Seed village Programme – A New Vista for Strengthening the Integrated Seed System

The word seed or seeds are used for all propagating material. The seed is provided as most important input in agriculture. It is lower cost than other inputs like irrigation, fertilizer & plant protection measures. Quality of seed is sustained by including various practices like proper winnowing drying, bagging and storage etc. The quality seed availability at proper time determines the agriculture growth through accelerating productivity. The replacement of the farmer saved seed with the certified and high quality seed may bring an enhancement in yield potential to the extent of 15-25%. A village, where in trained group of farmers are involved seed production of various crop’s and serve to the essentials of themselves, fellow farmers of the village and farmers of the neighbouring village in appropriate time and at economical cost is called Seed Village. The Seed Programme covers the participation of state government, SAU system, public sector, cooperative and private sector institutions. The Seed Village Programme is a constituent of the Central Government Scheme, Development and supporting infrastructure facilities for production and distribution of quality seed is being affected on all India bases from the year 2005-06. Objectives of Seed Village Programme are (1) Increasing production of certified/quality seed (2) Increasing Seed Replacement Rate in crop like paddy, wheat, soybean, gram, etc. (3) Upgrading the quality of farm saved seeds with specific objective to shift 10% village and produce a lot amount of seed each year through farmers participatory seed production. (4) Familiarizing new varieties to uplift varietal replacement. (5) Securing availability of seed in contingent situation. The applying agencies will be State Department of Agriculture, State Agriculture Universities, Krishi Vigyan Kendra’s, State Seeds Corporation, National Seeds Corporation, State Farms Corporation of India (SFCI), State Seeds Certification Agencies, and Department of Seed Certification. The good quality seed is being distributed to farmers through Farmers Welfare and Agriculture Development by Seed Village Programme, due to this there is a considerable improvement in Seed Replacement Rate for Wheat and Chickpea i.e. 50% and 30% respectively