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The President of India, Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam today gave a call to agricultural scientists, political leadership and farmers to come together once again to work for second green revolution in the country.
Citing the example of the first green revolution, Dr. Kalam said it had been possible only when the then agriculture minister Shri. C Subrahmaniyam, scientists such as Dr. MS Swaminathan and Dr. BP Pal, and the farmers worked in tandem.
Dr. Abdul Kalam was inaugurating the National Agricultural Science Museum (NASM), here today.
Dr. Kalam said that the second green revolution would be possible only with rise in productivity, since there was no scope for increasing the area under cultivation in the country. He also narrated a few examples of recent successes in raising productivity. In a case where private entrepreneurs and farmers joined hands in Punjab, cotton productivity had gone up from 450 Kg per acre to 950 Kg in just one season. Similarly, a project by TIFAC in Bihar had almost doubled foodgrain and horticulture productivity. Dr. Abdul Kalam took a tour of the Museum and made some suggestions for making it a dynamic centre of learning. He called for making available the latest information on cropping practices at a single point and involving students and farmers in its activities. Creation of a virtual museum, setting up of mobile museums and capturing ideas of rural innovators and competitions among farmers and scientists would further give the needed importance to the museum, Dr. Abdul Kalam said.
Agriculture Minister Shri Sharad Pawar announced that a model for effective technology commercialization is being put in place. This would put the technology developed by ICAR into commercial use. ICAR has brought out a compendium of such technologies and constituted a task force for their commercialization, the Minister said.
The Museum has been set up by the ICAR. The Agriculture Minister is also the President of the ICAR Society.
Highlighting the challenges being faced by Indian agriculture from the globalisation of markets, the Minister detailed the steps being taken by the Government to maintain high quality of Indian produce. Referral labs for all commodities are being set up or strengthened with the latest capabilities, the Minister said.
Shri Sharad Pawar also gave details of the research being undertaken by ICAR institutes and agricultural universities in the areas of agricultural technology, plant breeding and microbiology. He expressed the hope that research in such sunrise areas would greatly help in increasing productivity.
In his welcome address, DG, ICAR, Dr. Mangla Rai informed that the Museum is one of its kind in the country and has been refurbished with rare accessions and interactive models. He explained that with the help of these exhibits, the Museum charts the 10,000-year-old history of farming till today.
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