Seed requirement in Bangladesh are met through formal and informal seed supply systems.

The formal is characterised by planned production, some form of mechanised processing, named varieties, seed marketed in identified packages, a system of quality assurance to the buyers, and crops in which it is inconvenient for the farmers to save their seeds. Despite the best efforts of both public and private sector only 5-10 per cent of the total seed in 2003-04 in the country was supplied by formal sector.

The informal seed system provides over 90-95 per cent of seed needs of farmers in the country. The informal sector comprises NGO supported seed multiplication and supply programmes, community groups, farmer co-operatives, seed grower's associations, and farmer-to-farmer exchange, in addition to farm saved seed.

The stakeholders involved in the Seed Industry Development of Bangladesh are:

i. The National Seed Board (NSB)-a regulatory body of the ministry of agriculture.
ii. Seed Wing-seed co-ordinating authority/secretariat for the NSB of the ministry of agriculture.
iii. Seed Promotion Committee under the ministry of agriculture.
iv. Technical Committee under NSB.
V. Seed Certification Agency (SCA)-a seed quality control and certification agency under the ministry of agriculture.
vi. National Agricultural Research System (NARS).
vii. Public sector (BADC and DAE).
viii. Private sector.

Under the public and private sector the following six players are actively performing and contributing to the seed industry development (SID) in Bangladesh. They are:

A. Public Sector
i. BADC
ii. DAE
B Private sector
i. Private Seed Company
ii. NGOs
iii. Farmers Seed Company
iv. Farmers

The private sector has played a major role in supplying quality seeds of both private and/or public hybrids. It is interesting to note that about 100% hybrid vegetable seed and hybrid maize seed are produced/import and supplied by private sector. The contribution of private research in value terms is also steadily increasing.

The dealers, because of their direct link with the farmers, also play a crucial role in popularising specific hybrids/varieties.

Seed Business Opportunity in Bangladesh

Under the free market economy and technological advancement, the opportunity for seed business especially hybrid seed is enormous in Bangladesh. It could be optimistically emphasised that there are over Tk 20 billion seed business opportunity in Bangladesh. The stocktaking information in the crop-wise business opportunity for seeds may be calculated as follows:

Contribution of research and extension in seed industry development

The contribution of the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) and Extension Services in Bangladesh in promoting growth of agriculture for food security, growth of economy and reduction of poverty is praiseworthy. Out of the limited arable lands in Bangladesh encountered by regular natural calamities, the advancement of frontier science and technology in agricultural education, research and extension and demand driven national agricultural policy support by the government could significantly prompted the country to cope with the growth of population and maintaining the moderate livelihood standard of the majority (around 80 per cent) of the population living in rural Bangladesh.

The Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) and Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) have developed a good numbers of modern/high yielding varieties (MVs/HYVs) as well as hybrid varieties of various crops. The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) has also been playing a pivotal role in disseminating advanced technologies and varieties developed by the NARS. Since emergence in 1972, the BRRI has earned the international standard of agricultural research and heritage status by developing over 42 numbers of modern/high yielding (including one hybrid) varieties of rice. The performance of two boro rice varieties of BRRI namely BRRI Dhan-28 and BRRI Dhan-29 are highly commendable.

These two inbred HYV rice varieties are internationally competitive and considered to be super rice varieties. The potential and cultivable commercial yields of BRRI Dhan -28 is 5-5.5 MT per hectare and BRRI Dhan-29 is 6-6.5 MT per hectare against the BRRI developed and imported hybrid rice yield of around 6.5-7.5 MT per hectare.
The contribution of International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) of Philippine towards the scientific and technological advancement as well as capacity building up of BRRI should be recorded with high commendation.
The journey of BRRI (erstwhile East Pakistan Rice Research Institute) was started with the IRRI developed IR-8 HYV rice introduced in Bangladesh in 1966-67 and hybrid rice research system with the technical cooperation of IRRI in 1992. In the list of cereal crop, the wheat is next to rice. Since introduction of wheat in 1960s, the contribution of Wheat Research Centre (WRC) at Dinajpur under the research umbrella of BARI should also be recorded. The achievement of BARI in developing hybrid maize variety is not notable. The yield of hybrid maize seed namely Pioneer, Monsanto, Pacific and other varieties that are imported by private sector is much higher (average cultivable commercial yield is 8-9 MT per hectare) than that of BARI developed hybrid maize (around 5.5-6 MT per hectare). The performances of hybrid vegetable seeds imported by private sector are also quite better than BARI developed vegetable varieties.

De-notification of notified crops

The National Seed Policy (NSP), 1993, empowered the NS13 to regulate five kinds and varieties of crops to be notified. These five crops are rice, wheat, jute, potato and sugarcane. Release and /or introduction of variety (s)/technology of notified crops are subject to evaluation and testing by the Technical Committee (TC) of the NSB. Varieties of other crops not required to be notified by the NSB.

The coverage of quality seeds of notified crops is not significant than that of non-notified crops, due to strict regulation empowered to the government in the NSP, 1993. It has been repeatedly urged by the private sector to the NSB for declaration of at least three notified crops namely rice, jute and potato into non-notified crops from the list of five notified crops.

It is the high time for the government to open all closed windows and come out from the cage boundary and avail the highway road map of competitive free market-economy and advance the country into a sustainable agricultural growth economy.

If we took into the advancement of China, India and Vietnam, that, they are harvesting, the fruits of scientific and economic advancement in their agricultural improvement. If we follow the agricultural action plan of Vietnam, we should optimistically aspire that, the present food grain importing country like Bangladesh could dream to be a rice exporting country in the foreseeable time. The only requirement is to change the modality and attitude of the people's government from pro-regulatory and pro-controlling into pro-private supportive because, the private sector is considered as engine of economic growth.

by Md. Shahjan Ali, General Secretary, Seedmen's Society of Bangladesh and Advisor to the Seed Federation of Bangladesh

Name of major seed crops Source of Seed (%) Seed Business Opportunity

Local Import (in million (in million production us $) BD Tk)

i. Rice (HYV & Hybrid) 20 80 165.00 10725.00
ii. Wheat (HYV) 90 10 20.00 1300.00
iii. Maize (Hybrid 100%) 10 90 2.30 149.50
iv. Jute (HYV) 10 90 5.00 325.00
v. Seed Potato (HYV)_ 20 80 60.00 3900.00
vi. Vegetables (Hybrid 98 %) 25 75 10.00 650.00
vii. Oilseeds (HYV) 95 5 7.50 487.50
viii. Pulses (HYV) 95 5 20.00 1300.00
ix. Spices (HYV) 80 20 10.20 663.00

Total (* I US $ =BDTk 65 as of V week of July 2005) 300.00 19500.00
Estimated 10 % increase by next 2009-10 330.00 21450.00

Copyright 2005 The Financial Express