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Bangladesh govt to step up seed market monitoring
Sep. 9, 2014
The Bangladesh government, after decades of neglect, has decided to more than double the manpower of its Seed Certification Agency to oversee the growing seed market.
The agency, which is responsible for quality control of all kinds of seeds, has only 30 field officers in 30 zones and four regional officers to certify seeds and monitor sales. With the new appointments, the agency will have 64 field officers for seed certification in all districts along with seven regional field officers. The total manpower of the agency will reach 569, including other staff members, from 223 now, its Director Md Golam Ambia said. "After the increase in manpower, we will be able to better monitor the seed market to ensure quality," Ambia said.
Established in 1974, the agency's main responsibility was to monitor the quality of seeds produced by Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC). But its work areas widened manifold in the face of rising production and sales of seeds by private and public sectors as well as farmers' shift to commercial cultivation. The supply of seeds by public and private organisations stood at 2.67 lakh tonnes in fiscal 2012-13, which was only around one lakh tonnes a decade ago, according to the agriculture ministry. However, the Seed Certification Agency's monitoring and surveillance remain weak despite repeated complaints from farmers of being cheated by unscrupulous traders who sell substandard seeds.
Of late, farmers in the northern district of Panchagarh filed complaints with the local administration and agriculture office against a seed trader in their neighborhood for selling substandard seeds of aman rice.
Insiders said, in absence of monitoring, a section of traders mix low quality seeds with new stocks, sell high yielding variety seeds in the name of hybrid seeds, counterfeit the agency's tags and sell non-seed or edible produce as seeds. There is a lack of monitoring in ensuring proper production, preservation and processing of seeds by private firms, they said. Except for BADC and a few private firms and non-governmental organisations, many seed firms do not have proper production, cold storage and processing facilities, the insiders said.
Currently the agency can check quality of only 7 percent of the 12.50 lakh tonnes of seeds used by farmers a year. Of the 2.67 lakh tonnes of seeds supplied by BADC and private firms during fiscal 2012-13, 88,245 tonnes were certified by the agency. The rest of the seeds supplied by BADC and private firms are termed truthfully labelled seeds (TLS) for which no certification is required.
Source: the daily star
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