Priorities of Various Stakeholders in Seed Quality Control and Regulation: A Multi‐Stakeholder Analysis

Abstract

The new Seed Bill, aimed to replace the existing Seeds Act 1966, was introduced in the Parliament in 2004. Various stakeholders including farmers, farmers’ organizations, Non‐Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Members of Parliament cutting across party lines, academia and media strongly criticized various clauses and provisions in the bill terming them as ‘anti‐farmer’ and ‘pro‐industry’. The extent of disagreement between various stakeholders is evident from the fact that the Seed Bill is not yet enacted into an Act even after ten years of its first introduction in the Parliament in 2004. In the mean time, various amendments have been made to the bill based on the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture (PSCA). However, there is no consensus on certain important issues. In this context, it was found to be of immense importance to study the contentious issues in the bill from the perspective of various stakeholders and to identify their priorities to be addressed in Seed Bill. A study was conducted in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar states covering 120 farmers and 30 respondents each from NGOs, Agriculture Department Officials (ADOs), researchers from ICAR and State Agriculture Universities, seed dealers and Private Seed Companies (PSCs) with a total sample size of 270. The study found that most contentious issues were related to violation of farmers’ rights, regulation of sale price and trait fee of seeds, granting powers to state governments to regulate seed industry, compensation to farmers in case of seed failure and strict punitive and accountability clauses. NGOs and ADOs expressed that state governments should be granted enough powers in the Bill to regulate seed industry in their jurisdiction to safeguard the interests of farming community. Priorities of researchers were to uphold farmers’ rights and to strengthen public sector seed R&D to develop superior innovations. Strengthening infrastructure related to seed storage and marketing; checking malpractices in the seed market and price regulation were the priorities of seed dealers. The priorities of PSCs were completely different and were in contrast to those of farmers. Deregulation of seed prices; liberalization of seed policy with least intervention by the government and access to germplasm available with public sector organizations were the priorities of PSCs. The degree of agreement on contentious issues among various stakeholders using Mann‐Whitney U test proved that PSCs were in disagreement with the farmers’ priorities on all the 12 contentious issues, followed by seed dealers on eight issues. It was interesting to note that even researchers were in disagreement with farmers’ priorities on eight issues. The NGOs and ADOs were in agreement with farmers’ priorities on most of the issues. Amendments concerning protecting and upholding farmers’ rights in consistent with Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act (PPVFRA) have already been incorporated into the bill based on the recommendations of PSCA. Granting powers to state governments to regulate seed industry including price and trait fee regulation in the final draft of the seed bill before its enactment into Seed Act is important from legal and administrative standpoint.