You all know my plants are expensive. But don’t blame me for things that are out of my control.
In India, all the planting material that can be imported legally is mentioned in Plant Quarantine order 2003. While you are allowed to import avocado ‘plants’ and avocado ‘fruit’, there is no mention of avocado ‘seeds’.
The reason my plants are expensive is because I am forced to import plants, as seeds are not allowed. Cost of producing plants in Israel and shipping them from Israel to Bhopal is quite expensive.
Time and time again I have talked about the importance of rootstocks. We need good rootstock seeds of avocado from Israel that are suitable for Indian soils.
The list of items in the Plant Quarantine Order are not definitive and items are regularly added and amendments are made every few months. The amendments are made through a process called Pest Risk analysis. It is a Government to Government transaction and private players don’t have a say in it.
Still, I asked Tami Levi from the Israeli Plant Protection Department to ask for Indian market access of Israeli avocado seeds from the Indian plant protection department. She listened and applied for the market access. The file is attached below –
Signed copy of the same document is also listed below –
List of potential harmful pests that the plant quarantine department of India needs to check for in avocado seeds can be found below –
The file is with the Indian officials since May 2021. The person who is in-charge is J Michael Raja from the Plant Quarantine Department. Since 2021 there has been no update.
If the seed import is allowed, you could possibly be buying the avocado plants at 1/3rd of the current market price. I also tried raising this issue with Additional Chief Secretary and Agriculture Production Commissioner Mr Suleman at an event for Agriculture and Horticulture stakeholders of MP. You can watch the video below –
I am trying my best, but if you have any contacts in the agriculture department and can get this thing done, I will be indebted to you.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Kind regards,
Harshit
+91 9109107400
