Centre aims to double income of farmers, says Bhupathiraju Srinivasa Varma

Kakinada: The central government aims to double the income of farmers through steps like value-addition, encouraging farming on a commercial scale and reducing reliance on imports.

This was stated here on Tuesday by the Union minister of state for heavy industries and steel, Bhupathiraju Srinivasa Varma. He said farmers will greatly benefit from raising crops like turmeric, chilli, Aswagandha and castor as also tobacco, based on innovative research in these by scientists of the national institute for research in commercial agriculture (NIRCA), formerly known as the central tobacco research institute (CTRI).

He was participating as chief guest at the ICAR-NIRCA formation day celebrations at the CTRI premises.

The minister along with the NIRCA director MS Madhav unveiled the NIRCA logo and plaque on Tuesday. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted research to help find ways to double the income of the farmers through value-addition to farm produce.

Deputy director general (crop sciences-ICAR), TR Sharma, said seven decades of research for excellence in tobacco cultivation helped the farmers improve yield. Cloning, characterization and mapping of genes to suit the impact of climate change have been advised. He urged the scientists to identify novel genes in plant genetic resources that would help to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Sharma inaugurated the Genome Editing Laboratory at the Crop Improvement Division of NIRCA and at the sales point. Tobacco board chairman Chidipothu Yashwanth Kumar said NIRCA was in close touch with researchers, farmers and industry.

Director of ATARI, Shaik N Meera, former MLC Somu Veerraju, former director TGK Murthy, scientist U Sreedhar and others were present.