New Delhi, (Samajweekly) In an endeavour to create mass awareness for adoption of climate resilient technologies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate 35 crop varieties with special traits to the nation on Tuesday.
The Prime Minister will also dedicate to the nation the newly constructed campus of National Institute of Biotic Stress Tolerance, Raipur in a pan India programme – via video conferencing – organised at all ICAR Institutes, state and Central Agricultural Universities and Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVKs), a release said here.
On the occasion, the Prime Minister will distribute ‘Green Campus Award’ to Agricultural Universities, as well as interact with farmers who use innovative methods and will address the gathering.
Union Minister of Agriculture and Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh will be present on the occasion.
The crop varieties with special traits have been developed by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (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 the year 2021. These include a drought tolerant variety of chickpea; wilt, and sterility mosaic resistant pigeon pea; 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. Examples of such varieties include Pusa Double Zero Mustard 33, first Canola quality hybrid RCH 1 with 2 per cent erucic acid and 30 ppm gluco-sinolates, and a soybean variety free from two anti-nutritional factors namely Kunitz trypsin inhibitor and lipoxygenase. Other varieties with special traits have been developed in soybean, sorghum, and baby corn, among others, the release added.
The National Institute of Biotic Stress Management at Raipur has been established to take up the basic and strategic research in biotic stresses, develop human resources and provide policy support. The institute has started PG courses from the academic session 2020-21.
The ‘Green Campus Awards’ have been initiated to motivate the State and Central Agricultural Universities to develop or adopt such practices that will render their campuses greener and clean and motivate students to get involved in ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’, ‘Waste to Wealth Mission’ and community connect as per the National Education Policy-2020, the release added.
