Zakir Hussein
INVC,,
Delhi,,
The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, addressed the 83rd Foundation Day of ICAR in New Delhi , Addressing the gathering, Minister of Agriculture and Food Processing Industries, Shri Sharad Pawar announced that the target of additional production of 20 million tonne of food grains has been achieved a year in advance through collective efforts of the Centre and State Governments. The production of fruits, vegetables, milk, meat, fish and eggs has also been increasing significantly in recent times, Shri Pawar added. He informed that the production of food grains has reached 241 million tonne in 2010-11. The Minister stressed on technological breakthroughs and innovative agriculture development programmes to maintain the current momentum as well as to increase the input use efficiency for sustained increase in agricultural production.
The Agriculture Minister urged the scientists to engage in result-based agricultural research mechanism to create new research products and ensure their wider adoption among the farmers. He said, “The key to success would be enhanced application of modern day science, technologies and techniques. Biotechnological approaches including genetically modified crops and molecular crop breeding that will go a long way in achieving our goals. All efforts should be made to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on agricultural production.”
ICAR foundation day awards were also given. They included 85 awards in 17 categories comprising 13 institutions, 59 scientists, 10 farmers and 3 journalists. Out of 59 scientists and 10 farmers there were 9 woman scientists and a woman farmer.
Ministers of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries, Shri Harish Rawat and Dr. Charan Das Mahant also addressed the function. Senior officers of the Ministry of Agriculture, ICAR and its institutes, Vice Chancellors of Central and State Agricultural Universities, officers of State agriculture departments attended the function.
Chief Ministers of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Assam and Chhattisgarh were present to receive the Krishi Karman awards. Agriculture Ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Tripura, Maharashtra and Karnataka received the awards on behalf of their States.
Punjab and Uttar Pradesh were the joint winners of the Krishi Karman award in the category of States with overall food grain production of more than 10 million tonne recorded in the last five years.
Assam and Odisha got the award in the category of States with overall food grain production of between one and 10 million tonne. Tripura was the sole winner in the category of States with overall food grain production of less than one million tonne.
In the second category of four awards given for individual crops and crop groups, the award for rice went to Chhattisgarh, wheat to Haryana, pulses to Maharashtra and Rajasthan, and coarse cereals to Karnataka. Each award winning State received a trophy, a citation and cash award. The cash award (for each State) was Rs. 2 crore for total food grain production and Rs. 1 crore for each of the four crops included in food grains.
