Nagaland to buy seeds from National Seeds Corporation

Dimapur, Nov. 27 (EMN): The country director of International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), New Delhi, Rasha Omar and the Nagaland Agriculture Production Commissioner (APC) Y Kikheto Sema have agreed in principle to buy seeds from the National Seeds Corporation Limited for the next kharif season for Nagaland under the fostering climate resilient upland farming systems (FOCUS) project. They also spoke on the possibility of signing an MoU with the Corporation to directly buy better quality seeds in order to help the farmers.

The agreement to this effect was made in a meeting of APC and IFAD country director with the chairman-cum-managing director of National Seeds Corporation Ltd, Vinod Kumar Gaur at Beej Bhawan, Pusa Complex, New Delhi, on November 26.

An update from OSD of Planning and Co-ordination Thomas Thailu stated that they were briefed about variety of seeds and its quality available at the Corporation, which are not only cheap but among the best in the country. It also stated that the Corporation, which distributes seeds to almost all the states in the country, also took the visiting officials for laboratory and seed packing inspection.

Gaur informed that states like Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir and Odisha have signed MoU with the Corporation highlighting their requirement of seeds during the next few years. He also highlighted other activities of the Corporation to the visiting officials.

During interaction, APC said that most of the hilly states particularly Nagaland has its own indigenous seeds preserved by the respective tribes according to the climate and topographic locations. He informed that women have been the best seed keepers/ preservers in Nagaland but the practice has been gradually vanishing owing to import of seeds from outside the state and also due to the reduced practice of farming activities.

“Resultantly, our original food produce and crops are vanishing and is slowly being overtaken by non-indigenous seeds and its produces. Therefore, in order to preserve our indigenous seeds which are 100% organic, we are here to see if any seed bank could be set up in Nagaland,” the APC said.

In response, Gaur informed that setting up individual seed bank in a single state or even the entire NE states would not be feasible and viable since the Corporation alone cannot do it and has to be outsourced. Gaur, however, stated that the Corporation could work out accordingly if Nagaland asks to preserve and develop seeds for the state.

The main purpose of the visit was to explore possibility of setting up seed bank in the state, the report stated. In order to prevent extinction of indigenous seeds, APC agreed to continue co-ordination with the Corporation to preserve and develop the seeds even if a seed bank is not viable in the state.

The report further stated that both the parties agreed to work together in future towards the cause of the farmers especially in seed preservation.