Centre assures ample availability of ‘quality’ seeds for Kharif 2025
This might help the country to meet the foodgrains and other crops production target amid forecast of an “above normal monsoon” this year
The Centre has said that the country has sufficient availability of “quality” seeds for the ensuing Kharif season – 171.47 lakh quintals (lq) against estimated demand of 158.18 lq. This might help the country to meet the foodgrain and other crops production target amid forecast of an “above normal monsoon” this year. While some States have pointed to lower availability, the Union government has promised to look into State and crop-specific issues so that farmers get the seeds in time.
There are deficiencies in a few States, which can be managed if those States make efforts to source from surplus states, sources said.
In a presentation at the annual Kharif conference on May 8, D K Yadava, deputy director general (crops) of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) said, overall, there are 13.29 lq of surplus ‘quality’ (or certified) seeds for the ensuing Kharif season . Barring Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand, Nagaland and Sikkim, all other States have surplus quality seeds.
Besides, truthfully labelled (TL) seedsare also available to aid the demand. Quality seed is generally certified seed, meeting the minimum standard of genetic and physical purity, free from other crops and weed seeds.
Crop wise, adequate seeds of kulthi, little millet, rajma, potato and some fodder crops are not available as per estimated demand while it is surplus in other category of crops, he said.
Low availability
Purna Chandra Kishan, a joint secretary in the Agriculture Ministry, pointed out that in case of oilseed crops, adequate ‘certified’ seeds of groundnut are not available in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh. Similarly, availability of ‘certified’ seeds of sesame is less in Tamil Nadu, and lower availability of niger seed also has been reported by Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
Stressing on the need of importance of seed replacement, ICAR’s director general M L Jat said that due to more adoption of climate resilient varieties developed by scientists in last few years, the production of crops has been maintained. He said that in some ‘abnormal’ years such as 2002-03, 2009-10 and 2014-15, foodgrain production had dropped. But, in 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24, the output climbed up despite ‘abnormal’ weather.
Yadava said that quantity of monsoon rainfall is not the only criterion to consider ‘abnormal’ weather as crop productivity is influenced by other factors like number of rainy days, prolonged dry spell and heatwave/temperature rise.
Monsoon rainfall was 99 per cent of the long period average of 87 cm in 2021-22, 106 per cent in 2022-23 and 94 per cent in 2023-24. Rainfall between 96 per cent and 104 per cent of LPA is considered normal. However, in all these three years, India had witnessed incidents of excess rainfall, flood, long dry spell, delayed monsoon, high temperature in February (harmful to wheat crop).
ICAR scientists said that out of 2,900 new varieties released during 2014-2024, as many as 2,661 are climate resilient, many of them are heat and flood tolerant, which helped the country to achieve record foodgrain production.
The Centre has set the target of foodgrain (rice, pulses, maize and nutri cereals) production for Kharif 2025 at 168.88 million tonnes (mt)—1.5 per cent more than the actual production of 166.39 mt in Kharif 2024. The target for rice, the key cereal of Kharif, has been set at 120.75 mt against actual production of 120.68 mt. Last year rice output exceeded the target—111.50 mt— due to an expansion of area.
Pulses target has been tentatively fixed at 7.74 mt for Kharif 2025, while maize at 26 mt, nutri cereals at 14.39 mt and oilseeds at 28.37 mt.
Published on May 9, 2025
