Govt wants inferior BG-2 cotton seed out of circulation
The State Government has asked the field-level officers of the Agriculture Department to maintain caution on the spurious/failed cotton seed whose ratio of germination is below standards and lacks the gene purity.
At a meeting chaired by Agriculture Production Commissioner C. Parthasarathi here on Friday, the issue of sub-standard bollgard (BG-2) cotton seed was discussed at length, including the measures to be taken for its control. The field-level officers were asked to educate farmers and other stakeholders so that they would not sell or purchase such seed.
Commissioner of Agriculture M. Jaganmohan, Director of Telangana State Seed and Organic Certification Agency K. Keshavulu, representatives of seed producers’ association and seed organisers and farmers from Gadwal and Mahabubnagar areas attended the meeting.
Returning seed
It was decided to take steps to make such seed unavailable in the market, and the seed producing farmers’ plea to return stocks of such seed remaining with seed companies and agencies was turned down. They were explained that returning such seed would lead to spread of such inferior quality seed in the market and result in severe loss to the farming community.
After the kharif season last year, remaining stocks of such inferior quality seeds were returned to farmers after crushing them following the latter’s request as it was the product of their hard work. Officials of the committee said allowing such sub-standard quality seed to remain in the market would ultimately harm the reputation of the State seed industry too.

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