Poor farmers must get quality seeds: Pocharam Srinivas Reddy

Hyderabad: Telangana Agriculture Minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy on Tuesday called for supplying quality seeds to poor farmers and those residing in remote areas.Telangana seed industry has always strived to make available for our farmers quality seeds at affordable price to help them harvest good returns from their enterprise. But resource poor farmers and hilly/tribal farmers are not able to access quality seeds, he said.

Reddy was speaking after inaugurating the eighth edition of the three-day 'National Seed Congress'. I request the seed producers and stakeholders to make efforts to supply quality seeds to the remote farming community as well, an official release quoted the Minister as saying at the meet. Availability of quality seeds at an affordable cost is the prime concern of farmers. This can be achieved only by co-ordinated and joint effort of all stakeholders namely public and private industry and Government, he said.

The dream of Telangana Chief Minister is to make the state the seed bowl of the country. Telangana has emerged as the largest producer of seeds in the country and meets more than 60 per cent of the national
requirement.

Telangana will contribute to production of high quality seeds and also their exports, he said. Reddy said a special package for seed industry can be looked into since it is eco-friendly and farmer-friendly. The Government has been taking actions for logistics support for seed industry to develop seed valley/hub to fulfil dream of our Chief Minister.

Our Ministry is providing services for export and import of seeds, transfer of technology and public-private partnership to put the seed industry on a sound footing. About 600 participants from agricultural universities, Government agencies and the farm sector are attending the congress.

PTI