A seminar on seed technology innovation for sustainable rice production was organized by FSII on 6th Sep 2019 at New Delhi. Venkatram Vasantavada, MD & CEO, Satish Kumar, GM (Production)-Pearl Millet, Mustard and Hybrid Rice and Baljinder Singh Nandra, Lead Government and Regulatory Affairs were present on behalf of SeedWorks.
Mr. Ajay Rana, Director FSII gave the welcome remarks and highlighted that there is need for increase in production and productivity of rice keeping in view the growing population and food security and hybrid rice is the key.
Dr. Prem Kumar Hon’ble minister for Agriculture Bihar was also present and he told that technology is vital and important for agriculture and Bihar supports these initiatives and invites all private sector institution to invest in Bihar.
Shri Kailash Choudhary Hon’ble minister of state Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers welfare Govt of India was also present and stressed on doubling the farmer incomes and it should be the focus of Central govt and farmers needs to get benefitted through the research.
The agenda of this meeting was on how to increase the productivity, sustainability and profitability of rice cultivation in India (Panel discussion 1) and Way forward for increasing hybrid rice area to 20 % in next five years (Panel discussion 2).
Mr. Satish deliberated on hybrid rice seed availability and how it should not be a constraint for hybrid rice adoption. He also discussed about the challenges in seed production and how as an industry we need to overcome them.
