Public Private Partnership (PPP) in rice seed system of Bangladesh and Breeder Seed supply from BRRI

Seed system of Bangladesh received a tremendous positive change due to congenial policies and their application by proactive public and private organizations and entrepreneurial initiatives of the government and public sector R & D actors. The demand of rice breeder seed is increasing with unrealistic mode due to higher demand from a large number of private seed entrepreneurs. This paper aims to review the status of partnership between Government Organization (GO) and Private Sector (PS) and the scenario of rice seed system development in Bangladesh. The total rice seed requirement of Bangladesh is about 355,308 tons annually of which 34,682 tons in Aus, 185,552 tons in Aman and 135,074 tons in Boro season. Of the large volume of seed required, the public sector i.e., BADC and BMDA was able to provide only 26.70%, Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) met 9.95%, Private Sector provide 28.81% of total requirement (MoA, 2023). The rest 34.54% the total rice seed used from farmers own effort. This data indicates a tremendous scarcity of good quality formal seed in the country. To maintain the seed flow of the country, Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) delivered 274 tons of rice Breeder Seed to 696 public and private sector seed entrepreneurs during 2022-23 which creates a strong partnership between GO and PS (BRRI, 2023). This delivery have a significant role to increase the Seed Replacement Rate (SRR) of the country. Healthy competitions to produce quality seeds among the entrepreneurs have been increasing. As a result, seed supply from formal rice seed system is rising and recently it becomes 65% in rice (MoA, 2023). Due to use of increased volume of quality seed, farmers have started to get its benefit viz. uniform crops and good yield. Consequently, the quality seed production, supply and use works together as a 'movement' has impacted positively on the rice seed market for ensuring food security and rural economic development of Bangladesh.