Govt to Introduce Seeds Act 2026 in Budget Session, Signalling Major Reset of India’s Seed Governance

The Indian government has announced that it intends to present the strict Seeds Act, 2026 during the next Budget Session of Parliament so as to not only assure farmers with quality planting material, but also end the practice of selling spurious seeds decisively. The proposed law that will substitute the Seeds Act, 1966 was announced by the Union Agriculture Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and it is said to be a decisive move towards farmer protection against financial losses due to crop failure and to enhance accountability and productivity in the Indian agricultural sector.

The new law is suggested at the point when the seed market of India has served as an industry with billions of dollars in revenue, with many actors being corporate and multinational, and the issue of farmers suffering as a result of seed failure has been a constant political and social issue.

From a 1960s Law to a 21st-Century Market

The current Seeds Act, 1966 was passed in an India where many controlled research was done by the government, where pollination was open, and private involvement was minimal. The seed industry has evolved over the decades due to hybrid seed, biotechnology, commercial research and development, international trade and climate resistant varieties. The legal structure however did not keep up.

The law has been repeatedly tried to be modernised with the Seeds Bill, 2004 and subsequently the Seeds Bill, 2019 but all efforts have stalled in the face of political opposition and concerns by the farmers. The latest offer, which was made after the general consultations on a draft version published in November 2025, is the most comprehensive so far, the attempt by the government to restructure the seed regulation and balance this delicate political matter of agriculture.

What the Seeds Act, 2026 Proposes

Registering at the core of the new Bill is mandatory registration. Every type of seed will be put up to sale commercially, as well as seed processing unit, and they will all be registered with a central body. They will leave traditional farm-saved seeds that are not sold under brand name, something that the government claims will help conserve traditional practices of farmers.

One of the major technological changes is the implementation of a national seed traceability system that requires seed packets to have QR codes on them. Farmers will have the opportunity to test the origin, certification, and the performance of the seeds claimed, which will help to remove the presence of fake and low-quality products in the supply chain, through the central digital portal.

The Bill proposes a formal mechanism of compensation as one of the biggest grievances of the farmers, a non-accountability of crop failure. In case a registered seed variety does not work as stated in the favorable conditions, it will allow farmers to claim compensation and not just the weak and patchy solutions offered by the previous regime.

New much stricter punishments are also brought by the legislation. Although the 1966 Act had fines as low as 500, the new law has fines of up to 30 lakh and up to three years imprisonment in case of serious breaches like selling non-registered or fake seeds. According to government, the perception of farmers would be restored only through strong deterrence.

Productivity, Innovation, and Global Alignment

The Seeds Act, 2026 is meant to also contribute to the greater productivity and innovation goals of India. Standardisation of new variety testing will be done using Mandatory Value for Cultivation and Use (VCU) trials, where the anticipated performance will be revealed to farmers. The government is convinced that this will encourage the use of high-yielding and climate-resistant seeds which are important in the times of climate uncertainty.

The Bill brings alignment of India seed regulation with the global trade norms and obligations under WTOTRIPS, but does not go as far as to actually align it to UPOV. The seed importation and overseas trials provisions are meant to facilitate investment and innovative technologies, which will make India competitive in the world seed markets.

Concern, Criticism and Political Sensitivity

Although these are the aims, there have been intense criticisms on the proposed law by unions of farmers, seed savers and various opposition parties. Regulatory architecture, in particular, the requirement to ensure mandatory registration, central accreditation, and digital compliance, the critics suggest, can benefit big corporations, but put a strain on small seed producers, community seed banks, and marginal farmers.

It is feared that the Bill might in effect preemptively undermine the traditional rights of farmers to save, reuse and exchange seeds even though there are specific exemptions. It is not prohibition per se, but regulatory ambiguity that may make informal systems of seed exchange a criminal offence important to a biodiversity and local resilience.

Federalism is another source of conflict. Agriculture is a state-subject, but the Bill is a centralisation of regulatory authority in the form of national committees and portals. A number of states state that this compromises their independence in local seed systems.

The absence of seed price regulation and a process of compensation, which can still be legally challenging to small farmers is also pointed out by the critics. There exist more general fears that considering the law and its interpretation alongside the intellectual property regimes, the balance between the farmer-based PPV&FR Act of 2001 in India and a more corporate-friendly regime could be upset.

The Road Ahead

The government is adamant that the Seeds Act, 2026 does not mean corporatisation, rather, it concerns quality, accountability, and protection of farmers. The authorities have indicated that they would be willing to subject to parliamentary review and revision to keep in check with the current legislation and national interests.

When the Bill comes to Parliament, it will be one of the most highly-political agricultural reform bills in years. It will depend on the government ability to balance convincingly innovation and equity, regulation and rights of farmers and central oversight versus cooperative federalism.

What is evident is that the Seeds Act, 2026 is a turning point. The question of whether this will be an instrument of empowerment or a cause of the revived agrarian conflict will determine the future of agriculture in India over decades.