Garden Seeds, to and From India

I was wondering if as a tourist it is legal to bring packaged vegetable, flower, or fruit seeds into India? I mean like commercial seed packets bought from a garden store.
The reason I ask is, I want to make an experiment of giving seeds as gifts to people I meet in villages.

This idea comes from this story.

Last year I had bought a watermelon from a fruit seller in Agra. This watermelon was a luxury item, and cost me a fairly large amount 80 rupees I believe. About four days later, as we were traveling way off the beaten track in the wilds of Madhya Pradesh, I was still lugging that watermelon around. We were driving by suv through endless farm land of wheat and mustard when we stopped on the roadside to take a break. In the near distance was a farmer's hut. I saw the farmer and his son and did wave them over. I took out the watermelon and gave it to them. Amazed and grateful, the farmer thanked me and ran with his son back to the hut.

For the rest of the day I imagined the farmer and family eating this watermelon. I fantasized that they saved the seeds and then planted them. Even today I wonder if the farmer was successful in growing watermelon? And if he was does he think of the strange company who gave him that watermelon a year ago?

So I was wondering if I could or should take some seed packets of unusual string beans, melon, peppers, or flowers? I wanted to hand out these to a few select people I meet in farming communities. Is that a wise or foolish thing to do?

(this was sparked by the "gifts for indians" thread)

Good Idea byronic
Last time I went to Pushkar I took lettuce tomato cabbage & cauliflower seeds & gave them to someone I know who grows vegetables. You'll have no problem taken them into India & the people you give them to will appreciate them so much especially if they're varieties that they are not familiar with.

I'm sure you'll get them into India no problem but I'm not sure if it's legal or not!!
Your not supposed to bring in plants, cuttings, and bulbs without the right plant health certificates!
In case you accidently bring something like nematoids or other pests into India!!
These pests can cause a lot of damage, even introducing other species into a climat like India's could be dangerous (look at the problems of things like Water hyacinth)
Sorry Byronic I'm not trying to be alarmist but these are the real dangers hence many many countries have strict policies about the importation of plants!
I work in flower bulbs and we have a US inspection team who inspect everything before it goes stateside!!
No inspection certificate no export, Japan is even stricter!!
I just don't know if this extends to seeds as well!

EDIT
Byronic here's a link to the low down on bringing seeds to India!
seed importation policy

Just make sure that the seeds you bring are from the equivalent horticultural "zone", so to speak, so that the seeds will grow in India. For example, seeds from a plant that can grow in the cool, rainy Pacific Northwest would have trouble in a hot, dry climate.

cyberhippie is right, altho I also am not sure if that applies to seeds (I used to be a garden designer). I have ordered seeds from Thompson & Morgan, an English seed company, for delivery to the US, no problem. I know the water hyacinth problem started with the actual plant being introduced.

Here's a link that may hekp!

Seed policy

Don't know if it makes any difference but the seeds I took were from a garden centre in their hermetically sealed packets.

It seems a nice idea, but you could be innocently causing an environmental disaster. I'm glad Cyberhippie has profesional knowledge on this. My instinct was don't do it

Chances are that the company you are dealing with had a Plant Department certification therefor were allowed to export!
Same deal probably inspections and the like!!
A clean bill of health for bulbs include: gassing the bulbs to eliminate any pests removal of all sand clay soil and the like. (this was my job, hundreds of thousands of bulbs through a washing machine!! I was up to my ears in sand and water, god I loved that job)
And removing badly infected bulbs by hand on a conveyor belt! (mrs cyberhippies speciality) dowsing bulbs in hot water.......
There's a whole science to getting plants bulbs and the like fit for export around the world!
Japan for instance has a list of bacterial diseases that are considered unfit for Japan, their margin of error for contaminated bulbs is 0.5%
Anyone caught in an inspection not meeting these standards will have an entire containor of bulbs destroyed without compensation!

I would only be taking seeds from "professional" seed companies that are in sealed packets. That would be the only way I would go.

I see what cyberhippie means by being careful about bulbs or rhyzomes (sp?), like potato or cuttings. I too have worked in the gardening buisness and did live on an orchard (cherries, prunes) ranch as a young child. So I have an understanding of "zones" and farm techniques, and the dangers of introducing non native species of plants and animals into new environments. The environmental impact of a non-native species could be very determental, and much care should be taken.

Yet, with some common sense I think the giving of veg and fruit and flower seeds can also have a very positive impact?

I do believe that that the potato, tomato and most importantly, the red pepper, are all non-native species introduced into India by travelers from the new world.

So I wanna take some Japanese cucumber seeds to India to see what the cooks there can do with them.

profesionally packed seeds are for sale in your own country, with your own country's deseases and resistances: not a totaly diferent country with a totally different ecology.

Indian farmers have a bad enough time...

Point noted...

I am going to have to do some more research on this, and do some good thinking about it, before I make a decision. I do think it is an interesting topic.

Then SeventiesHippie
"Good Idea byronic
Last time I went to Pushkar I took lettuce tomato cabbage & cauliflower seeds & gave them to someone I know who grows vegetables. You'll have no problem taken them into India & the people you give them to will appreciate them so much especially if they're varieties that they are not familiar with."
Gave his gift seeds to someone he knows, for a private garden. Which IMHO is different from giving them away to a complete stranger in a rural village?

I wonder what some other thoughts from other IMers is on this topic? Any Indian agriculture people out there on the board?

The impact alien plants/animals can have to the environment is a field that is in its infancy. By the time the impact is noticed, its usually too late to do anything. I watched an interesting program on killer algae in the mediterranean -- how a few plants from an aquarium ended up causing an environmental disaster. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...06/MN79725.DTL

We still have some agricultural land left back in India. We have a small mango orchard and cultivate rice, my mother looks after this. My father-in-law is an active farmer, he has his own land plus takes care of agriculture for his two brothers who live here in the States. He likes to experiment and we have either carried or sent small quantities of corn and peanut seed from here. No problems with customs or the plant quarantine folks. He seems to have had mediocre success with seeds from here.

I second that, check before you bring or better purchase them in India if you can & hand it out.

Just ask the Aussies what eco disasters they have on their country with certain plants & animals introduced 200 yrs ago just so the English Gov. could recreate his pastoral english countryside.

I think there are a couple of tracts of those in 'Down Under' by Bill Bryson.