*3.2. Seed Requirement Estimations*

Following the methodology described in the previous section, the seed requirement was estimated at district and state level. The state-wise estimates of total seed requirement, total cost of procuring the seeds (at the rate of 40 Rs/kg) and total cost in both Indian Rupee (INR) and US Dollars (USD (1 USD = 70 Rs)) is provided in Table 2.

Overall, our estimates show that 92,764 tonnes of Swarna Sub1 seeds is required for the flood affected paddy areas in 17 Indian states. The cost of procuring the seeds would be approximately USD 53.01 million. Given that Bihar is the most flood-affected state, the seed requirement is also highest for Bihar, i.e., 21,888 tonnes, and the cost of procuring this is estimated at USD 12.51 million. It is estimated that 18,684 tonnes of seeds, costing USD 10.68 million, would be required. Figure 5 presents an all-India map depicting state-wise seed requirements for better illustration.

**Figure 4.** Recurrent flooded areas mapped using MODIS satellite data for India.



**Figure 5.** State-wise requirement of Swarna-Sub1 seeds across the study area.

The following figure (Figure 6) provides a district-wise map of India illustrating the seed requirements (in tonnes) for each district. At an aggregate level, the five most floodaffected states requiring highest number of seeds are *Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Odisha* and *Uttar Pradesh.*

Interestingly, it can be seen that while West Bengal is the largest producer of rice (refer Figure 2), Bihar requires the highest amount of seed for adaption. This is because the area in the *Kharif* rice area affected by flooding is higher in the state of Bihar. Delving further into the state-wise requirement, the results appear consistent with the regional variation in flood impacts. For instance, in the state of Bihar, districts like Gaya and Jamui are drought-prone and the estimates reveal a lower seed requirement for these districts. On the other hand, the districts of Patna, Muzaffarpur and Madhubani in Bihar require the highest quantity of seeds owing to large paddy areas affected by flood. In West Bengal, most districts reveal a high seed requirement given that it is the largest rice producer in the country. Only for the district of Darjeeling, which is at a higher altitude (around 2000 m above sea level), is the seed requirement negligible. In Uttar Pradesh, the districts of Siddharth Nagar and Gorakhpur, situated on the eastern part of the state, show the highest seed requirement. In Odisha, the Kendrapara district requires the highest amount of seeds which is approximately 2574 tonnes. In Assam, Cachar and Lakhimpur top the list of districts requiring seeds to cope with floods. Amongst the Southern states, Andhra Pradesh, which is a top rice-producing state, requires an overall 3256 tonnes of SS1 for its flood affected farms. For the districts of Karnataka and Kerala, the requirement of SS1 is comparatively low. Moreover, in the northern and norther-eastern states such as Haryana,

Meghalaya and Uttarakhand, the seed requirement for some districts is zero, which is most likely because these districts are either not affected by floods or they do not cultivate rice.

**Figure 6.** District-wise seed requirement estimation for Swarna-Sub 1 for the selected states of India.
