NARS developed 261 varieties of field crops during last three years

NEW DELHI: National Agriculture Research System(NARS)  has developed 261 varieties of field crops and provided 2.3 lakh quintal breeder seeds during the last three years (2012-13 to 2014-15). During 2016, another 164 varieties of field crops have been notified.

NARS consists of agriculture faculties from Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Central Agricultural Universities, State Agricultural Universities and Central and  State Universities .

NARS in association with Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare (DoAC&FW) made available 347.31  lakh quintals of certified quality seeds during 2013-14,  351.77 lakh quintals in  2014-15 and 343.52 lakh quintals in  2015-16,to the farmers.

India is currently producing more than 283 million tonnes of horticulture produce from an area of 24.3 million ha. Over the last decade, the area under horticulture has risen by 3.8 % per annum and production by 7.6 % per annum.

Cost effective novel cane node technology and quality tissue culture seedling material in sugarcane, high density planting in cotton, quality seed production and microbial retting in jute, broad bed furrow planting technology in soybean, direct seeded rice and resource conservation technologies in wheat have been developed and demonstrated.

Molecular markers for cultivar identification in cotton, rice, sorghum, pearl millet, wheat, maize, mungbean, and urdbean were developed. The genomes of two important pulse crops of India viz. chickpea and pigeonpea and cereal crop wheat have been successfully decoded.

Cotton ginning sector is also modernised through Technology Mission on Cotton (Mini Mission IV) and as a result, the country is able to produce cotton bales with a low trash content (less than 3 per cent trash).

This information was given by the Minister of State for Agriculture, Sudarshan Bhagat in Lok Sabha on Tuesday 19 July 2016.