A study of factors influencing the growth of vegetable seed industries in India

Improved seeds of high-quality and high yielding varieties among other key agricultural inputs are credited for revolutionizing the agricultural sector. Ensuring the availability of quality seeds to farmers is an essential to achieve higher agricultural production and productivity. It is estimated that the contribution of seeds in the productivity is about to be 20–25 per cent. The organized seed sector comprising of both private and public sector companies, accounts for about 30–35 per cent of the total seeds distributed in the country. The national seed policy envisages a 10 per cent share in global seed export market in the coming decade. At present, India's share of global seed market is less than 2 per cent. Private sector has started to play a significant role in the production and distribution of seeds in India over a period of time. To identify the factors influencing the growth of vegetable seed industries, the present study was conducted in the state of Karnataka, India. The respondents comprised of hybrid vegetable seed producers and seed company personnel. Factor analysis was used to identify the determinants of growth of vegetable seed industries. It was found that the policy factors, geographical factors, market factors and farmer oriented factors were the major determinants influencing the growth of hybrid vegetable seed industry in India. Seed production of high value low volume crops provides employment and remunerative price for the farmers. Involvement of public sector institutions would result in income generation for the institution and makes availability of quality seeds to the farming community. As a policy suggestion, hybrid vegetable seed production involving farmers would be one of the best bet to achieve the objective of doubling the income of farmers by 2022.