National Seed Congress: Fostering Innovation in Sustainable Seed Ecosystems

National Seed Congress: Fostering Innovation in Sustainable Seed Ecosystems

Sub : Sci

Sec : Biotech

Why in News

The 13th National Seed Congress (NSC) recently concluded, focusing on advancing innovative seed technologies, promoting biofortified crops, and implementing climate-resilient farming practices. The event underscored policy frameworks, including a proposed Seeds Bill, and explored strategies to strengthen India’s seed sector.

13th National Seed Congress:

• Theme: “Innovating for a Sustainable Seed Ecosystem.”
• Jointly organized by the Union Agriculture Ministry and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

Major Focus Areas:

• Development of hybrid and biofortified crops.
• Stress-tolerant seed varieties aimed at enhancing resilience.
• Accelerating breeding cycles to meet future demands.
• Promoting practices like direct-seeded rice and zero tillage to reduce farming input costs.
• Emphasis on climate adaptation to address challenges posed by global warming.
• Discussions on a new Seeds Bill to streamline the sector.
• Enhancing seed entrepreneurship through public-private partnerships.
• Strengthening supply chains and farmer capacity to ensure accessibility to quality seeds.
• Access to high-quality seeds, including hybrids and biofortified crops.
• Increased productivity and profitability through state-backed initiatives.

What is biofortification?

• Biofortification is the process of increasing nutritional value of food crops by increasing the density of vitamins and minerals in a crop through either conventional plant breeding; agronomic practices or biotechnology. Examples of these vitamins and minerals that can be increased through biofortification include provitamin A Carotenoids, zinc and iron.
• Conventional crop breeding techniques are used to identify varieties with particularly high concentration of desired nutrients.
• These are cross-bred with varieties with other desirable traits from the target areas (such a virus resistance, drought tolerance, high yielding, taste) to develop biofortified varieties that have high levels of micronutrients (for example, vitamin A, iron or zinc), in addition to other traits desired by farmers and consumers.
• Agronomic biofortification entails application of minerals such as zinc or iron as foliar or soil applications, drawing on plant management, soil factors, and plant characteristics to get enhanced content of key micronutrients into the edible portion of the plant.
• Biofortification reaches rural consumers who have limited access to industrially fortified foods, supplementation interventions, and diverse diets.

About Direct Seeded Rice (DSR):

• Direct Seeded Rice (DSR), also known as the ‘broadcasting seed technique,’ is a water-saving method of sowing paddy.
• In this method, seeds are directly drilled into the fields. In contrast to the traditional water-intensive method of transplanting rice seedlings from a nursery to waterlogged fields, this method saves groundwater.
• There is no nursery preparation or transplantation involved in this method.
• Farmers have to only level their land and give one pre-sowing irrigation.
• DSR can solve labour shortage problems because like the traditional method it does not require a paddy nursery and transplantation of 30 days old paddy nursery into the main puddled field.
• It offers avenues for ground water recharge as it prevents the development of hard crust just beneath the plough layer due to puddled transplanting.
• It matures 7-10 days earlier than the puddle transplanted crop, therefore giving more time for management of paddy straw.
• According to the results from research trials and farmers’ field survey, after this technique the yield is one to two quintals per acre higher than puddled transplanted rice.

Zero tillage:

• It is the process where the crop seed will be sown through drillers without prior land preparation and disturbing the soil where previous crop stubbles are present.
• Zero tillage not only reduce the cost of cultivation it also reduces the soil erosion, crop duration and irrigation requirement and weed effect which is better than tillage.
• Zero Tillage (ZT) also called No Tillage or Nil Tillage.
• No Till approach started from 1960s by farmers in India.

Advantages of zero tillage:

• Reduction in the crop duration and thereby early cropping can be obtained to get higher yields.
• Reduction in the cost of inputs for land preparation and therefore a saving of around 80%.
• Residual moisture can be effectively utilized and number of irrigations can be reduced.
• Dry matter and organic matter get added to the soil.
• Environmentally safe – Greenhouse effect will get reduced due to carbon sequestration.
• No tillage reduces the compaction of the soil and reduces the water loss by runoff and prevent soil erosion.
• As the soil is intact and no disturbance is done, No Till lands have more useful flora and fauna.