The Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India has drafted the Seeds Bill, 2025 to align with current requirements and after taking into consideration the issues raised by various stakeholders from time to time including farmers’ organizations.

The provisions of the Bill are not applicable to the farmers and farmer’s varieties including traditional varieties. The Bill protect the farmer’s rights in conformity with the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, 2001 to grow, sow, save, exchange and sell farm-saved seeds. In addition, various provisions are available under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 and the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Right’s Act, 2001 to safeguard farmers, community seed growers, traditional and indigenous seed varieties.

The Bill has provisions for compulsory registration of all varieties sold in the market, registration of seed producer, seed processing unit and dealer, registration of plant nurseries, regulation of seed sale prices under emergent situation, compulsory labelling of performance of seeds, mandatory on boarding on SATHI portal etc. to ensure the quality of seeds following nationally determined standards supplied to the farmers.

At present, the draft Seeds Bill, 2025 is at the pre-legislative consultation phase and was put in public domain to further elicit inputs from stakeholders including farmer organizations.

This information was given by Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shri Ramnath Thakur in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

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RC/AR/DK

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