information and agricultural input markets: pearl millet seed in rajasthan

INFORMATION AND AGRICULTURALINPUT MARKETS: PEARL MILLET

SEED IN RAJASTHAN

ROBERT TRIPP1* and SURESH PAL2

1Overseas Development Institute, London, UK2National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, New Delhi, India

Abstract: The ability of commercial input markets to serve farmers depends on the

e�ective exchange of information between ®rms and consumers. Insu�cient information

may leave farmers exposed to inappropriate products and can limit ®rms' ability to

respond to farmers' needs. These issues are examined through a study of seed practices

in eastern Rajasthan, where farmers increasingly utilize commercial pearl millet seed.

Farmers have an incomplete understanding of the seed options available to them, and

companies' e�orts to provide information or assess demand are inadequate. Never-

theless, the evidence points to generally positive e�ects of the expansion of the com-

mercial seed market. Suggestions are made for improving information ¯ow through

public sector plant breeding, consumer education, and the development of local capacity

to test and assess commercial products. Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

1 INTRODUCTION

The private sector is playing an increasingly important role in agricultural serviceprovision (Carney, 1998; Smith and Thomson, 1991). Attention has shifted towardpolicies that allow private initiative to meet farmers' requirements. The expectation isthat greater reliance on the market will lead to gains in e�ciency and responsiveness.But there are concerns about whether the private sector will be able to serve resource-poor farmers. The promise of a market that responds to farmers' needs is counter-balanced by fears of the commercial manipulation of an ill-informed peasantry.

The adequacy of private sector input provision will depend in large part onhow information is transferred between commercial ®rms and farmers. North(1990) underscores the crucial role of information in market development.Information can be costly to develop, deliver, and process. Its transmission is subjectto misunderstanding, incompetence and dishonesty (Casson, 1997). In addition, the

CCC 0954±1748/2000/010133±12$17.50Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Journal of International DevelopmentJ. Int. Dev. 12, 133±144 (2000)

* Correspondence to: Robert Tripp, Overseas Development Institute, Portland House, Stag Place, LondonSW1E 5DP, UK.

interpretation of information is limited by the decision-making capacity of thereceiver (Simon, 1959). Thus any examination of market performance must accountfor `the complexity and incompleteness of our information and the fumbling e�ortswe make to decipher it' (North, 1990, p. 23).

This paper examines information ¯ow in agricultural input markets using anexample of commercial seed utilisation by Indian farmers. The next section presentsdata from two areas of Rajasthan where many farmers grow commercial pearl millethybrids. It examines the information available to farmers about the varieties and theseed that they use. The following section discusses the quality of the information thatis provided, the nature of information exchange, and the decision-making criteriaused by farmers. This is followed by an examination of the possibilities for improvinginformation provision in seed markets and concluding comments.

2 COMMERCIAL SEED USE IN RAJASTHAN

India provides an excellent opportunity to study the performance of both public andprivate seed provision. The National Seeds Corporation (NSC) was established in1963, and state seed corporations were established in many states beginning in themid-1970s. Private seed companies have been active since the mid-1960s, but theintroduction of a liberalized seed policy in 1988 encouraged and accelerated growth ofprivate sector participation in seed provision.

This study focuses on seed of pearl millet, a crop adapted to semi-arid environ-ments. It is the most important cereal crop in Rajasthan, where it is grown onapproximately 5 million ha. Public research in India has developed a number of open-pollinated varieites (OPVs) of pearl millet, but the major emphasis has been onhybrids.1 The public OPVs and hybrids are produced and sold in Rajasthan by theRajasthan State Seeds Corporation (RSSC) and (to a lesser extent) by NSC. Privateseed companies, particularly smaller ones without their own research capacity, alsoproduce and market seed of public OPVs and hybrids. Because hybrid vigour is lost inthe second generation, farmers usually buy fresh hybrid seed each season. This hasbeen a major incentive for private investment in pearl millet breeding. More than20 private seed companies produce and market their own proprietary hybrids of pearlmillet in India (Pray et al., 1991). Both public (national and international) and privatesources of germplasm are used to develop the private hybrids.

Data for this paper are drawn from two contrasting sites in eastern Rajasthan.2 The®rst is an area traditionally known as Shekhawati, encompassing much of Sikar andJhunjhunu Districts. The area is characterized by sandy loam to loam soils andreceives 300±500 mm of rainfall annually. Shekhawati was chosen as an area wherecommercial seed use has recently begun to expand. The second area encompassesvillages near the town of Behror, in Alwar District. The soils here are alluvial and thearea receives 500±700 mm of rainfall. Behror is only about 100 km from Delhi andhas a longer history of commercial seed use.

1 In this paper, `open-pollinated variety' refers speci®cally to modern varieties that are not hybrids. We usethe term `variety' more generally to refer to any modern variety (OPV or hybrid) or local variety.2 The study was conducted in two phases. It began with visits to seed companies, distributors, dealers andfarmers, most of which were carried out in June±July 1997. These were followed by farmer surveys donebetween December 1997 and February 1998.

Copyright # 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 12, 133±144 (2000)

134 R. Tripp and S. Pal

Table 1 summarizes some of the important features of the two areas. Behrorfarmers have less land than their Shekhawati counterparts, but they market a higherproportion of their pearl millet. All farmers in Behror and two-thirds of those inShekhawati plant commercial millet seed. Farmers in Shekhawati, who are stillexperimenting with commercial seed, weigh several factors when considering adop-tion of the hybrids. Important aspects in favour of the hybrids are their high grainyields and tolerance to striga, a parasitic weed that causes considerable losses for localvarieties. Major negative aspects include the inferior food preparation and fodderqualities of many of the hybrids.3 Hybrid pearl millet seed is expensive (costinganywhere from 4 to 20 times grain price) but because 3±4 kg of seed are su�cient toplant one hectare, most farmers are able to a�ord the cost of the seed.

Farmers were asked about the type of pearl millet they planted in each of their®elds. The use of private hybrids is higher in Behror than in Shekhawati (Table 2),and private seed companies are more important than public ones in both areas(Table 3). More than half of the private hybrid use in Shekhawati is concentrated with

Table 1. Farmer characteristics

Shekhawati(N � 127)

Behror(N � 51)

Mean age (years) 49.4 44.8

Mean years schooling 4.5 7.9

Mean total landholding (ha) 5.8 3.6

Mean pearl millet marketed (%) 16 43

Proportion of farmers currently using commercial millet seed (%) 66 100

Proportion of farmers who have ever used commercial pearl millet (%) 84 100

Proportion of commercial seed users who adopted before 1990 (%) 61 79

Proportion of farmers currently using local pearl millet varieties (%) 52 12

Table 2. Private and public hybrids

Type of hybrid Shekhwati(N � 100)

Behror(N � 80)

Private 41 (41%) 63 (79%)

Public 35 (35%) 5 (6%)

Unknown 24 (24%) 12 (15%)

Table 3. Private and public seed companies

Seed source Shekhwati Behror

Private companies (no. of ®elds) 49 (49%) 66 (83%)

Number of private companies 9 13

Share of most popular company (%) 63 24

Share of 3 most popular companies (%) 76 56

Public companies (no. of ®elds) 6 (6%) 3 (4%)

Unidenti®ed companies (no. of ®elds) 45 (45%) 11 (14%)

3 For further details on pearl millet in Shekhawati, see Tripp and Pal (1998).


Pearl Millet Seed in Rajasthan 135

one company, whose hybrid has become popular in the past two years. In Behror, onthe other hand, farmers make use of a wider range of companies.

A more thorough analysis of hybrid and company preferences is limited by the factthat many farmers are unable to recall the precise identity of the hybrid they arecurrently using (Table 4). In Shekhawati, almost one-quarter of commercial seed useentails unknown hybrids. Most of those farmers who can only recall the hybrid nameare using public hybrids that may be produced by public or private seed companies. InBehror, the majority of the farmers know the company that produced their seed, butoften cannot distinguish among a company's hybrids.

Farmers may have trouble remembering the names of commercial hybrids becausemost are identi®ed by letter-number codes.4 Farmers identify a few of the hybrids bynicknames. One public hybrid is called `whiskered' (muchharia) because the head hasbristles, and a private hybrid is called `plastic bag' because of the attractive bag usedby the company. Some farmers save the seed bag so they know what they haveplanted. But the farmers in our survey who reported `unknown' companies or hybridswere those who had no recall, nickname reference, or printed material related to thehybrid they had harvested a few months earlier.

Farmers are able to say what is good or bad about the particular hybrid they arecurrently growing, andmay be able to describe some past experiences. Some farmers inBehror are able to distinguish among a company's products without knowing hybridnames; they may, for instance, contrast the `tall' and `short' hybrids of a particularcompany. Farmers in Shekhawati are less able to discuss the merits of various hybridson the market. The hybrids of a single company may exhibit signi®cant di�erences incharacteristics such as plant height, maturity, grain quality, and disease resistance.5

There are di�erences between the two study areas in terms of company recognition.When asked to name companies that produce pearl millet seed, Behror farmers givean average of 3.1 correct answers, while the average for Shekhawati was only 0.8.6 Formany farmers, particularly in Shekhawati, the concept of `company' is problematic.They have little appreciation of the di�erence between public and private companies,and many o�er locations (e.g. Andhra Pradesh) where seed is produced in response toquestions about company names.

When asked how they learned about the hybrids they are currently growing,respondents mentioned other farmers and shopkeepers as the principal sources ofinformation (Table 5). Farmers see an attractive variety in a neighbour's ®eld and ask

Table 4. Knowledge of hybrid planted in 1997

Farmer knowledge Shekhawati(N � 100)

Behror(N � 80)

Company and hybrid (%) 23 10

Company only (%) 35 76

Hybrid only (%) 18 1

No knowledge (%) 24 13

4 Among the most popular public hybrids are BK-560, MH-179 and MH-169. Private hybrids includenames such as PG-5822, MBH-163, and Pioneer 7602.5 A similar lack of ability to distinguish between a company's hybrids was found in a study of maize seeduse in India (Singh and Morris, 1997).6 In Shekhawati the average was calculated only for those farmers with experience using commercial seed.



about its identity. Dealers are also an important source of information. There aremany established agricultural input dealers, as well as merchants who sell pearl milletseed as a sideline. Most of the established dealers know the characteristics of thehybrids they sell and are able to advise farmers. In Behror, some dealers distributesmall quantities of seed of new hybrids to their clients, or plant their own test plots.This is less common in Shekhawati.7

Extension is infrequently mentioned as a source of information, even for publichybrids. Of the relatively few farmers who had attended extension activities orreceived advice about pearl millet, less than one-quarter could remember the name ofthe variety or hybrid that had been recommended.

3 FRAUD, FEEDBACK AND DECISION-MAKING

3.1 Information Exchange and Utilization

Two opposing beliefs characterize the debate about the impact of commercialmarketing on resource-poor farmers. One of these holds that the power of advertisingand the opportunities for deception will overwhelm farmers, who will be persuaded tobuy inappropriate or unnecessary inputs. A contrary belief holds that competitive®rms will help create markets that are highly responsive to the needs of all farmers.The following discussion examines these beliefs in light of the Rajasthan experience.Because farmers' capacities for resisting commercial pressure and for creating marketdemand depend in part on their own decision-making strategies, the discussionconcludes with an examination of some of the parameters shaping seed purchasingdecisions.

3.2 Unscrupulous Firms?

As private ®rms expand into areas where farmers have little experience with com-mercial inputs, there are concerns that the market will be controlled by advertisingrather than by substance. In addition, there is the possibility that inappropriateproducts may be promoted to an unsophisticated clientele.

Table 5. Source of information for 1997 hybrids

Source Shekhawati(N � 100)

Behror(N � 72)

Another farmer (%) 48 39

Shopkeeper (%) 36 46

Extension (%) 12 15

Other (%) 4 0

7 The relative lack of information in Shekhawati contributes to dependence on a few hybrids (Table 3).This genetic homogeneity raises the risk of attack by the disease downy mildew, which can lead to theabandonment of the susceptible hybrid. Unless adequate information is available about a range ofalternatives the cycle may be repeated with a subsequent hybrid (Hash, 1997).



Seed company personnel and distributors candidly acknowledge the battle tocapture customers' attention. One company representative said that the pearl milletseed business is `65 per cent image and 35 per cent genetics', and another spoke of theconstant struggle to appear to be o�ering `something new'. These observations aresimilar to the conclusions of a US seed market analyst: `Sales of seed corn, soybeansand cottonseed are based on marketing muscle, since yield and agronomic character-istics have generally reached equivalent levels among top competitors' (Shimoda,1996, p. 8).

In situations where equivalent varieties are promoted using `market muscle', is thefarmer likely to bene®t? For the US, Duvick (1992) tested 41 commercial maizehybrids that had been popular in central Iowa over a 55-year period. He found alinear increase in yield attributable to genetic improvement. Similar improvement wasfound for parameters such as insect tolerance and lodging resistance. Thus despite thepossibility of equivalent o�erings by rival companies, progressively superior varietieshave emerged in this environment of commercial competition.

One way of comparing the performance of the public and private sectors is toexamine the results of the All India Co-ordinated Crop Improvement Project(AICCIP) pearl millet trials. All public varieties must go through these nationwidetrials before being released and noti®ed.8 Private companies are increasingly choosingto enter their varieties as well. The trials take three years, with poorer performingvarieties being eliminated from subsequent testing. In the most recent three years oftrials, 69 per cent of the third year entries were private hybrids, although they repre-sented only 49 per cent of the respective ®rst year entries (ICAR, n.d.).9 The net e�ectof the competition among private seed companies in India is certainly positive, but itis possible that farmers would be even better served by the presence of a moreresponsive public research service, or by public policies that direct private companiestoward a wider clientele.

It is interesting to note that indigenous pearl millet seed systems may also takeadvantage of image. The most widely used local variety in Shekhawati (`Jakharana')has its origin in a village in Alwar District. The variety is renowned for its long heads.The local farmers who sell seed to others maintain some of the most spectacularexamples to show to potential customers, although they admit that the seed they sell isnot as carefully selected.

Concerns about commercial seed supply extend beyond the struggle for consumers'attention to possibilities of conscious deception. Established seed companies areunlikely to knowingly market poor quality seed because they have their reputations toprotect. There are, however, a number of small companies, some of whom try toimitate the names, package designs, or logos of the larger ®rms. They operate on amuch less secure footing, and sometimes are tempted to cut corners.

Some seed dealers and distributors may try to deceive consumers. A widelyacknowledged case in Rajasthan involved a distributor obtaining a reputable seedcompany's bags and ®lling them with market grain. Dealers may try to sell seed theyknow to be of questionable quality, such as that remaining from the previous year,although most companies try to control the disposition of unsold seed. Farmers

8 Only varieties that have been noti®ed are eligible for certi®cation. Most private hybrids are not noti®ed.9 The one year in which public hybrids performed relatively better than the private ones was distinguishedby an unusually long rainy season. The public hybrids tend to be later maturing than the private ones andthey were able to take advantage of the extra rainfall (C.T. Hash, personal communication).



recognize the importance of the dealer±customer relationship; in Shekhawati 61 percent of the farmers purchased their 1997 seed from a dealer from whom they hadmade previous purchases.

Brand awareness (or even knowledge of company identities) develops only slowly,so farmers recently entering the market are relatively impervious to publicitycampaigns. But their lack of sophistication also means that they do not know how tocomplain when problems occur. Those farmers who have less experience or do nothave an established relationship with a merchant are more likely to be sold inappro-priate seed. But because farmers require only small quantities of pearl millet seed, theincentives for fraud are lower than they are for more costly inputs.

3.3 Responsive Markets?

An ideal market is characterized by the e�cient exchange of information betweenbuyers and sellers. For seed markets this exchange should include the provision ofuseful information about the varieties on o�er, and plentiful opportunities for feed-back from farmers. Measured against these standards, the pearl millet seed markets inRajasthan fall short of the ideal.

The information provided to farmers by private (and public) seed companies tendsto be super®cial. Varieties are usually described only in general terms (`high yielding'or `excellent grain quality') in company advertising. Most companies publishbrochures or lea¯ets that give further details, but these rarely reach the hands offarmers. The private companies organize only a handful of demonstrations, althoughthese often involve participation from local dealers. Company representatives concedethat it requires considerable e�ort to locate adequate demonstration sites and tomonitor them so that the company's products are presented in a good light.

Farmers also need access to information about product quality. Ackerlof (1970)describes how the excessive time required to ascertain product quality may deterconsumers from entering the market. One solution is the establishment of brands andcompany reputations (Klein and Le�er, 1981), but we have seen that brand recogni-tion is still developing in the pearl millet seed market.

Public regulation can also provide information about product quality. In India,most seed of public varieties is certi®ed, while most seed of private varieties is sold as`truthfully labelled', whichmeans that its genetic purity and seed quality must conformto minimum standards. We showed the survey farmers examples of a certi®cation tagand a `truthful' label. No farmer could explain the di�erence between them, and only afew dealers whom we questioned were familiar with the distinction. Certi®cation maycontribute to seed quality, but the information is rarely utilized by farmers.

Consumer protection activities include point-of-sale inspections by Department ofAgriculture sta�, although this service operates on a restricted budget. Farmers mayalso take complaints about seed quality to consumer courts, an option that isgradually expanding (Turner, 1994).

The ¯ow of information from farmers back to plant breeders is also de®cient.Private companies and public researchers have insu�cient access to feedback onvarietal performance and farmers' preferences. The AICCIP trials are the principalsource of information for public varieties. But these trials are conducted underconditions that are not representative of the management of resource-poor farmers,



and they focus almost exlcusively on yield, even though characteristics such as grainor fodder quality may be of equal importance to farmers (Witcombe et al., 1998).

The private companies conduct extensive ®eld tests of their varieties; in some casesthe company's marketing personnel make the ®nal decision on a variety's future. Butthere are limits to the coverage of private testing programmes, and the companies tendto rely on feedback from their distributors and dealers, who in turn have contacts withthe more a�uent farmers. Sales performance obviously provides the key measure ofproduct acceptability, but does not necessarily provide information on farmerpriorities.

Neither private nor public seed enterprises adequately address the conditions ofmore marginal areas. For example, the pearl millet hybrids do not meet the fodderrequirements of farmers in the drier parts of Rajasthan, where adoption is very low(Kelly et al., 1996). An interesting exception is found in Shekhawati, where thefarmers with poorer soils are more likely to use hybrids (private or public) because oftheir ability to escape the worst e�ects of the parasitic weed, striga. But this is afortuitous coincidence, rather than an example of targeted plant breeding.

3.4 The Decision-Making Environment

There are undoubtedly de®ciencies in the quality and exchange of information incommercial seed markets in Rajasthan. But these shortcomings must be seen in thecontext of farmers' decision-making. In order for information to be utilized it must beperceived as important by farmers. The study also provided evidence on the relativevalue of seed information and the decision criteria used by farmers.

Not only are many farmers uncertain about the identities of commercial varieties,but approximately one-third of the farmers in Shekhawati were unable to name thelocal pearl millet variety they were using. This may seem surprising, especially in thelight of studies that describe extraordinary local knowledge of crop varieties (eg.Richards, 1986). In eastern Rajasthan, pearl millet is only one of several importantcrops, and each farmer faces a limited range of planting environments. Farmers maybe satis®ed with the performance of the local variety and not bother too much aboutnomenclature or ®ne distinctions. When the hybrids became available, most farmerslearned how to di�erentiate them from the local varieties, but farmers have onlygradually begun to understand the di�erences among the hybrids.10

In many parts of the world, the change from local to modern varieties (MVs) hasbeen facilitated by the fact that the MVs are very distinctive (shorter statured, earliermaturing, etc). Such `revolutionary' di�erences are in contrast to the subsequentgenerations of MVs that feature more modest yield improvement or disease resistance(Byerlee, 1994). It is thus understandable that farmers who have adopted an MV maystay with their `old favourite' rather than rapidly switching to later releases.11

It may be instructive to examine the yield and economic di�erences su�cient tocapture a farmer's attention. A reasonable expectation of yield improvement from

10 We came across several farmers in Shekhawati who were planting small quantities of two or threedi�erent hybrids as experiments. About half the farmers in the Behror sample plant two di�erentcommercial hybrids and explain the practice as part experimentation and part risk avoidance. But rigorousexperimentation by farmers may be less common than is sometimes assumed (Sumberg and Okali, 1997).11 In Shekhawati, the most popular public hybrid, BK-560, was released in 1980.



plant breeding is one per cent per year (Heisey and Brennan, 1991). In the two studyareas, pearl millet yields ranged from 373 kg/ha in Jhunjhunu District (Shekhawati)to 1,215 kg/ha in Alwar District (Behror) (Rajasthan DOA, 1994). Pearl millet grainsells for about Rs4 per kg, so the year-to-year improvement would be worth anadditional Rs15 ($0.36) per hectare to a farmer in Jhunjhunu and Rs49 ($1.16) to afarmer in Behror. This modest level of economic gain must be balanced against anestimate of the farmer's costs in searching for information about the variety'sperformance and the source of seed.

This calculation is based on yield di�erences, although we have seen that farmersalso use additional criteria, such as maturity, grain quality, or fodder production.These characteristics often involve trade-o�s with yield. Both public and private plantbreeders need to address these characteristics, although it is di�cult to predict howfarmers will choose among varieties that must be compared across multiplecharacteristics (Bartley and Porter, 1996).

Just as there is a danger of idealizing `competitive markets' there also is atemptation to expect too much from consumer behaviour. The perfectly informedconsumer is neither a reasonable assumption nor a cornerstone of market develop-ment. If all consumers were `determined comparison shoppers, disastrous instabilitymight result and ®rms would miss out on chances to recover from their occasionallapses' (Hirschmann, 1970, p. 25).

Farmers' choices often involve subjective factors as well. Farmers have beenattracted to some of the private hybrids because of their distinctive grain size orcolour. Some of the grain qualities may be associated with a better market price, butothers are simply a question of aesthetics.12 Companies attempt to win customerswith distinctive packages or other characteristics that contribute to consumer con-®dence through brand image (Jones, 1986). It is di�cult to say at what point farmers'criteria shift from `rational' to `subjective', or to decide when such choices should bediscouraged. Farmers surely should have the opportunity to express their preferencesfor a variety (local or commercial) that has attractive grain, or for seed from acompany that has a solid reputation.

4 LOWERING TRANSACTION COSTS IN SEED MARKETS

The e�ciency of Rajasthan's seed market can be improved by lowering its transactioncosts, the `resource losses incurred due to imperfect information' (Dahlman, 1979,p. 148). There are several policy opportunities to ensure that seed markets serve theneeds of all farmers. These include attention to the role of public agricultural research,regulatory support, consumer education, and promotion of farmer-managed varietytesting.

Paradoxically, one of the principal means of enhancing the performance ofcommercial seedmarkets is through attention to public plant breeding research. Publicseed enterprises compete in the commercial seed market. Private seed companiessell seed of public varieties, and many proprietary varieties are based on public

12 Kloppenburg (1988, p. 96) discusses how public `corn shows' in the US in the early 1900s in¯uencedfarmers to pay undue attention to aesthetic factors, such as ear length, contributing to an actual depressionin maize yields.



germplasm. Despite the growing importance of the private seed sector, an e�ectivepublic research e�ort can help keep the focus on `germplasm' rather than `image'.Public varieties can o�er competition for private ones. In particular, public plantbreeding must lead the way in reaching marginal areas, helping to demonstrate marketpotential.

Appropriate regulation is needed to support the growth of competitive seedmarkets (Tripp, 1997). The option of selling truthfully labelled (as opposed tocerti®ed) seed has made an important contribution to seed sector development inIndia. Licensing and other regulation of input dealers should be straightforward andlow cost, allowing for the expansion of retail outlets, especially in remote areas. Thestrengthening of dealer associations and other self-policing mechanisms is alsoimportant. Seed dealers are a very important source of information for farmers.

An important way to help farmers participate in the commercial seed market isthrough education. One reason farmers' cannot take full advantage of the market istheir inability to e�ectively accommodate the names of new products, hybrids andcompanies. Farmers need to learn about the nature of seed companies and theirproducts. They also need to know where they can turn when they have complaints.Industry associations and public extension could both play an important role in thistype of consumer education.

Innovations that bring variety testing closer to farmers will also be useful. If newvarieties could be tested and demonstrated at the local level, farmers would haveaccess to more ®rst-hand information about what is on the market, and seed enter-prises would be forced to address farmers' concerns through participation in suchtests. The state crop improvement associations that were established in the US in theearly part of this century began by testing and multiplying public university varietiesbut soon expanded to o�er a forum for testing and demonstrating the varieties of theprivate seed companies (Fitzgerald, 1990). Public extension or NGOs could test thefeasibility of a similar strategy at the village level in India. An e�ectively organizedlocal forum should draw the interest and participation of companies and merchants.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The expansion of the private seed sector for pearl millet in Rajasthan has broughtsigni®cant bene®ts to farmers, who can now choose from a wide selection of varieties.Farmers' lack of familiarity with the welter of product names restricts their capacity toidentify appropriate varieties, but they are not at the mercy of commercial propa-ganda. Incidences of fraudulent seed sale occur, but they are not common. Althoughthe commercial seed market does not deceive farmers, it does not respond su�cientlyto their concerns. Private companies (and public plant breeders) spend too little timeassessing the conditions of their potential clientele, particularly those with fewerresources.

The market can be made both more reliable and more responsive if the quality ofinformation ¯ow is improved. This includes a careful division of labour betweenpublic and private agricultural research, regulatory support, and consumer education.But ®rms can only be expected to pay attention to precise demands. The developmentof fora where farmers can see and test new products will contribute to sharpening the



demand. The evolution of a responsive industry depends on the emergence ofarticulate consumers.

The relatively positive character of the seed market experience in India owes muchto the fact that the country has a long tradition of public agricultural research, aregulatory environment that supports private seed enterprises, and a relatively welldeveloped market infrastructure. Public research has produced many of the varietiesthat are on the market, and has been a training ground for many of the plant breedersnow working in the private sector. Seed regulation in India has been reformed tosupport diverse commercial seed activities. India's network of input retailing, whilefar from perfect, reaches a signi®cant proportion of farmers. Without these factors, itis di�cult to imagine anything resembling the seed markets we have described.Commercial seed systems do not emerge spontaneously, but rather evolve in thepresence of supportive policies.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Support for this research from the Department for International Development(DFID) Plant Sciences Research Programme is gratefully acknowledged. The authorsare grateful to L. M. Pandey for excellent research assistance and to T. Hash for usefulcounsel. The conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily re¯ect theopinions of DFID, NCAP or ODI.

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