SEEDS OF HOPE: M.V. Rao (second from left), former Special Director-General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, releasing the souvenir at the 22nd Annual Group Meeting on National Seed Project (Crops) at the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, on Wednesday. UAS Vice-Chancellor J.H. Kulkarni (third from left) is seen.

DHARWAD: M.V. Rao, former Special Director-General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), has said that one of the main challenges before the agricultural scientists was production and supply of quality seeds.

He was inaugurating the 22nd annual group meeting on National Seed Project (Crops) organised jointly by University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Dharwad, and ICAR here on Wednesday.

The other challenges were development of low cost and high yield crops, crops that sustain climatic variations and developing crop varieties for saline soil and so on.

Regretting the present state of Indian agriculture, which had posed several problems before farmers engaged in traditional agriculture, he called upon the agricultural scientists to develop newer technologies and focus on human resource development.

He said that because of various problems affecting the agricultural sector, nearly 40 per cent of farmers had migrated to other sectors. He underscored the need for proper human resource development. Asit B. Mandal, Project Director, Seed Directorate, Mavu (Uttar Pradesh), underscored the need for stress on seed production based on the demand and market conditions.

N.D. Jambale, Assistant Director-General (Seeds), ICAR, lauded the steps taken by the university under the "Seed Village" project. J.H. Kulkarni, Vice Chancellor of UAS, who presided over the meeting hoped that the group meeting would focus on improvement in the production of quality seeds, supply and sale and fruitful discussions on the new technologies for quality seed production.

Felicitated

Apart from Dr. Jambale and Dr. Asit Mandal, 12 agricultural scientists who were retiring after having served under the National Seed Project, were felicitated on the occasion.

Members of Board of Regents of UAS, A.D. Kotnal, Gurunath Odugoudar, and Isabella Das were present.

R.R. Hanchinal, Research Director, UAS, welcomed the gathering.

L. Krishna Nayak, Extension Director, proposed a vote of thanks.

Nearly 200 agricultural scientists from throughout the country are participating in the group meeting.

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