Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) is charting out a plan to increase the domestic production of rice from four tons per ha to six tons per hectare through high yielding varieties.
Chairman of the Research Advisory Committee, ICAR Goa, Kirti Singh said that the current production of rice is not enough to meet the demands of the state population.
“We need to have better technology and dissemination of knowledge to farmers to increase the production of rice including Jyoti and Jaya rice varieties in the State,” Singh said during an interaction with officials from the Animal Husbandry, Agriculture, Dairy development and Fisheries departments.
The meeting also stressed to develop horticulture crops like brinjals, chillies, spices, cashews and mangoes, so also animal science, fish cultivation and floriculture.
The experts deliberated how to increase the production and develop better varieties of the horticulture crops while also protecting the plants during and post harvesting.
ICAR is contemplating to forward its recommendation to Goa government on setting up its own ‘seed certificate agency’, so that local farmers need not depend on the neighbouring agencies to certify the quality of the seeds.
“An independent seed certificate agency will help local farmers to produce seeds, get it certified by its own agency and give them back to the farmers for cultivation,” ICAR Director N Singh told Herald after the meeting.
“If we have a proper system, we can encourage farmers to grow pulses, sweet potatoes and ground nuts on a larger scale and fetch good income.”
Earlier during the meeting, the experts also discussed methods to produce good varieties of fodder including green fodder for the milk producing dairy animals. The ICAR experts have even proposed to impart training to farmers through the Krishi Vighyan Kendra.
[Source]
