The Central Government’s initiative to enhance the export of tissue culture plants has been recently highlighted with a webinar titled “Export Promotion of Tissue Culture Plants” conducted by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA). The webinar saw participation from laboratories accredited by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) across India. This endeavour is primarily aimed at promoting the exports of tissue culture plants.
Understanding Tissue Culture
Tissue culture is a technique that involves the development of new plants from small fragments of plant tissues or cells extracted from the growing tips of a plant. These plant elements are then nurtured in a suitable growth medium, consisting of essential plant nutrients and hormones needed for the plant’s growth. This medium usually takes the form of a ‘jelly’, commonly known as agar.
Applications of Plant Tissue Culture
Plant tissue culture serves various purposes in the realm of plant science. It aids in studying the respiration and metabolism of plants, evaluating organ functions in plants, examining different plant diseases, and devising their elimination methods. This technology is also valuable in genetic, morphological, and pathological studies using single cell clones.
Another crucial application of plant tissue culture is large-scale clonal propagation through embryonic cell suspensions. Further, such cell suspensions can be used to procure somatic embryos that can be stored long-term in germplasm banks. Other applications include the production of variant clones with new characteristics (somaclonal variations), crop improvement through mutant cells, and hybrid production via in vitro cultured immature embryos.
Scope of Tissue Culture in India
India’s rich knowledge base, skilled biotech experts with extensive tissue culture experience, and cost-effective labour force position the country as a potential global supplier of a wide variety of flora. They help produce export-oriented quality planting material, boosting India’s foreign exchange earnings.
APEDA, to this end, offers a Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) to help laboratories upgrade their facilities for producing export-quality tissue culture planting materials. It also aids in the exports of tissue culture planting material to various countries through market development and analysis, tissue culture plant promotion at international exhibitions, and participation in buyer-seller meets at different international forums.
Indian Tissue Culture Exports: Key Insights
The top ten countries importing tissue culture plants from India are the Netherlands, USA, Italy, Australia, Canada, Japan, Kenya, Senegal, Ethiopia, and Nepal. For the fiscal year 2020-2021, India’s exports of tissue culture plants reached USD17.17 million, with the Netherlands accounting for around 50% of the shipments.
Challenges Encountered by Indian Tissue Culture Exporters
Despite the potential, tissue culture exporters in India face several challenges. These include escalating power costs, low efficiency levels of the skilled workforce in laboratories, contamination issues within labs, expensive transportation of micro-propagated planting material, lack of harmonization in the HS code of Indian planting material with other nations, and objections raised by the forest and quarantine departments.
