Projecting demand for high-yielding variety seeds of cereal crops in India

The study has revealed that total HYVs area would increase from 90.87 M ha in 2004–05 to 126.17 M ha by 2019–20, which would be about 60per cent of the cropped area by 2020. In fact, 7 per cent area under unirrigated HYVs in 2004–05 will increase to 26 per cent by 2019–20. Based on the existing parameters, total area under rice will increase from 45 M ha in 2000–01 to 55 M ha during 2019–20 and almost 97 per cent rice area will be under HYVs by 2020. A large irrigated area will be under basmati varieties because of their high market demand. The area under wheat will increase from 25 M ha in 2000–01 to 31 M ha by 2019–20. The projected demand of rice seeds of HYVs for transplanted paddy as well as sown by broadcasting/dibbing method will be 3.13 Mt, 3.24 Mt and 3.37 Mt during 2009–10, 201415 and 2019–20, respectively, which is the highest among cereal crops. The demand for wheat seeds of HYVs will be 2.51 Mt, 2.68 Mt and 2.86 Mt during 2009–10, 2014–15 and 2019–20, respectively. The demand of seeds of jowar and bajra HYVs will be 0.08 Mt and 0.02 Mt, respectively, in 2019–20. The demand of maize HYV seeds will increase reasonably high; it will be 0.10 Mt, 0.11 Mt and 0.12 Mt by 2009–10, 2014–15 and 2019–20, respectively. The study has concluded that there is still a need for increasing area under HYVs in view of the decreasing net sown area. There is a need of higher resource allocation to research for developing suitable varieties for local agro-climatic conditions and extension services for higher adoption of seeds of HYVs. The demand for rice seeds of HYVs will increase steadily due to slow increase in the gross irrigated area. Keeping the global opportunity in view, especially for basmati rice, the study has suggested to do more efforts to increase area under it. Also, attention should paid towards increasing area under maize HYVs to meet their demand for feed and fodder purposes in the national and international markets.