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AP sets up seed bank

Ch. Prashanth Reddy

HYDERABAD, June 20

FOR the first time in Andhra Pradesh a seed bank has been set up to meet any contingency seed requirement of the farmers in the State as well as other States in the country.

The Union Government, which came out with a scheme for the establishment of the seed bank, will bear 50 per cent of the cost involved. The Andhra Pradesh State Seeds Development Corporation Ltd (APSSDC) is managing the seed bank and has already stored Rs . 52-lakh worth seeds of groundnut and pulses. Incidentally, there is an acute shortage of groundnut seed in Andhra Pradesh during the current kharif season on account of the crop failure last year. While the farmers in the State require over two lakh q uintals of groundnut seed, APSSDC is in a position to supply only 75,000 quintals.

During the last year's kharif season, APSSDC had supplied 35,000 quintals of groundnut seed. But at that time there was ample seed available with farmers and they did not have to buy seed from outside organisations.

In fact, according to APSSDC Managing Director, Dr. P. Narayana Chowdary, the corporation had a surplus seed of one lakh quintals of various crops last year. These seeds had to be sold as ordinary grains in the market. Consequently, the corporation had i ncurred a loss of Rs. 150 to Rs. 200 per quintal.

With regard to paddy, Dr. Chowdary said the corporation was currently supplying more foundation seed to the farmers. It has supplied 4,600 quintals of foundation seed this year as against 2,000 quintals supplied last year. By next year this foundation se ed, cultivated by the farmers, would multiply into 3.5 lakh quintals which could be used by farmers for growing paddy on a larger scale.

With the monsoon arriving on time in the State this time, APSSDC has so far supplied 3.5 lakh quintals of seed of various crops to farmers. Of this, paddy seed comprised 2.78 lakh quintals and groundnut 57,550 quintals. The corporation nearly meets 65 pe r cent of the seed requirement of the farmers in the State.

This year, the corporation has also released five new high-yielding varieties of paddy, two new varieties each of blackgram, greengram and sesame apart from a bold seed variety of groundnut.

In the current crop year, the State Government has targeted a rice production of 110.69 lakh tonnes, millets - 22.42 lakh tonnes and pulses - 7.76 lakh tonnes. The total foodgrains production target during kharif season is 93.58 lakh tonnes and during ra bi 49.47 lakh tonnes.