The maiden Global Agriculture and Food Summit of Jharkhand Government scheduled to be organised in Ranchi on November 29-30 would see besides participations coming from across the world, some path breaking researches taken place at home.
Premier agriculture university of Jharkhand Birsa Agriculture University (BAU) is going ahead with the varieties developed by it in the field of rice cultivation which would be introduced and promoted during the summit.
“The Department has developed two latest varieties of rice- ‘Birsamati’ and ‘Birsa Vikas Sugandha-1’. The varieties are of long and fine grains and aromatic just like we have been using Dehradun’s Basamati, famous all over the world. During the Global Agriculture and Food Summit the BAU would be making aware farmers as well as entrepreneurs about this for its better promotion,” Dr DN Singh, Director Research at the university said, sharing the information with The Pioneer on Wednesday.
Yesterday itself Chief Minister Raghubar Das and team of top officials including Chief Secretary Sudhir Tripathi, Development Commissioner DK Tiwari and also from Agriculture Department conducted a road show in Delhi to attract investors and entrepreneurs engaged in the field of food processing and agriculture marketing to the State.
The summit being conducted to propel the stagnant farm sector through fresh ideas and innovations mixed with capital so that farmers of the State can break the shackles and the vicious cycle they are in for decades.
Agriculture Department on its part has consulted the BAU for the summit from where four to five senior scientists would present their research papers on different themes and introduce latest technologies to the audience, mainly farmers and associated marketing firms.
“We have also found out that so far Jharkhand despite its soil and weather conditions being conducive for soya bean farming has not tapped the benefits of the farmers. Also our Agriculture Engineering Department has developed post-harvest techniques and farm implements which are fit for small and marginal farmers and the type of land like tand, usar etc found in good numbers in the State. There are also technologies focused on handing post-harvest which has been a big problem in Jharkhand,” added DN Singh.
The State Government has shown keenness in techniques and newly developed varieties of perishable produces like papaya, tomato, guava and several other horticulture items which are grown extensively in the State.
“We have approached the BAU to share the varieties and technologies with farmers and food processing investors during the summit so that we can use it for the betterment of our farmers. Jharkhand is badly hit due to perishable farm produces and farmers have to incur losses due to distress selling during peak farming seasons. If we can increase self-life of fruits and vegetables grown here through better post-harvest mechanism then it would be nothing like that,” said a senior official of SAMETI.
