OCA project advances seed availability in Pakistan
The Organic Cotton Accelerator, with support from Sustainable Agriculture Water & Intelligent Ecosystem (SAWIE), hosted an Organic Seed Commercialisation event in Lahore to address the near absence of reliably pure cotton seed in the market.
Securing this type of seed is a systemic challenge in many countries but without addressing this bottleneck, scaling organic cotton in a way that is trusted, verifiable and sustainable remains out of reach to many, they said.
The event brought together seed companies, research institutions, government representatives, textile stakeholders and other value-chain partners to develop a roadmap for commercialising non-GM cotton seed in Pakistan.
OCA’s Organic Seed Commercialisation project in Pakistan, supported by SAWIE and four seed partners - Hyacinth Seeds, 360 AG Search, Soorty and Rural Business Development Centre - was initiated in 2024 with 1,400 plants selected.
The project covers now approximately 100 acres under seed multiplication, with expected production of around 40 tonnes of non-GM cotton seed.
This progress marks an important transition from testing and multiplication to commercialisation and scale-up, said the partners, allowing OCA to make pure seed available to farmers in its programme.
