Impact on Farm Economics of Changing Seed Use A Study in Jharkhand Suman Sahai Manoj Gautam, Aditya Kumar, Joe Hill J-235/A, Lane W-15C, Sainik Farms, Khanpur, New Delhi -110 062 Phone : +91-11-29556248, Fax : +91-11-29555961 Email :
[email protected] Web: www.genecampaign.org 1 Introduction Till recently, Jharkhand’s farmers overwhelmingly cultivated traditional varieties of rice along with some high yielding varieties or HYVs. Since the late 1990s, a third type of rice seed – the private sector owned hybrid rice is available and is actively promoted by the agriculture university and the state’s agriculture department. The history of the development of improved rice varieties in India dates to the first half of the 20th century when pure line method of selection enabled the release of some 445 indica varieties1. From 1965 an inter-racial hybridisation programme between semi-dwarf Taiwanese types and indica types of rice led to the development of Taichung (Native) - I, and the release of the Padma and Jaya semi-dwarf varieties of rice. Thereafter began the prolific release of what are now known as high yielding varieties (HYVs) with 123 varieties released in 12 years as compared to the 51 high yielding varieties released in the previous four decades. The semi-dwarf varieties were generally found to be superior to the tall traditional varieties in efficiency of grain production. Their short height also made them resilient to lodging in strong winds, so the grain was not lost when the plant fell to the ground. In 1994 the first four hybrids were released (APHR-1, APHR-2, MGR-1 and KRH-1).