer-led seed conservation creating policies that encourage biodiversity-friendly farming practices, while simultaneously promoting high-yielding varieties.
- Ensuring Seed Sovereignty: Safeguards must be put in place to protect traditional farming practices and maintain seed sovereignty and biodiversity.
- Agricultural policies should support a mix of modern and traditional seeds to preserve genetic diversity.
- Equitable Access: Proactive policy measures such as strong regulatory and ethical oversight are essential to maximise their positive impact and ensure equitable access for all farmers.
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February 7, 2025
