Seed

The private seed companies claimed to have witnessed a 10-11 percent market growth annually, up from 4-5 percent a decade ago. The local seed market is worth about Tk 30 billion (Tk 3,000 crore). The seed market started expanding after the private sector was allowed to import and sell hybrid seeds in 1998 amid the growing demand for quality seeds.. Private companies and traders now meet over 90 percent of the demand for hybrid seeds of maize, vegetables, and spices, according to sector insiders, which is mostly possible for import only. That is why we also lost huge indigenous varieties of crops which have also potential scope to develop from those varieties. Actually, we are emphasizing such norms and want to work on locally produced varieties and also consider importing to turn this demand meet up by growing this kind of hybrid seed through our field or contract grower after creating market demand without any harmful effect during R&D or field trials. Now We produce open-pollinated (OP) varieties of seeds for BRRI’s rice and self-pollinated (SP) soybeans of BU Soybean-1 &2. We are also working on some indigenous fruits and vegetable seeds in our R&D Station.