The severe drought in Jalna district of central Maharashtra has impacted operations of the local seed industry, one of the largest in the country, besides affecting farming.

Availability hit

Satyanarayan Rathi, President of Maha Seedsmen Association, told Business Line that the process of seed multiplication by farmers, who produce these seeds for certain seed companies, has dropped by about 50 per cent due to shortage of water.

Such a disruption in the production cycle will impact seed availability in the short term, he said.

The Association has more than 330 seed companies as members.

Rathi said that in and around Jalna city, usually there are about 12,000 seed producing farms, typically of 10 gunthas (quarter of an acre).

These are used by farmers for seed production, which are then sent to the companies for further sales and distribution.

This year, due to the water crisis, only 6,000 such small farms have been able to function. The rest (50 per cent) have shut down due to lack of water.

Farmers’ income

Every year, farmers are paid about Rs 100 crore by seed companies for their produce, but this year, Rathi says farmers will only make about Rs 50 crore. In the short term, seed availability, especially that of vegetable crops in Maharashtra, are bound to get affected. Rathi said that most of these companies would have to source their seeds from other States such as, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.

Usha Barwale Zehr, Chief Technology Officer, Mahyco, confirmed that the day-to-day operations of the company had been impacted by the drought. “This is an unusual year and the company had to purchase water since November 2012 to run its research and development facility,” she said, replying to queries.

She pointed out that though seed availability would definitely be affected in the local area, the impact would not be very significant, since seed production takes place all over the country.

>rahul.wadke@thehindu.co.in

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