In recent years, the call for a supportive policy and regulatory regime in crop protection has grown louder. Farmers and industry stakeholders alike recognize that robust regulations and proactive policies can unlock the potential for innovation, drive sustainable practices, and enhance global competitiveness. 

Experts spoke at the second edition of AgroChem Summit 2024 at the inaugural session ‘Supportive Policy, Regulatory Regime for Growth of Crop Protection’ organized by the Indian Chemical News in New Delhi on December 13, 2024. 

Sharing his thoughts about the role of right policies in shaping the industry, Dr. Praveen Kumar Singh, Agriculture Commissioner, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Govt. of India informed, “Until now, it was about rice, wheat, maize, the cereal centric development but it has now moved towards millets. Earlier the new seed varieties, pesticides, fertilizers, energy, mechanization and a lot of other factors have contributed to the green revolution. Pesticides have played a role but we cannot look at it in silos. The same Seed Act that gets blamed as unfavorable has actually contributed to increase in the production of food-grains. With the same set of policies and regulations, we have seen the emergence of 500-600 big seed companies and more that 1,000 smaller players in India. At the same time, there must be room for modifications in the Act from time to time, depending on the need.” 

“The suggestions from forums like these have helped in fine tuning various acts such as Protection of Plant Varieties Act and Biodiversity Act in the past. We are looking at the improvements in the pesticide products and besides that the bioengineering technologies such as CRISPR, Cas9 are emerging as new solutions for improvement in crop varieties. GM cotton has led to decrease in use of pesticides. There will be new chemistry to tackle new pests and similarly not just disease but abiotic stress, soil degradation, over exploitation of water need to be addressed as well. These may eliminate the need for pesticides altogether and industry may have to find new ways. Therefore, the industry must keep re-inventing itself to stay relevant,” added Dr. Singh. 

Sharing his views on the major challenges before the industry, Dr. R. G. Agarwal, Chairman Emeritus, Dhanuka Agritech Limited opined, “The pesticides testing laboratories lack enough reference standards, trained personnel or equipment. The Section 16 of Insecticides Act says that private labs must be allowed but the government labs due to their monopoly have been doing things at their whims. The Insecticides Act has been misused for minor issues in the samples, with inspectors taking actions without accountability. There should be a balanced approach and supportive policies. The launch of IPMS (Integrated pesticides management system) portal would be a great move as the registration process is expected to improve.” 

“We welcome the move to remove the companies that haven’t followed the KYC and the new registration process. The unscrupulous players should be banned yet at the same time the old and new players who are doing excellent work must be encouraged. 50-70% pesticides being sold in rural areas are of spurious quality. The products that have been banned a decade ago continue to be sold unchecked in many areas without any technical data. The farmers are getting cheated in the name of pesticides openly, bringing a bad name to the industry,” added Dr Agarwal. 

Talking about achieving huge targets, Deepak Shah, Chairman, SML Limited said, “India today produces 573 billion tonnes of food and the country is second largest in cereals, fruits and vegetables. While we should be happy yet we need to do more as there is scope to double it. The internal target for all of us is how to reach US$ 1 trillion. We exported U$ 5.5 billion (Rs 45,000 crore) in 2022-23 and 80% is done by the CCFI members, Indian companies. We are not just into formulations and technical but also intermediates. India exports to more than 130 countries, 55% of which is US and Brazil followed by Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Yet I am not aware of a single complaint in the product during all these years.” 

“We can do much better as the majority of our products are off patent or expired. We are respecting patents fully and don’t want one day relaxation in the patent law. While we are expecting our exports to double in a couple of years, we are currently using just 50% of our manufacturing capacity because of various hurdles that we are facing. To do our best we want ease of doing business, and making the registration process simpler.  A simpler registration process can help more Indian companies to register their products and India will have more than just 3-4 molecules in a year. I believe there should be no speed-breakers and policies should help us to improvise for the good of our nation,” added Shah. 

Highly optimistic about the positive developments in the sector, Rajesh Aggarwal, Managing Director, Insecticides (India) Limited said, “Agrochemical sector is a champion sector that has crossed US$ 10 billion and the industry is poised to touch US$ 15 billion very soon. We must be able to bring new technology products by making it in India and at a price affordable to common farmers. In the recent, five years, I have seen a lot of investment, which is coming in formulations, technical and R&D and almost all the companies in the country have made huge investments. That means India is not only providing to the Indian farmer but also addressing the requirements of the world. A lot of investment is going into backward, integration, infrastructure development and also in R&D. The market is changing because a lot of new products are coming.” 

Aggarwal added: “There has been good encouragement for the industry in the regulatory regime and the way the new molecules are being permitted in a faster way. It is a welcome move but the opportunities are limited to certain companies as only a few of them are working on inventions of new products. With increasing push for biological solutions, we can have better policies to reduce the demand for more agrochemicals. Whatever has been developed in the world, India can make it very easily if we get the support in data generation, some exemption, toxicology package, some preference in making the registration faster then we will be able to bring these technologies in each format.” 

AgroChem Summit 2024 themed ‘Capturing Value Through Collaboration, Innovation & Disruption’ was supported by the industry associations including ACFI, BASAI, Croplife India, CCFI and PMFAI.  The Gold Partners of the event were Corteva Agriscience and Godrej Agrovet. and the Associate Partner was Bayer Limited.