Shri Kailash Choudhary visits ICAR-IARI

12th September, 2020, New Delhi

Shri Kailash Choudhary, Union Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare visited the ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi today.

During the visit, the Minister has an interaction and discussion session with the Institute’s scientists. On his visit to the pearl millet trials and demonstrations, applauding the performance of the various new pearl millet hybrids, Shri Choudhary urged for carrying out the research on improving the various land races to maintain the food quality and climate resilience. The Minister also appreciated the work on bio-fortification of cereal grains using the various advanced scientific methodologies to improve the quality and combat the malnutrition problem.

Economizing the nitrogen use in paddy through Leaf Colour Chart (LCC) based application which saves 40 to 60 kg N/ha in rice, use of drone technology for plant phenotyping and herbicide resistance in paddy was also demonstrated. Shri Choudhary suggested to popularize the drone technology for curtailing 50% nitrogen use. The Minister was also demonstrated the trial on 10,000 landraces of paddy for identification of biotic and abiotic stress tolerance and other quality traits for inclusion in future breeding programmes.

Appreciating the multi-enterprise, multi-scale technological advancements made by the Institute, Shri Choudhary urged for furthering the research work on limited water and limited resource scenarios.

The Minister also held a Review Meeting with the Director, ICAR-IARI in the presence of various School Coordinators and Head of Divisions of ICAR-IARI, New Delhi. Shri Choudhary praised the ICAR-IARI’s new initiatives including the newly launched “Pusa Samachar” on the Institute’s YouTube Channel. He also urged the farmers for taking maximum advantage of the Pusa Samachar.

(Source: ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi)