{"id":65582,"date":"2026-08-24T03:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T03:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/?p=65582"},"modified":"2026-08-24T03:56:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T03:56:03","slug":"the-genetic-edge-pakistans-bid-to-compete-in-the-twenty-first-century-seed-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/2026\/08\/24\/the-genetic-edge-pakistans-bid-to-compete-in-the-twenty-first-century-seed-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"THE GENETIC EDGE:: Pakistan’s Bid to Compete in the Twenty-First-Century Seed Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rethinking Agricultural Self-Reliance Through the National Seed Policy and What the World’s Farming Powers Got Right<\/i><\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n

\"\"Professor Dr Muhammad Jalal Arif<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

Seed is the smallest unit of agriculture, yet no other input carries a comparable weight in determining the fortunes of a harvest. Encoded within a single grain is the ceiling of every yield that will follow it: resistance to drought and disease, tolerance of a shifting climate, and ultimately the food security of nations. It is this deceptively modest input that has become the new frontier of geo-economic competition, as the world’s leading agricultural powers race to secure genetic advantage over the crops that feed their populations. Certified, high-quality seed alone has been shown to lift crop productivity by twenty to thirty per cent \u2014 a margin no fertiliser or irrigation scheme can match on its own. Pakistan’s recent, long-overdue approval of its first comprehensive National Seed Policy, alongside a companion National Agricultural Biotechnology Policy, therefore deserves to be read not as a routine regulatory update but as a strategic inflection point for a nation whose economy, exports and food security all still turn on the soil.<\/p>\n

Sound science and credible regulation are the roots from which every superior seed grows.<\/i><\/b><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A WORLD REMADE BY SEED<\/b><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Agriculture’s twenty-first-century transformation has been driven less by land and water than by what is planted in them. Across the globe, seed has quietly become the decisive variable in national competitiveness: a country’s genetic library now shapes its export earnings, its resilience to climate shocks, and its standing in a global trading system increasingly organised around who controls the building blocks of the food chain. Gene-edited and precision-bred varieties, once laboratory curiosities, are now moving into commercial fields from the American Midwest to the Yangtze basin, compressing breeding cycles that once took a decade into a matter of seasons. Seed has, in effect, become biology’s answer to the semiconductor: a small, technology-dense product whose control confers outsized strategic leverage. Nations that recognised this early \u2014 and built the science, capital and regulatory institutions to match \u2014 now sit at the centre of a global seed economy worth tens of billions of dollars annually. Nations that did not are left importing not just seed, but the yield ceilings, the climate resilience and the market access that come bundled with it.<\/p>\n

LESSONS FROM THE WORLD’S SEED POWERS<\/b><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/strong> H.E Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Islamic Republic of Pakistan<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The last quarter-century has seen the great agricultural economies converge on a shared insight: no country can out-produce its own seed base. In the United States, robust intellectual property protection, aggressive private investment, and close coordination between land-grant universities and seed corporations have built the world’s most innovation-dense seed sector. China, for its part, has designated seed a matter of national self-reliance, openly describing it as the country’s ‘agricultural chip’ \u2014 a term deliberately borrowed from the semiconductor race \u2014 and has backed that framing with sustained state investment in genomics and biotechnology. Australia, constrained by limited water and a punishing climate, has built its seed policy around biosecurity and drought-tolerance research, turning adversity into a source of resilience engineering. India offers perhaps the most instructive parallel for Pakistan: progressive seed legislation, a dedicated public research network, and a thriving private seed sector combined to deliver the productivity gains of the Green Revolution and continue to reshape its agricultural landscape today. Brazil, too, deserves mention: three decades of investment in tropical soybean and maize breeding through its public research corporation Embrapa turned a food importer into one of the world’s largest agricultural exporters, proof that seed sovereignty can be built from a standing start within a single generation.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/strong> Ms Maryam Nawaz Sharif,Chief Minister of Punjab , Pakistan<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What unites these very different systems is not any single policy instrument but a common architecture: sustained research investment, effective seed regulation, credentialed certification, and enforceable plant-breeders’ rights, underwritten by durable political commitment rather than one-off legislative gestures. No country’s seed sector became internationally competitive on the strength of its natural endowments alone; each built the institutional and regulatory scaffolding that modern seed science and biotechnology require. This is the central lesson available to Pakistan: policy intent is only the opening move, and the countries that succeeded were those that treated seed reform as a multi-decade national project rather than a single legislative achievement.<\/p>\n

PAKISTAN’S SEED SECTOR: THE COST OF DELAY<\/b><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/strong> Rana Tanveer Hussain, Minister for National Food Security and Research,Pakistan<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pakistan’s seed sector has for decades struggled under the weight of fragmented regulation, limited certified-seed documentation, and a weak varietal-registration regime that left the door open to counterfeit seed flooding informal markets. By some estimates, more than sixty per cent of the country’s total seed requirement is still met through farmer-saved or uncertified seed \u2014 a statistic that, on its own, explains much about the persistent gap between Pakistan’s agricultural potential and its actual yields. Reliance on imported hybrid seed for several major crops has further entrenched a costly and strategically uncomfortable dependence, one that a genuine national seed policy is designed to begin unwinding. The cost of this delay is not abstract: it is measured in yield gaps against comparable economies, in foreign exchange spent on hybrid imports that could instead be earned through exports, and in the erosion of farmer trust each time counterfeit seed fails in the field.<\/p>\n

A POLICY FRAMEWORK TAKES SHAPE<\/b><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/strong> Syed Ashiq Hussain Kirmani , Punjab’s Minister for Agriculture, Pakistan<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is against this backdrop that Pakistan’s National Seed Policy, prepared under the leadership of Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Rana Tanveer Hussain, was framed as a comprehensive roadmap rather than a narrow regulatory document. The policy’s architecture rests on scientific research, effective seed regulation, biotechnology, certified seed documentation, and a wide network of tested varieties designed to safeguard farmers’ interests. Complementing it, the National Agricultural Biotechnology Policy sets out a parallel course for modernising the genetic and technological base of the country’s crop varieties, with a phased roadmap running to 2031 that pairs biosafety stewardship with a deliberate push toward commercial-scale biotechnology adoption.<\/p>\n

Leadership of this reform has been closely associated with Dr Asif Ali, Chairman of the National Seed Development and Regulatory Authority (NSDRA), whose agenda centres on modernising the country’s seed value chain by simplifying regulatory approval for research-driven ‘fast-track’ lines, easing the import of hygienic breeding plant material through a dedicated Research Germplasm Fast Lane, tightening oversight of biosafety protocols, encouraging private-sector research and investment, ranking seed companies by performance, and digitising the regulatory process end to end. Pakistan’s first National Seed Investor Forum, planned for 2026, is intended to bring private capital and this roadmap onto a single, coordinated platform, reorganising the country’s seed governance around science and regulation rather than habit and inertia.<\/p>\n

FAISALABAD’S NATIONAL SEED DIALOGUE 2026<\/b><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/strong> Mr.Shakeel Ahmad Mian, PAS,Secretary Agriculture Punjab<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The reform’s most substantive recent airing took place in Faisalabad, where the National Seed Research and Training Centre and the University of Agriculture Faisalabad jointly convened the National Seed Dialogue 2026, bringing policymakers, scientists, regulators, seed companies and farmer representatives under one roof. Major General Shahid Nazir, Director General of Strategic Projects and the Green Corporate Initiative, told participants that the newly approved policy provides a framework spanning seed research, quality assurance, private-sector participation, biotechnology, plant-breeders’ rights, climate-resilient varieties, and seed exports. Professor Dr Zulfiqar Ali, Vice Chancellor of the University of Agriculture Faisalabad, described certified-quality seed as a historic opportunity to resolve one of Pakistan’s most complex agricultural problems, crediting the reforms with reducing dependence on imported hybrid seed, strengthening local production programmes, and expanding certified-seed documentation and traceability. He further urged that policy be matched with realistic, field-tested outcomes, and proposed the establishment of a National Seed Academy dedicated to seed certification, regulatory science, and biotechnology training.<\/p>\n

Dr Tariq Hussain, Director of the National Seed Research and Training Centre, spoke of the university’s role in bridging scientists, regulators and industry to accelerate reform on the ground, while Dr Muhammad Azeem Iqbal, Chairperson of the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, highlighted the department’s long-standing role in training specialised personnel for the sector. Renowned agricultural scientist and former Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Professor Dr Kausar Abdullah Malik, drawing on decades of field experience, argued that the policy’s successful implementation would depend on strict legal compliance, biosafety regulation, enforceable plant-breeders’ rights, internationally recognised seed-testing laboratories, and sustained investment in human and material resources. Dr Asif Kamran, a noted agricultural economist and policy analyst, called the National Seed Policy a vital and timely step, stressing that its real success would depend on effective public-private partnership and on rebuilding the trust of all stakeholders in the seed system. Dr Abid Mehmood, Director General of the Punjab Agricultural Research Board, called for investment that responds seasonally to the needs of farmers seeking higher-yielding and more climate-resilient varieties, while Dr Qamar Shakeel argued that continuous research and development, through rigorous testing and transparent registration, remains the only real safeguard against counterfeit seed.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/strong> Amer Ali Ahmad, Secretary of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP),Pakistan<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The successful organisation of the Seed Dialogue was significantly supported by Dr Tehsin Azhar, Director, Seed Institute, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, whose dedicated efforts played an important role in bringing this important academic and policy dialogue together. Dr Qamar Shakeel, Member (R&D), National Seed Development and Regulatory Authority; Dr Asif Kamran, Registrar and policy analyst, University of Agriculture Faisalabad; and representatives of the private-sector seed industry, including Dr Khalid Hamid, Javed Saleem Qureshi, Saad Akbar, and Jamshed Iqbal Cheema, also contributed valuable insights and practical recommendations to the dialogue.<\/p>\n

Beyond the Seed Dialogue, there is a broader public perception that the presence of fake, substandard, and unregulated seed businesses over the past several decades has caused significant harm to Pakistan’s agriculture sector and farming communities, while also resulting in economic losses to the country. There has also been public concern that some such elements have, at different times, received the backing or patronage of influential quarters. With the launch of the new National Seed Policy, there is renewed hope that these longstanding concerns will be addressed through stronger regulation, effective enforcement, quality assurance, and greater accountability. A transparent and farmer-focused seed regulatory system can help restore public confidence, protect farming communities, and strengthen Pakistan’s agricultural economy.<\/p>\n

Government intent must translate into capital investment and market trust.<\/i><\/b><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

EXPLOITING GLOBAL EXPERIENCE: A PATHWAY FOR PAKISTAN<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Dr. Asif Ali Khan, PhD (Tamgha \u2013 e \u2013 Imtiaz), is the Chairperson of the National Seed Development and Regulatory Authority (NSDRA), Islamabad, Pakistan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If Pakistan is to convert policy architecture into agricultural transformation, it must deliberately borrow \u2014 and adapt \u2014 from the seed powers that have already made this journey. From the United States, the lesson is intellectual property: enforceable plant-breeders’ rights are not a bureaucratic afterthought but the incentive structure that persuades private companies to invest in multi-year breeding programmes rather than simply reselling saved seed. From China’s framing of seed as a strategic asset, Pakistan can draw the discipline of treating germplasm access, genomic capacity, and biosafety regulation as matters of national interest deserving sustained budgetary protection, insulated from the churn of short political cycles. From Australia, the imperative is to convert climatic adversity \u2014 Pakistan’s own exposure to drought, heat stress, and increasingly erratic monsoon flooding \u2014 into a deliberate research agenda on stress-tolerant varieties, rather than treating climate volatility as an excuse for underperformance. From India, the clearest lesson is sequencing: legislation, public research infrastructure, and private-sector participation must be built together, not staggered, or the private capital that certification regimes are meant to attract will simply wait on the sidelines. And from Brazil, Pakistan can take perhaps the most hopeful lesson of all \u2014 that a public research institution, properly funded and insulated from short-term politics, can turn a seed-import economy into a seed-export one within a single generation.<\/p>\n

Exploiting this global experience does not mean imitation; each of these systems grew from different endowments, different political economies, and different crop portfolios. What Pakistan can responsibly import is the underlying architecture \u2014 certification credibility, enforceable rights, research funding discipline, and private-sector confidence \u2014 while building varieties suited to its own wheat, cotton, rice, and pulse economies, and to the specific stresses of the Indus basin. The National Seed Policy’s early emphasis on a Research Germplasm Fast Lane and an investor-facing forum suggests the right instinct: Pakistan does not need to reinvent seed science, but it does need to import global best practice quickly enough to close a gap that international competitors will not wait for it to close on its own timetable.<\/p>\n

WHAT IMPLEMENTATION WILL DEMAND<\/b><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A national seed policy is, by itself, no more than a regulatory framework unless it is matched by a genuinely national commitment to agricultural innovation \u2014 a lesson that the seed histories of the United States, China, Australia, India and Brazil all confirm in their own distinct ways. Comparative experience across those countries offers a useful reminder that no single piece of legislation produces lasting change; what matters is the sustained, decades-long pursuit of one seed-sector vision, the willingness of institutions to be rebuilt, laboratories modernised, breeders’ rights genuinely recognised, and certified seed restored to the confidence of farmers who have too often been let down by it before.<\/p>\n

Pakistan’s policy architecture now compares favourably with international standards. What remains is the harder task: research of every kind, effective regulatory coordination between institutions, greater farmer income through higher yields and expanded exports, and the development of climate-resilient varieties capable of withstanding both drought and flood. Federal Minister Rana Tanveer Hussain, NSDRA Chairman Dr Asif Ali, and a broad coalition of leadership \u2014 including the University of Agriculture Faisalabad and its scientists \u2014 now have an unusual opportunity to redirect the country’s agricultural economy from a fresh starting point. If this opportunity is pursued with the seriousness it deserves, it will bring more than incremental change; it will transform the seed sector’s trajectory altogether, restore farmers’ confidence in the seed they sow, and position Pakistan to compete as a genuine participant in the global seed industry rather than a bystander to it. The reforms are already under way; what remains to be decided is the harvest they will ultimately yield.<\/p>\n

The writer is a\u00a0 Former Professor and Head, Department of Entomology, University of Agriculture Faisalabad:<\/i><\/em>Email: jalalarif807@yahoo.com<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rethinking Agricultural Self-Reliance Through the National Seed Policy and What the World’s Farming Powers Got Right Professor Dr Muhammad Jalal Arif Seed is the smallest unit of agriculture, yet no other input carries a comparable weight in determining the fortunes of a harvest. Encoded within a single grain is the ceiling of every yield that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65582"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65600,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65582\/revisions\/65600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyspokesman.net\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}