Dr. B.R. Barwale hands over royalty payment of Rs 20.26 lakhs to Director, IARI, for efficient quality seed production under Public-Private Initiative

Dr. B. R. Barwale, Chairman of the Barwale Foundation and Winner of World Food Prize 1998, handed over royalty payment of Rs.20.26 lakhs to Dr. S.A. Patil, Director, IARI in the presence of Shri Sharad Pawar, Union Agriculture Minister at Krishi Bhavan. The payment was made on behalf of the Barwale Foundation and the Indian Foundation of Seed and Services Association (IFSSA) for making available high quality foundation seeds of Pusa RH-10, the first Basmati Rice Hybrid in the country, to the seedsmen. The royalty payment will augment the financial resources of IARI considerably and encourage them to enter into similar arrangement for other crops/ technologies in realization of the full potential of Public-Private Partnership in India.

The IFSSA is a public-private partnership (PPP) initiative to bring together public sector crop researchers, private seed industry, seed growers and Indian farming communities to make available quality seeds and services to farmers. IFSSA hopes to fill the gaps with public sector agencies which have been developing promising hybrids but could not popularize and market them, resulting in poor adoption.

The core objectives of IFSSA are to link public-private seed sectors, provide value added services to seed industry which includes maintenance breeding , breeder and foundation seed multiplication and distribution, variety fingerprinting, seed purity tests and marker assisted breeding programs.

The Barwale Foundation (BF) and IFSSA have already entered into a MoU with Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi for promoting Pusa RH-10, the country's first Basmati rice hybrid. IFSSA has been maintaining and producing the quality seeds of its parental lines (Pusa 6A and PRR 78) with trained seed growers by paying premium procurement price, for distribution to seedmen who would further produce quality seeds of Pusa RH-10 for marketing.

IFSSA works in tandem with public sector agencies involved in production of quality hybrid seeds, to popularize and market the latter's products with the ultimate objective of enabling adoption of quality seeds by Indian farmers.

IFSSA has also initiated promotion of pearl millet hybrids (HHB-67 improved and ICMH-357) developed by ICRISAT. IFSSA encourages the application of molecular markers for hybrid identity and purity tests. Such initiatives have efficiently reduced the time required for assessing the purity level of the hybrid seedlots, thus enabled taking prompt decisions for making payments to growers and also seed marketing.

Under comprehensive knowledge promotion and human resource development programs, with the assistance and support from the Barwale Knowledge and Study Centre, Jalna, IFSSA would also train seed growers and farmers with novel and viable hybrid seed production and allied technologies.

Source : Equity Bulls

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