The Seed Sector in India

The Seeds Act, 1966

• The Seeds Act, 1966, is the core law. With the Seeds Rules, 1968, and the Seeds (Control) Order, 1983, it regulates seed quality nationwide.
• These laws let State Governments inspect, test and enforce seed quality.
• They also help curb the sale of sub-standard or spurious seed.

The PPV&FR Act, 2001

• It grants intellectual property rights to plant breeders.
• It also protects the farmer’s traditional right to save and exchange seed.
• It was timed in 2001 as one framework for both breeders and farmers.

Who produces and tests seed

• The National Seeds Corporation (NSC) was founded in 1963. It works alongside 17 State Seed Corporations to produce and distribute seed.
• Seed research runs through NARES. It spans 56 ICAR Institutes, 48 State Agricultural Universities and 3 Central Agricultural Universities.
• 178 notified Seed Testing Laboratories check seed quality before it reaches the market.

The three-tier chain

• New seed moves from breeder seed, to foundation seed, to certified seed.
• Certified seed is what finally reaches the farmer’s field.

New crop varieties

• Between 2014 and 2025, India released 3,236 new field crop varieties.
• Of these, 2,996 are climate-resilient.
• 587 of them tolerate extreme drought, flood, salinity, heat or cold.

Registered varieties

• Under the PPV&FR Act, 10,802 plant varieties across 219 crop species are registered.
• More than half of that total, 5,689, was registered in 2023-26 alone.

Production network and tracking

• 229 Seed Hubs and 384 Breeder Seed Production Centres form the backbone of seed production.
• The SATHI Portal gives the whole chain digital tracking. It covers production, certification, inventory and distribution.

Global links

• India is a founding member of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.
• This gives Indian researchers legal access to global germplasm for breeding.

Rooted in the Green Revolution

• The sector’s institutions trace back to the Green Revolution.
• High-yielding varieties then needed mass multiplication and distribution.
• Read more in The Green Revolution and Crop Policy.

Public-private collaboration

• Between 2023-24 and 2025-26, 27 ICAR Institutes signed 1,317 licensing agreements.
• These hand publicly bred varieties to private companies for large-scale multiplication.

Two international crop-research centres

• The International Rice Research Institute’s South Asia Regional Centre opened at Varanasi in 2018.
• A similar potato-research centre, near Agra, was approved on 25 June 2025.

Faster breeding

• Newer methods speed up the older breeder-to-certified chain.
• These include Marker-Assisted Selection, Gene Editing and Speed Breeding.

Do not scramble the chain

• The order is always breeder seed, foundation seed, then certified seed.
• Breeder seed is the purest and the smallest in quantity. It is produced directly under a breeder’s supervision.
• Foundation seed is the next step, produced from breeder seed under close quality control.
• Certified seed is the bulk stage that a farmer buys.
• Seed Villages sit downstream. They multiply certified seed further.

Two laws, two jobs

• The Seeds Act is a quality-control law. It decides what counts as sellable seed and lets States seize spurious seed.
• The PPV&FR Act is an intellectual-property law. It protects breeders, and protects the farmer’s right to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed, though not under a brand.
• A farmer fighting fake seed turns to the first. A breeder registering a new variety uses the second.

Certified is not the only legal seed

• Indian law also recognises “truthfully labelled” seed.
• The producer self-declares its purity, with no third-party certification.
• The producer is still liable if the label is false.

Written Lok Sabha reply, 21 July 2026

• Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Ramnath Thakur gave a written reply on steps to strengthen the seed sector. (Source: PIB)
• He confirmed 3,236 field crop varieties were released between 2014 and 2025, of which 2,996 were climate-resilient.
• Under the PPV&FR Act, 5,689 varieties were registered in 2023-26, out of 10,802 in total.
• In 2025-26, India was a net seed exporter by value: ₹3,023.16 crore of exports against ₹1,755.96 crore of imports.