Adopt Integrated and Organic Farming Methods : Agriculture Minister

"Take a pledge to create soil health cards, adopt integrated and organic farming methods to double farmers’ income by 2022," said Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh while addressing the 56th edition of All India Wheat and Barley Research Workers Meet (2017) organised at the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

All the centres of All India Wheat and Barley Reform Project are making efforts to deal with biotic and abiotic factors to make wheat rich in nutrition by the year 2050.There has been an unprecedented growth in agricultural productivity over the last five decades due to the integrated programme. "This year we had record production of wheat at 98.38 mt and 3216 kg wheat per hectare. This has been possible due to the hard-work of farmers”, he added.

With the integrated programme, average yield per hectare has increased from 0.91 tonnes in 1964-65 to 3.22 tonnes in 2016-17. In 1947, India produced 7 million tons of wheat and the average productivity of wheat was just 700 kg per hectare. In 2016-17, India produced 255.68 million tonnes of food grain and production of paddy, wheat and pulses created a new record level.

Around 4,000 participants including 3,000 farmers, farm women, rural youth besides the scientists from ICAR institutes, KVK scientists, officials of line departments, students and others attended the programme.