Minister of Agriculture Shivraj Singh Chouhan
| Photo Credit:
ANI
The government’s expert panel — Variety Identification Committee (VIC) headed by ICAR’s Deputy Director General (DDG) is said to have recommended release of 80 varieties of cotton, as many as 78 by private sector, out of the 91 varieties it received for application for approval. However, the final approval for their release for commercial cultivation will depend on what the Agriculture Secretary as Chairman of Central Seed Committee decides amid objection raised by Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan about such ‘uncontrolled’ release.
In a review meeting with stakeholders of cotton in Coimbatore earlier this month, Chouhan had expressed his displeasure over releasing so many varieties of cotton and questioned their real utility as complained by farmers. He had asked officials to study how many of those released varieties had actually reached farmers. Sources said that the government had released 257 cotton varieties in 2024-25 and the target is to release 300 varieties in 2025-26.
Out of 11 varieties not recommended by VIC, included Bollgard II technology seeds of Rallis India, Rasi Seeds, Indo American Hybrid Seeds (India) and Veda Seeds. Among the list of rejected varieties also include two seeds, each developed by ICAR’s Central Institute of Cotton Research (CICR) and Vasantrao Naik Marathwada Krishi Vidyapeeth (Parbhani, Maharashtra) using Bollgard I.
Except Veda Seeds and CICR, some other varieties of these companies have also been approved. Among the recommendations of 80 varieties, one from Crystal Crop Protection, two of Nuziveedu Seeds, five of Ankur Seeds, seven of Mahyco, eight of Kaveri Seed Company have made it to the list, sources said.
Experts said that the system of seed approval itself is faulty as the DDG (crop science) of ICAR or his nominee chairs VIC whereas he also heads the Central Variety Release Committee for agriculture crops. While the VIC recommends to the CVRC, the latter further recommends to the Central Seed Committee under agriculture secretary.
At the stakeholders meeting, Chouhan had said: “we want cotton productivity should increase, we should reach the world average and we should be able to produce the kind of cotton that the industry needs today – long staple.”
He had said that there were good results from the high density cotton farming and the country would move towards it more rapidly. “ICAR will do research as per the requirement of the farmers, the type of seeds required and the type of cotton required by the industry. Research will be done only for such seeds, for such varieties,” he said adding production of seeds has to be increased based on the demand of the cotton industry.
India’s cotton production has dropped to 30.69 million bales (of 170 kg each) in 2024-25 from 35.25 million bales in 2020-21. While a key factor of the decline is fall in area as farmers are shifting towards other crops, there are also issue of crop damage due to pest attack, lowering yield.
Published on July 19, 2025
