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Summary Government has failed to attract foreign investment and technology in field of seed business.
This happened due to non-existence legislations and regulatory framework in current financial year ending June 30,2012.According to an official, improved seed requirement is increasing consistently and despite presence of over 700 seed companies in business, the requirement of seed remained unmet over the years.Cotton seed requirements for the country are around 40,000 tones.Public and private sector seed agencies distributed about 29,611 tones of cotton seed in 2011-12 in Punjab and Sindh, which was 74 per cent of the requirements. Major portion of it was Bt. Cotton (75%) mainly distributed by the private sector (96%). The high use of improved cotton seed may be attributed to high cotton prices during last season (2010-11).Official said, rice seed distribution during 2011-12 remained around 28,895 tones against 22,257 tones of the previous year. About 17.9 per cent of rice seed was imported hybrid. The cotton and rice seed distribution have been increasing, but still less than the requirement of 40,000 and 42,480 tones respectively. The distribution of maize seed during 2011-12 remained around 9,093 tones (81% imported hybrid) against the requirement of 31,914 tones. The distribution for the previous year was 9,391 tones.The official further said that the distribution of pulses seed for 2011-12 was around 1,285 tones against the requirement of 50,955 tones.The distribution for the previous year was only 1,251 tones. Low distribution of pulses seed is one of the impediments of low pulses productivity and reliability on imports.The distribution of vegetable seed during 2011-12 remained around 6,775 tones against the requirements of 5,070. However, the distribution for the previous year was 3,981 tones.A large part of the vegetable seed was imported (88.7%) in 2011-12 for commercial and tunnel farming.It is relevant to mention here that during the year 2011-12, 30 varieties of different crops were approved including Wheat 5, Cotton 17, Gram, Mungbean Canola and Sesamum 1 each.
