Agriculture Ministry launches Seed Minikit to enhance productivity of oilseeds and pulses

Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Agriculture Minister, launched Seed Minikit Programme and distributed higher yielding varieties of seeds, “Seed Minikits” to farmers. Addressing the farmers, he mentioned that the Central government together with states has been implementing various initiatives to enhance the productivity of pulses and oilseed under the National Food Security Mission.
He said the Seed Minikits programme is acting as a major tool to introduce new varieties of seeds and it’s also instrumental in increasing the replacement rate of seeds. The initiative has yielded good results as oilseeds production has increased to 36.57 million tonnes from 27.51 million tonnes in the year 2014-15 while on the other hand pulses production has increased to 25.56 million tonnes from 17.15 million tonnes in the year 2014-15.
Central agencies National Seeds Corporation (NSC), Gujarat State Seeds Corporation and NAFED are funded through the National Food Security Mission. Under this Mission, 20,27,318 Seed minikits of pulses and more than 8 lakh soybean seed mini kits, coupled with 74 thousand groundnut mini kits are being provided free of cost to the farmers.
The Government has priorities to increase the production of pulses and oilseeds and for this purpose it has formulated strategies to increase the production through expansion of area and productivity by means of High Yielding Varieties (HYVs), procurement and MSP support.