Spurious seed business booming in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: The business of spurious seeds is growing in the city. With the onset of the monsoon, agents are eying Hyderabad and its outskirts as it is easy for them to market their produce. While the police has cracked down on two storage units in less than a week officials from the agriculture department say that they have intensified raids on storage units across the city.

According to police officials, adulteration is taking place in cotton, paddy seeds as this is the season for the crop, followed by vegetables in which tomato is the leading crop which is adulterated by agents.

Usually the seeds which are to be sold to farmers are supplied by government agencies through licensed seed manufacturing and processing units. The dealers who procure seeds from the units before supplying adulterate the original seed by mixing low quality seed which they source from farmers.

Marketing headquarters and distribution units of more than 90 percent of the seed manufacturing units are located in Hyderabad and Ranga Reddy districts which is making agents chose areas in city limits to run their adulteration business.

"They procure quality seeds from licensed units in different districts and transport them to Hyderabad and then mix low quality seeds in them, change the packing with the name of a well known brand and sell them for the same price to dealers," they said.

On Friday, a truck loaded with 312 bags of paddy seeds came to GEENEX Seeds India Private Limited located in Hasthinapuram under LB Nagar police station limits. On credible information, teams from the police and agricultural department raided the unit and seized the material as they were not carrying proper documents related to the load.

A week ago, police raided a seed godown in Shamshabad and seized spurious cotton seeds. The owner of the unit sold spurious seeds by using the packs of well known seed companies like Nuziveedu.

“Instead of procuring the quality seed given to the farmers, the agents collect seed from other agents and pack and release them in the market,” said officials from agriculture department.

They also said that all the seized material may not be spurious and only lab tests can prove the quality of the seed and advised farmers to approach them if any suspicious seed was found.