Share of private seed industry in the local seed market continues to grow but absence of international standard testing labs, tough regulations and lack of incentives are limiting the local seed industry's ability to penetrate into international market in a big way, industry insiders said.
Opportunity has opened for the local seed industry to expand further as demands for high-yielding and hybrid seeds have been increasing significantly in Bangladesh and abroad.
Officials at the Bangladesh Seed Association (BSA) observed that absence of seed testing labs with the standard of International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) is impeding growth of quality seed exports to foreign countries, especially USA and EU states.
Executive Director of BSA Nessar Uddin said private companies from time to time raised demands for establishing international standard labs in the country to facilitate the local industry to test their product and get the international standard certificate for boosting the export of local seeds.
He believed that setting up of testing labs with standard required by the ISTA would help export of local seeds grow by nearly 10 per cent annually.
"The government can play a significant role to catch international market for local companies by negotiating export process with foreign countries if we can do away with the complexities existing in the export process," said Jobaidul Karim Masud, Head of Seed and Agro Enterprise of BRAC.
"We could not utilise the expected opportunities to increase export of our products despite producing quality seeds due to lack of proper certification and some other barriers in export process", he said.
"We have scope to export potato and some vegetable seeds to Russia and Middle East but to avail the opportunities we need proper policy," he mentioned saying international certification and change in export policy would help increase the export market nearly 10 per cent.
"Often we have to take our product (seed) to other countries for testing its standard. Apart from boosting the export growth it (international standard lab and proper policy) will also reduce our hassle", said Product Manager of Syngenta Bangladesh Ltd, Belal Hossain.
He lamented that in spite of such opportunities, the country's seed export is not significant and the industry is still import-oriented.
Besides, the officials of private companies emphasised on establishing a central information bank of proper statistics to ascertain the exact seed demands, assess local market condition and international scenario in order to boost the export.
Apart from that, the private sector needs international standard seed-storing houses or warehouses like the government-run ones, the BSA official said, echoing the demand of other companies.
"We used to face crisis when we go for seed production and marketing as there is no government information or research centre to get updated," he pointed out.
Furthermore, seed processing centre and seed storehouse for private sector like public sector along with cash incentive for exporting the item are also among the demands made by the private sector for boosting export.
Ashraf Uddin Ahmed, Additional Secretary and Director General (Seed) said, setting up seed testing lab with international standard is in the policy of the government. "Due to some complications it couldn't get final nod but the process is on to materialise it."
Seed Certified Agency of Bangladesh (SCA) is working to build labs in accordance with ISTA, he said, adding nine new testing centres are under way which will go into operation soon.
Currently, the local market for the private companies is worth about Tk 30 billion, the sector insiders said.
Private companies are now meeting over 90 per cent of the hybrid seed demand for maize, vegetables and spices, the sector insiders said.
They noted that private companies are witnessing yearly growth of seed market 10 to 11 per cent overall which was 4.0 to 5.0 per cent a decade ago.
The private sector is meeting about 14 to 16 per cent of total seed demands. Imports and supplies together are meeting 28 to 30 per cent of total demand while the rest is met by the farmers' own seed, BSA sources said.
According to them, currently the private sector is importing paddy-seed mainly from Japan, India and the Philippines.
They are importing vegetable seeds from Taiwan, Italy, USA, Japan and Thailand. Vietnam also is a source for the country to import seed.
The private companies are exporting seed to a number of countries including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Italy and African countries.
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