The ICAR-Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, Varanasi celebrated its 29th Foundation Day. The Chief Guest, Professor Arvind Kumar, Vice-Chancellor, Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agricultural University, Jhansi highlighted the role of the production of value-added vegetables in ensuring the self-dependency of the country in the field food production. He stressed that the higher production of the horticultural crops in the present times will help in the fight for achieving nutritional security.
The Guest of Honor, Dr. Mangala Rai, Former Director General (ICAR) & Secretary (DARE) accentuated on sustainable agriculture for vegetable farmers by maintaining the soil health and water management practices in the present era of climate change. He urged the scientists for developing the technologies to solve the problems associated with the vegetable processing, value-addition, and storage.
Dr. Gautam Kalloo, Former Deputy Director General (Horticulture), ICAR & Founder Director, ICAR-IIVR applauded the Institute’s initiatives in the designated field.
Dr. Arvind Kumar, Director, South Asia Regional Centre, International Rice Research Institute, Varanasi lauded the Institute scientists for their commendable research.
Dr. Ramesh Chand, Director, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, BHU urged the farmers to be vigilant with the misconceptions associated with the organic farming. He encouraged them for growing the value-added vegetables.
Earlier, Dr. Jagdish Singh, Director, ICAR-IIVR briefed about the benefits the farmers are getting by scientific research and various extension programmes like “Mera Gaon Mera Gaurav”, “SC/ST Sub Project” and “Farmers’ First”, etc. Dr. Singh highlighted about the development of more than 100 varieties and hybrids of different vegetable crops by the Institute.
Among the developing farmers associated with the Institute, Shri Om Prakash Dubey and Shri Rameshwar elaborated their success stories on vegetable production.
In this series, 3 Innovative Farmers - Ananda Kumar Patel, Mannu Yadav and Shitala Devi were also felicitated with the Letters of Appreciation. Around 400 farmers participated in the event.
