New Delhi, Nov 13 (IANS) The Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare has invited comments from stakeholders on the new draft Seeds Bill, 2025, which aims to ensure quality seeds, protect farmers’ rights and promote ease of doing business.

The draft Seeds Bill, 2025 seeks to regulate the quality of seeds and planting materials available in the market, ensure farmers’ access to high-quality seeds at affordable rates, curb the sale of spurious and poor-quality seeds, protect farmers from losses, liberalise seed imports to promote innovation and access to global varieties, and safeguard the rights of farmers, ensuring transparency and accountability in seed supply chains.

On the enforcement side, the draft Bill proposes to decriminalise minor offences, thereby promoting Ease of Doing Business and reducing compliance burden, while maintaining strong provisions to penalise serious violations effectively.

The proposed legislation is intended to replace the existing Seeds Act, 1966 and the Seeds (Control) Order, 1983.

As part of the pre-legislative consultation process, the draft Seeds Bill, 2025, and the prescribed feedback format are available on the Ministry’s official website https://agriwelfare.gov.in.

All stakeholders and members of the public are invited to submit their comments and suggestions on the draft Bill and its provisions. Feedback may be sent by email to jsseeds-agri[at]gov[dot]in.

Submissions can be made in MS Word or PDF format as early as possible, no later than December 11, 2025.

The Ministry has given a major thrust to providing improved seeds for farmers to augment crop yields and raise incomes.

Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh on October 27 this year inaugurated a new state-of-the-art vegetable and flower seed processing and packaging unit of the National Seeds Corporation (NSC) at Pusa Institute here, and also virtually inaugurated five NSC seed processing plants located at Bareilly, Dharwad, Hassan, Suratgarh and Raichur.

The vegetable seed processing plant at Beej Bhawan in the Pusa complex has a processing capacity of 1 tonne per hour, while the other five NSC plants have a capacity of 4 tonnes per hour each. These facilities are equipped with advanced technologies to ensure the availability of high-quality seeds to farmers and to enhance the quality of seed production across the country.

During the programme, Chouhan also launched the ‘Seed Management 2.0’ system and an online seed booking platform for farmers. Through this platform, farmers will now be able to book their seed requirements online, ensuring greater transparency and accessibility. He emphasised that quality seeds must reach small and marginal farmers to enhance their incomes.

–IANS

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