Telangana Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla urged India to build India-Africa seed cooperation around shared research rather than exports alone. He made the appeal in valedictory remarks at the second India-Africa Seed Summit, held in Hyderabad from 15 to 18 September 2026. The Indian Council of Food and Agriculture and the African Seed Trade Association organised the four-day event jointly.
Delegates from across Africa and India gathered in Hyderabad to discuss hybrid seed technology, quality control and market access. The summit positioned the city as a meeting point for agricultural innovation between the two regions. Officials framed the sessions around long-term partnership rather than short-term trade deals, according to reporting from the summit.
Beyond seed exports
Shukla told delegates that India’s seed sector holds expertise African nations could use directly, not merely seed stock to purchase. He asked Indian seed companies and research institutions to share breeding techniques, hybrid technology and testing protocols with African partners. Rather than continuing to ship finished seed abroad, he said India should help African countries develop their own production base.
That shift, he argued, would let African nations test and certify seed locally instead of relying on imports shipped in from elsewhere. Local production also shortens the time new varieties take to reach farmers, since seed bred for Indian soil and climate does not always perform the same way under African growing conditions. Quality control at the point of production, he added, matters as much as the original breeding work.
Shukla’s remarks placed responsibility on Indian institutions to transfer knowledge rather than treat Africa purely as an export market. He framed the approach as mutually beneficial, giving African seed systems durability while opening longer-term research partnerships for Indian companies. That framing distinguished the summit’s tone from earlier trade-focused gatherings between the two regions.
Telangana’s role in agricultural innovation
The state government used the summit to reinforce Telangana’s ambitions as a hub for cross-border agricultural work. Hyderabad already hosts several national seed research institutions and private breeding companies, giving it an existing base for the technical exchange Shukla described. The Hans India reported that the summit affirmed the state’s wider role in agricultural innovation between India and Africa, beyond this single event.
Organisers said Hyderabad’s location reflected established research capacity rather than a one-off choice of venue. The city’s cluster of seed companies and testing laboratories gave delegates direct access to facilities during the summit. That existing infrastructure, officials suggested, could anchor the joint training and certification programmes Shukla proposed for African partners.
The push for shared research and local capacity building echoes a wider pattern this year of countries looking south rather than west for food-security partnerships, a trend also visible in a separate wheat supply agreement struck between the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
For African seed markets, the practical test will be whether commitments made in Hyderabad translate into functioning local seed-testing infrastructure. Neither the Indian Council of Food and Agriculture nor the African Seed Trade Association has published a timeline for the technology-sharing programmes Shukla outlined. Further discussions between the two organisations are expected to follow the summit, though no formal agreement has been announced.
Whether Indian firms follow through with technology transfer, rather than continued reliance on direct seed exports, will determine how far this cooperation moves beyond diplomatic language. The next India-Africa Seed Summit will offer the clearest indication of progress on the commitments made in Hyderabad this September.
