National Seeds Conference under Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare

Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shri Narendra Singh Tomar  has informed that The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India organizes National Conference on Agriculture Campaign before sowing season of Zaid, Kharif & Rabi to discuss various issues related to upcoming sowing season. In these conference issues related to seed were also discussed. The details of National Conferences organized by Ministry in last three years is given below:

In these conferences various issues related to agriculture at National and State level were discussed (including Andhra Pradesh). The outcomes of discussion in theses conferences on the seed sector are as follows:

• Review of seed requirement and availability is done in every conference. An outcome of this is that every year we have surplus seed in comparison to requirement.
• The seed of newly released high yielding varieties of different crop should be made available to farmers on time.
• Landmark varieties of different crops should be identified and their substitute may be developed to enhance productivity of different crops/varieties.
• Promotion of stress tolerant, climate resilient varieties to meet the requirement of climate change. Inclusion of bio-fortified varieties in public distribution system should be encouraged to cope up nutrition deficiency in the areas of malnutrition.
• Focus on preparation of dynamic seed rolling plan by States Government that include newly releases short & medium duration high yielding varieties of different crops.
• Capacity building by means of trainings for officials of seed law enforcement agencies, seed certification agencies, seed testing labs to be carried out.
• To popularize newly released varieties farm demonstration & awareness programs for farmers to be organized by the state government.
• Mechanism of seed traceability by seed bar-coding will be developed to ensure availability of quality seed to farmers.
• Varietal characteristics of newly released varieties should be made available to farmers to help them adapt new varieties rapidly.