Abstract

The quality seed is one of the first and foremost prerequisites for a healthy and vigorous crop and considered as an important factor for increasing crop yield. However, in Bangladesh resource-poor farmers have limited access to use quality seeds. To attain food security of the increasing population, per unit area of crop production need to be increased and quality seed can play a vital role to overcome this complex sustainable development issue in Bangladesh. Without proper policy implementation for quality seed supply, it is very difficult to achieve food security and sustainable development goal. Therefore, the objective of this review paper is to identify the causes of inadequate supply of quality cereal seed in Bangladesh and the policy options are need to be revised to enhance the availability of quality cereal seed at an affordable price for farmers. This article is prepared based on secondary data sources, desk interview, consultation with line departments, information from the website, the questionnaire used in social media, etc. The related portion of integration of sustainable development goal (SDG) into the seven fifth-year plan (7th FYP) and other related policy documents were critically investigated to find out the gaps and causes which hinder the implementation in making quality cereal seeds available. Apart from these, higher officials who are somehow involved in the seed sector were also consulted. The stakeholder analysis was done to understand the influences and interest of the concerned stakeholders, the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis was done to understand the external and internal impact, the PESTLE analysis was done to analyze the socioeconomic and political significance along with environmental, technological consequences and legal aspect of the proposed policy, and the impact analysis was done to find out the best policy intervention to ensure quality seed supply. Based on the different analysis it was found that the infrastructure and technical manpower in the public sector (BADC and SCA) has not been increased as expected, varieties developed by NARS except few are not according to farmers choice, required quantity of Breeder Seeds of desired varieties are not obtained from research institutes, lack of statistics on cultivable land of different crops and marketing seeds by the private sector, absence of seed demand assessment/forecasting mechanism, injudicious and high seed price become unaffordable to the farmers, contract growers don’t get their seed price in time, SCA has the regulatory functions to control seed quality but due to less capacity it can’t carry out functions duly, and no appropriate seed production and marketing plan are the main causes of inadequate supply of quality seed. Recommended priority wise policy options to enhance the availability of quality cereal seed are strengthening BADC and SCA, facilitating private seed sector, subsidy/more budget allocation, updating statistics on arable land and seed, appropriate seed production and marketing plan, modernizing seed marketing with judicious pricing of seed, and amendment of seed policy and application of seed law.

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