A conference of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and its affiliated institutes, agricultural universities and industries was organized in New Delhi today. Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Shri Narendra Singh Tomar and Minister of State Shri Kailash Chaudhary participated in this. Through the conference, ICAR aims to work with organizations from industry, research and academia, that are interested in ICAR's technologies, so that while achieving mutual benefits, the tie ups can widely benefit the country including Agriculture sector in the long run. Agriculture Universities along with more than 100 institutes affiliated to ICAR have various agricultural facilities including well equipped research/development facilities, laboratories/infrastructure which can be mutually used for public good.

Addressing the conference, Union Minister Shri Tomar said that if feedback is received on how industries can apply the research done by ICAR, how to take it forward by complementing each other, what do the industries working at the grassroots level want, then the delivery will improve. The importance of our agricultural products has increased in the world. It is everyone's responsibility to ensure that the quality of our products is good. The shortcomings or gaps in this sector need to be filled, as well as how India can achieve excellence in the agriculture sector while facing the current international challenges, everyone from farmers to industry should work together in that direction. The importance of such discussions increases even more during the Amrit Kaal. Our thinking should be towards fulfilling the expectations of the world from India. To render India's increasing importance on the political scene of the world and to strengthen it further and to fulfill the goal that India should stand as a developed country by the year 2047 (Amrit Kaal), towards this goal it is very necessary our discussion should be comprehensive and meaningful. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi himself thinks in this direction and it is his insistence that others should also move in this direction. In the global scenario, the opinion about India is changing rapidly, which needs to be changed and established faster, for this we all need to work together and move at a faster pace.

Shri Tomar said that India has made a lot of progress in the agriculture sector, but there are many challenges in the field of agriculture, identifying them and working towards their solution, so that the agriculture sector should play a bigger role in strengthening the country's economy. There should be more discussion in the direction. There is a need to work in a planned manner, moving beyond traditional agriculture, as well as making full use of technology from lab to land. Scientists associated with ICAR have done a lot of remarkable research, which is useful for the country and the world today. There was a time when we wanted to learn from the world but today the world wants to learn from India in agriculture sector. There is a need to work faster in this direction so that the farmers get the benefit of good inputs and technology, production quality improves, post-harvest losses are reduced and private investment in the agriculture sector multiplies. Although the Government of India is working on all these at its own level, the results of which are evident before all of us, but we all know that the farmers, their produce, along with research & technology besides industries, if all of them come together then this will make the economy strong. We have to ensure the farmer gets a fair price for his produce, hence the contribution of Industry assumes significance.

MoS (Agriculture) Shri Kailash Choudhary; Dr. Himanshu Pathak, Director General, ICAR; coordinator of the conference, Dr. Praveen Malik, CEO, Agrinovate India Ltd, - the commercial arm of ICAR; along with industry representatives Shri Hemendra Mathur and Shri Salil Singhal also spoke on the occasion.

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