PM Modi dedicates 35 crop varieties with special traits to nation

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday dedicated 35 crop varieties with special traits to the nation through video conferencing. In a pan-India programme organized at all Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Institutes, State and Central Agricultural Universities and Krishi Vigyan Kendras, He also dedicated to the nation the newly constructed campus of National Institute of Biotic Stress Tolerance in Raipur. The Institute has been established to take up the basic and strategic research in biotic stresses, develop human resources and provide policy support.
The crop varieties with special traits have been developed by the ICAR to address the twin challenges of climate change and malnutrition. Thirty-five such crop varieties with special traits like climate resilience and higher nutrient content have been developed in 2021. These include a drought tolerant variety of chickpea, wilt and sterility mosaic resistant pigeonpea, early maturing variety of soybean, disease resistant varieties of rice and biofortified varieties of wheat, pearl millet, maize and chickpea, quinoa, buckwheat, winged bean and faba bean.These special traits crop varieties also include those that address the anti-nutritional factors found in some crops that adversely affect human and animal health.

In his address, PM Modi said that farmers are being motivated for value addition and other farming options by taking them out of the crop based income system only.  He said new diseases and endemics are appearing due to climate change which are posing a great crisis to the health of humans and livestock. They are  also affecting crops and intensive research on these issues is necessary. "Agriculture should  not be treated  as an industry but an opportunity to develop and learn to strike a balance between back to basics and march for the future,he said.

The Prime Minister asked the states to set up a task force to take Indian millets to the international market. He also underlined the need  for  enhancing  the use of modern drones and sensors to get high quality farm data and real time solutions."Under new climatic circumstances, India will foresee a range of seed varieties that are developed keeping the climate-resilient technologies in mind. These varieties will help  eradicate malnutrition and preserve the crops,"PM said. He also interacted with the farmers.  Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar  highlighted various measures taken by the Center for the welfare of the farmers.