Smuggling in seeds and planting material :

All avenues must be blocked - SCPPC Director

by Gamini WARUSHAMANA

There are avenues for smuggling seeds and planting material into the country and it is posing a great threat to the spread of pests and plant diseases despite strong legislations in the country, said the Director, Seed Certification and Plant Protection Centre (SCPPC ) Dr.D.H. Muthukuda Arachchi.

Dr.D.H. Muthukuda Arachchi

Today under the open economy private sector is authorised to import seeds and planting materials. According to the law all such materials should be quarantined. However under the present mechanism it is difficult to trace all the imported items and mostly only the disclosed items are quarantined. Therefore Quarantine Officers should also be in the customs desk in the airports and ports and most of the countries now practise this, he said.

Dr. Muthukuda Arachchi said that illegal seeds and planting material production and selling is also a big issue in the country.

Poor quality seeds are selling in the market and as a result farmers suffer losses. Recently a farmer complained that tissue cultured banana plants sold by a reputed company were barren. We have legal provisions and all the seeds and planting material producers should be registered in the Department of Agriculture and they should get the quality certifications. However implementation of the Act is difficult as there is no proper mechanism. Also the sector is huge today and the department cannot monitor nurseries and other seed products with the limited resources available. He said that now the Department of Agriculture has started setting up a mechanism.

In the commercial agriculture the usage of hybrid seeds have increased. Private companies import and sell them under attractive packagings.

However, there are quality issues. Recently we got a complaint about a hybrid loofah seed where the fruits are bitter in taste. Therefore the importers should consider the quality of the seeds, the yield, taste and other features as well as the availability of local varieties.

We had high quality plant varieties such as papaya but today they have disappeared as the imported varieties have replaced them. We don’t have technology to protect them.

He said that the corporate private sector has helped to boost the agriculture in the country. However, these companies should be more responsible and should think of the country, the farmers, consumers and the environment.

The private sector should help the government to establish an effective mechanism in regulating the sector. Certain responsibilities should be vested in the government and cannot be delegated. Today seed cost is extremely high and our effort is to bring them down while improving the quality, he said.