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INDIA-UK NITROGEN FIXATION CENTRE
INAUGURATED AT BHOPAL
Dr Trilochan Mohapatra , Secretary, Department of Agriculture
Research (DARE) and Director General, Indian Council for
Agricultural Research (ICAR) launched the India-UK Nitrogen
Fixation Centre (IUNFC) at ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil Science,
Bhopal recently. Dr Mohapatra emphasized that a practicable
technology of utilizing the biological nitrogen fixation would be
helpful in managing the environmental pollution on account of
reduced losses of excess fertilizer in the soil. DG suggested to
achieve the long term objectives of this challenge programme on
genetic engineering of rhizobia, rice endophytes and improving
biological nitrogen fixation.
Prof Philip. S. Poole, University of Oxford, UK briefed on the
BBSRC initiatives in Agricultural Nitrogen and the development of
IUNFC and hoped that such research cooperation would lead to
increased scientific collaborations leading to improved
understanding of BNF and productivity.
Dr S K Chaudhari, Asst. Director General (SWM), ICAR stressed the
importance of soil health assessment and briefed on the recent
initiatives taken by GOI in the soil health assessment of the farmers’
fields. Earlier, Dr Ashok K. Patra, Director, ICAR-IISS, Bhopal in his
welcome address outlined the priorities of ICAR-IISS.
The Virtual Joint Centres (VJC) on Agricultural Nitrogen are funded
by the Department of Biotechnology, India and Biotechnology and
Biosciences Research Council, UK (DBT-BBRC) under the NewtonBhabha Fund. There are 3 VJC's on Nitrogen Fixation in UK
(University of Oxford, UK; John Innes Centre, Norwich; James
Hutton Institute, Dundee) and 7 in India (IISS, Bhopal; M.S.
University of Baroda; NBAIM, Mau; University of Calcutta,
University of Hyderabad; I.A.R.I, New Delhi and TERI, New Delhi.
The outputs of the project in the form of improved rhizobial strains
for pigeonpea, improved understanding of how to enhance the
ability of rice to obtain N from fixation, strong capacity building to
train the next generation of researchers is expected to give strong
support to programmes for enhancing BNF and saving chemical
fertilizers.
MAHYCO'S INNOVATION DAY SHOWCASED ITS
LATEST SEED TECHNOLOGIES
The Maharashtra
Hybrid Seeds
Company (Mahyco),
one of the leading
agri-biotech
companies in the
country, organized
'Mahyco Innovation
day' between October
22 and 24, 2016 to
showcase new seed
innovations in
agriculture. During
the three day event,
Mahyco also displayed
new products and future seed technologies at Mahyco Research
Farm in Ghanewadi village in Jalna District of Maharashtra.
The event was inaugurated by Dr B R Barwale, Chairperson,
Mahyco at their Research Farm and exhibited innovations
carried out at its state of the art R&D Centre in Dawalwadi
(Jalna) in both row crops and vegetables crops including cotton,
pearl millet, chilli, okra, brinjal and bottlegourd.
Speaking about the event, Dr Usha Zehr, Chief Technology
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BioVoiceNews | November 2016
Officer, Mahyco said, “The future of agriculture is reliant on
efficient use of modern science and only application of Science
and innovations can bring the much needed revolution in the
industry. At Mahyco, we focus on taking the learning from
yesterday to identify challenges of tomorrow and create
innovations to overcome the same.
The Mahyco Innovation Day is an opportunity to explain the
science behind these innovations to the farmers, distributors
and other stakeholders.
Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company Private Limited
(commonly referred as “Mahyco”) is one of the largest and most
diverse private sector seed companies in the country. It was
founded in 1964 by Dr B R Barwale, an entrepreneur with a
farming background, in Marathwada region of Maharashtra.
GOVT INCREASES FOCUS ON PRODUCTIVITY OF
OILSEEDS & PULSES TO ACHIEVE SELF
SUFFICIENCY
Addressing the
Members of the
Consultative
Committee attached to
the Ministry of
Agriculture, Mr Radha
Mohan Singh said that
Indian Council of
Agricultural Research
(ICAR) and the
Ministry of Agriculture
and Farmers’ Welfare
will jointly work on a two-pronged approach of productivity
enhancement and increasing production through area
expansion for meeting the shortage of pulses.
As regards oilseeds, the Minister said that the ICAR is having
research programmes for nine annual oilseeds crops at four
commodity based research institutes. The Minister pointed out
that there has been a technological breakthrough in oilseeds
and a number of climate resilient high yielding varieties/
hybrids of oilseeds has been notified for cultivation and
increasing the productivity. He was confident that by adopting
the already available technologies yield of nine oilseeds crops
could be increased.
Mr Singh informed the Members that India has a number of oil
yielding species of plant origin which include the nine annuals,
two perennials (oil palm and coconut) and some minor oil
bearing species of forest and tree origin.
Among the nine annual oilseed crops, groundnut, rapeseedmustard, soybean, sunflower, sesame, Niger and safflower are
used for edible purpose and castor and linseed are the nonedible vegetable oil.
Soybean contributes largest (36 percent) to the total oilseed
production followed by groundnut, rapeseed- mustard, castor,
sesame, sunflower, linseed, safflower and Niger. India is the
largest producer of castor and dominates in global castor oil
trade. The growth rate of edible oil consumption has increased
at 4.3 percent while the annual oilseeds’ production increased at
about 2.2 percent, thus necessitating the import of edible oils.
The country has to import more than 50 percent of edible oil.
Last year edible oils to the tune of Rs 69,717 crores were
imported to meet the domestic demand.
To meet the annual consumption of vegetable oil in the country
by 2020 and 2025 (which is expected to reach 16.43 kg. and
16.98 kg – it has been estimated that oilseed production to the