Government to provide quality seeds to farmers: Zehri

Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture, Mir Israrullah Zehri has said that the government would ensure availability of quality certified seeds to all farmers across the country, which is vital for agriculture growth.
He said that the government is keen to promote use of certified seeds and has proposed legislation under Seed Act (Amendment Bill-2010) and Plant Breeder's Rights Bill-2010 to provide better opportunity for the seed industry to flourish, besides providing protection to seed companies on plant breeding and plant varieties.
He stated this while chairing a meeting of representatives of Seed Association of Pakistan (SAP), here on Friday. The minister said that legislation to regulate and facilitate seed industry would have positive results for the agriculture sector of Pakistan. With the proposed bill, government would facilitate, induct and regulate private sector in all spheres of seed activities. The passage of the act would facilitate seed companies, seed dealers, horticultural nurseries, seed growers and seed processing units, he added.
He also said that regulation of seed market will ensure availability of quality seed that can greatly improve Pakistan's agricultural output, enhancement of penalty for non-compliance with the regulations and requirement will help improve check and balance system. He further said that registration of varieties and encouraging private seed sector to establish accredited seed testing facilities/labs will put them on the right track.
Zehri said that Federal Seed Certification and Registration Department (FSC & RD) will be strengthened to cope with the growing need of certified seed for the growers as well as the industry. Expressing his views, Sajjad Syed, Chairman SAP said that the private sector willingly offers certain registration and testing fees done by FSC and RD, and must be imposed to enable the department to modernise and update itself according to the growing work burden. He also suggested that the legal framework including regulation, registration, import and export of seeds must continue to be a subject of the federal government. "Testing and inspection could be done concurrently", he said.
The meeting was also attended by Secretary Minfa Junaid Iqbal, Agriculture Development Commissioner, Inayatullah Kahn, DG FSC and RD, Syed Muhammad Nasir Ali and other senior officials of the ministry. Representatives of the SAP included Dr Qaisar Rashid, Vice Chairman, Malik M. Afzal General Secretary and Dr Nasir Qasi.