Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Jun 28, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Jun 28, 2005 |
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Agri-Biz & Commodities
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Seeds Icrisat, MSSRF working on salt-resistant seed varieties Our Bureau
(From right) Dr Robert Zeigler, DG, International Rice Research Institute, Mr William D Dar, DG, Icrisat, and Dr M.S. Swaminathan, Chairman, MSSRF, at a press conference in the Capital on Monday. — Ramesh Sharma
New Delhi , June 27 THE International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Topics (ICRISAT) and MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) on Monday said that they are working together to screen crop varieties that have salt tolerance, select varieties through community participation, establish local seed banks and rehabilitate soil and water systems. Informing that they might have discovered strains of rice that are salt resistant, Dr M.S. Swaminathan, Chairman,MSSRF, stressed the need to have the capacity to respond to natural and man-made disasters. "After the tsunami struck, a number of humanitarian and scientific teams visited the affected areas. We found that there were a series of lines that escaped the tsunami. They have been collected and we would test them under sea inundation," he said adding that six varieties of rice have been found in East Coast of Tamil Nadu that could be used in flood prone areas. Moreover, the International Rice Research Institute that has the largest collection of germplasm in its genebank has also provided seeds of salt-tolerant rice varieties, Dr Robert Zeigler, Director General of the International Rice Research Institute, said. Fifteen agricultural research institutes under the Alliance of the Future Harvest Centres of CGIAR (the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) are helping rehabilitate agriculture in 47 developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Pacific through an initiative called the `healing wounds' initiative. The initiative includes identifying germplasms existing in a particular area that has been devastated and restoring them in those areas. The initiative has helped restore lines of crop in Cambodia, hurricane-hit Central American area, among others. On the pre-monsoon showers in northern India, Dr Swaminathan said, "this is a good indication but it has to continue." He said this spell of pre-monsoon shower would benefit the farmers at the countryside who have been suffering from soil distress for quite sometime due to monsoon delay.
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