Tamil Nadu

Develop seed varieties faster, says Agriculture Minister

Photo: E. Lakshmi Narayanan

To improve productivity: Agriculture Minister Veerapandi S. Arumugam (second right) and Transport Minister K.N. Nehru at the biotech and plant breeding research facility in Attur on Friday. —

ATTUR: It should not take too long to develop new seed varieties and make them available to farmers, Agriculture Minister Veerapandi S. Arumugam said here on Friday.

It takes about 10 years to develop and introduce a new seed variety currently.

This situation should change so that farmers benefited from modern advances that had been made in agriculture during the present time.

New high yielding varieties should be introduced at a quicker pace and they should benefit the farmers for a longer duration, the minister said.

He was addressing the gathering after declaring open a biotech and plant breeding research facility that had been established by Rasi Seeds (P) Ltd.

The new facility had come up at a a cost of Rs. 10 crore, near Attur.

Asking the farmers to adopt new technologies, Mr. Arumugam said innovative technologies are vital for the growth of the agriculture sector in the country.

Transport Minister K.N. Nehru said that research and development should be promoted to make farming a highly remunerative occupation in India.

He suggested the opening of private agriculture colleges, which would facilitate the development of more new technologies that would be of benefit to those in the agricultural sector.

In his address at the inaugural function, Tamil Nadu Agriculture University Vice-Chancellor C. Ramaswamy said more agriculture research in the private sector was required in order to enhance the agricultural productivity of the State.

He said out the 8.5 million hectares under cotton cultivation in the country, a total of 6.5 million hectares were covered under BT cotton varieties.

The Vice-Chancellor said that the university would shortly introduce genetically engineered seed for brinjal, for the benefit of cultivators.

In his speech, Rasi Seeds Managing Director M. Ramasami said that apart from performing cotton research, the facility that had been created would develop hybrid crop varieties.

These varieties were likely to be of maize, paddy, wheat, bajra, sunflower and vegetables, he said.

The centre would also work on improving the yield of tapioca through development of crop varieties resistant to the Cassava Mosaic Virus.

Collector N. Mathivanan presided over the function.

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