World Pulses Day 2023 celebrated with the inauguration of the International Conference on Pulses: Smart Crops for Agricultural Sustainability and Nutritional Security (ICPulses2023)

10^th February 2023, NASC, New Delhi

ICAR-IIPR, Kanpur celebrated World Pulses Day 2023 here today. On the occasion, an International Conference on ``Pulses: Smart Crops for Agricultural Sustainability and Nutritional Security`` (10-12 Feb 2023) was inaugurated. The conference is organised by the ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur and Indian Society of Pulses Research and Development (ISPRD) in collaboration with National (MoA &FW, GoI; NAAS, PGA, NAAS, NABARD) and International (ICARDA, World Veg, GEF, UN Environment Program, Alliance for Bioversity International) partners.

Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare, Shri Kailash Chaudhary, the Chief Guest of the inaugural session, lauded the efforts of Indian farmers and ICAR for achieving a record pulse production in the country. He highlighted the efforts of scientists in developing 313 varieties during 2014-22 and implementing a robust seed hub model for ensuring seed sufficiency in pulse crops in the country. He also highlighted various government policies and schemes that supported farmers in achieving better pulse productivity.

  

The Guest of Honour, Dr Himanshu Pathak, Secretary (DARE) & Director General (ICAR), highlighted the multiple benefits of pulses for nutrition security, climate change, soil health, water conservation, cropping system and animal health. He urged all scientists to strive towards further reducing the yield gaps in pulses and reducing the dependence on imports for meeting the domestic consumption demands of pulses in the country.

The Guest of Honour, Dr Tilak Raj Sharma, Deputy Director General (Crop Science), ICAR provided a detailed road map of the Indian Pulses Revolution since 2016 and highlighted the need to leverage newer tools like speed breeding, and genome editing to find solutions to challenges in pulses. Further, he stressed focusing on value addition and entrepreneurship development in pulses.

Dr U. Niang Kyi Win, Director General, DAR Myanmar Dr Sanjeev Gupta ADG (O&P), ICAR also graced the occasion as Guests of Honour.

Earlier, Dr. Bansa Singh, Director ICAR-IIPR in his welcome address stressed on the significance of World Pulses Day. 

Dr. I.P. Singh, President ISPRD; farmers and Academia from India and abroad attended the programme.

Four progressive pulse farmers from the Fatehpur district of Uttar Pradesh were felicitated on the occasion. Further, scientists were awarded in different categories for excellence in pulses R&D. The Lifetime Achievement Award of ISPRD was conferred to Dr. P.M. Salimath, Ex VC UAS Dharwad and UAS Raichur.

In the plenary session, Dr. U. Niang Kyi Win spoke on the pulse research setup of Myanmar and government strategies to leverage pulse production and marketing returns. He stressed on the need for stronger collaborations in pulses research and development with India.

Dr Michael Baum from ICARDA, Morocco highlighted the partnership and contributions of ICARDA in collaborative research with the NARS institutes while addressing the SDGs. ADG (O&P), ICAR 

Dr Sanjeev Gupta presented an illustrative account of the Pulses Revolution in India and the future strategies to sustain it.

A special session dedicated to the World Pulse Day 2023 was organized on the theme “Farm to fork: Planning, policy, perspectives``. Eminent speakers presented intriguing aspects of pulses research to the gathering.

Dr Pratap S Birthal, Director, ICAR-NIAP, New Delhi discussed on the challenges in the pulse farming and bottlenecks regarding technology development.

Dr. P.K. Joshi from IFPRI, New Delhi provided an account of the shifting consumer patterns of different pulse commodities and how they regulate the market price.

Shri G. Chandrasekhar, Veteran journalist of The Hindu discussed the issues that impeded the pulses revolution and stressed on more strategies to stabilize the pulses price for benefit of pulse growers.

Dr R Jaganmohan, Head, National Institute of Food Technology, Entrepreneurship and Management, Thanjavur spoke of novel processed products of pulses and presented less explored avenues like 3D printed foods, pulse-based protein formulations etc.

Dr A. Amarendra Reddy from CRIDA highlighted the resilience of pulse production in spite of bad weather in the last cropping seasons and the prospects of long-term contracts in international trade regarding pulse crops.

Shri. Bimal Kothari, President, India Pulses and Grains Association, Mumbai analysed critically the gaps in policy-making, direction of R&D and trends in national and international markets with respect to pulse products.

(Source:  ICAR-Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur)