This was disclosed at a meeting yesterday at the Ministry of Agriculture to review the proposal of Seed Federation of Bangladesh (SFB) regarding direct import of five notified seeds.

With Agriculture Minister MK Anwar in the chair, the meeting was attended by State Minister for Agriculture Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, chief executives of agricultural research institutes and officials concerned of the ministry.

Referring to the outcome of the meeting, sources of the ministry said the meeting decided to keep the notification system regarding import of rice, wheat, jute, potato and sugarcane seeds valid due to some technical reasons and in consideration of nature of soil and environment of the country.

Under the National Seed Policy, 1993, the government approves import of seeds after examining samples provided to the technical committee of the ministry and the research institutions concerned by the importers.

In its proposal, the SFB proposed for opening up seed business. It called for announcing seed business as an industry in industrial policy, allowing easy access of private sector seed business to institutional credit and preferential rate of interest.

Sources said the meeting laid emphasis on taking appropriate steps to produce all kinds of seeds including hybrid and HYV seeds to meet the growing demand of the country. The main objective of importing seeds is to increase production of the seed domestically and reach it to the farmer's level, sources added.

The annual demand for seeds in the country is about 10 lakh tonnes. Of which only 10 percent seeds was produced by BADC and agriculture extension department while the rest demand are being met by producing seeds locally using traditional method.