BHUBANESWAR: At a time when the farmers of the State badly need quality seeds for higher production of paddy, the Odisha State Seeds Corporation (OSSC) has decided to procure only 50 per cent of its target of 5.25 lakh quintal for the ensuing kharif crops.
The corporation has instructed the district seed production and marketing officers (SP&MOs) to purchase as much seeds as they can sell under the direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme much to the chagrin of the registered seed growers of the State.
Sale of certified paddy seeds in the State was more than 5 lakh quintal before implementation of the DBT scheme with effect from April 1, 2016. The seed sale came down to 2.9 lakh quintal the same year leaving an unsold stock of 2.53 lakh quintal.
The situation did not improve in the 2017 kharif season as the State-run OSSC could manage to sell 2.88 lakh quintal against a target of 5 lakh quintal.
Concerned over the low seed sale and seed replacement ratio, the State government changed the criteria in DBT and went back to the old method by supplying seeds to farmers at subsidised rate. It asked the dealers and PACS to buy seeds at full cost and sell the same at a subsidy. The subsidy price was released to the dealers after proper verification of farmers ID.
The seed sale picked up to 3.22 lakh quintal in 2018, 3.66 lakh quintal in 2019, 4.15 lakh quintal in 2020 and 3.9 lakh quintal in 2021.
"Now there is a move by the Agriculture department to reintroduce the DBT scheme under which the cash subsidy will be directly sent to the beneficiary account. The scheme failed to take off as farmers are not ready to pay the actual cost of the seed upfront," said farmers' representative in the OSSC Board Ashok Baral.
He said that the corporation has directed the SP&MOs to procure only 15 quintal paddy seed per hectare whereas the seed growers are producing more than 50 quintal per hectare. This has sent shock waves among the seed growers numbering around 6,000 as the cost of production of certified seeds is at least Rs 1,000 more per quintal than common paddy.
The OSSC which sustained a loss of around Rs 18 crore in 2016-18 as over 2.53 lakh quintal of certified seeds were sold as non-seeds, does not want to take further risk, he added.