Draft Seeds Bill 2025: Key Reforms, Need, and Impact on Indian Agriculture | The Study IAS
The Draft Seeds Bill, 2025 aims to replace the outdated Seeds Act 1966 and Seeds (Control) Order 1983, modernising India’s seed regulatory framework. Learn why new reforms are needed, current regulations, challenges, and how the Bill strengthens farmer rights, biotechnology governance, and climate-resilient seed development.
Draft Seeds Bill 2025
The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has unveiled the Draft Seeds Bill, 2025, marking a potential watershed moment for Indian agriculture. This proposed legislation is designed to comprehensively replace the outdated Seeds Act of 1966 and the Seeds (Control) Order of 1983.
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- The government’s stated objective is to modernise the country’s seed regulatory framework, bringing it in line with contemporary agricultural challenges, technological advancements like genome editing, and the urgent needs of farmers in the 21st century.
- The bill is currently open for public consultation, inviting feedback from stakeholders across the spectrum.
How are seeds currently regulated in India?
The current regulatory landscape for seeds in India is primarily governed by two archaic pieces of legislation:
- Seeds Act, 1966: This is the principal law that regulates the quality of seeds sold in India. Its key features include:
- Voluntary Registration: Varieties of seeds are not mandatorily required to be registered before sale, except for a few specific kinds. This creates a regulatory gap where many seeds are sold without official quality scrutiny.
- Seed Certification: It establishes a system for seed certification to ensure quality, which is managed by the National Seeds Corporation and State Seeds Corporations. Certified seeds carry a tag guaranteeing specified standards of germination, purity, and genetic identity.
- Central Seed Committee: It provides for the establishment of a Central Seed Committee to advise the government on seed-related matters.
- Seeds (Control) Order, 1983: Enacted under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, this order focuses more on the trade and marketing of seeds. Its main provisions are:
- Licensing: It mandates that any person selling seeds must obtain a license from the State Government.
- Price Control: It empowers the government to fix the maximum sale price of seeds, a tool used to make essential seeds affordable for farmers.
- Regulation of Sale: It sets standards for seed packaging, labeling, and marketing to prevent misbranding and adulteration.
- This dual-system is widely considered fragmented, outdated, and insufficient to address the complexities of modern biotechnology and the digital seed market.
Why is there a need for modifications in seeds regulations?
The push for a new seed law is driven by several critical factors:
- Technological Obsolescence: The 1966 Act was framed long before the advent of modern biotechnologies like Genetically Modified (GM) crops, genome editing (e.g., CRISPR), and digital sequencing. The current law lacks clear provisions to regulate these new technologies efficiently and safely.
- Farmer Empowerment and Rights: The existing framework offers limited protection to farmers against the sale of spurious and low-quality seeds. A modern law is needed to strengthen liability clauses, ensure compensation for crop failures due to bad seeds, and formally recognise and protect farmers’ rights as conservators and breeders of traditional varieties.
- Boosting “Ease of Doing Business”: The current voluntary registration system creates uncertainty for seed companies and hampers research and development. A streamlined, mandatory registration process for all varieties would provide clarity, encourage innovation, and attract investment in the seed sector.
- Seed Sovereignty and Biodiversity: There is a growing need to integrate the provisions of the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights (PPV&FR) Act, 2001, with the seed law to protect India’s agrobiodiversity from biopiracy and to ensure that benefits from commercialised varieties are shared with local communities.
- Adapting to Climate Change: With increasing climate variability, there is an urgent need to fast-track the development and release of climate-resilient seed varieties (drought, flood, and heat-tolerant). The current regulatory process is often seen as slow and bureaucratic, delaying the availability of such crucial seeds to farmers.
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The Source’s Authority and Ownership of the Article is Claimed By THE STUDY IAS BY MANIKANT SINGH
