Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will on Saturday inaugurate the 'Pusa Krishi Vigyan Mela' 2025 here, which will showcase latest seed varieties and technologies to farmers, students and other stakeholders. The three-day event, organised by Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR-IARI) is expected to witness participation of around 1 lakh people, including farmers.

Addressing a press conference, Cherukumalli Srinivasa Rao, Director of IARI, said the Union Agriculture Minister will be the chief Guest of the inaugural function, while Minister of State for Agriculture Ramnath Thakur will be the Guest of Honour.The theme of the mela is Unnat Krishi Viksit Bharat, he added. Rao said the main attractions of this year's mela will be live demonstrations of the new varieties and technologies developed by IARI.

There will be exhibitions on promising technologies, products and services of IARI as well as ICAR institutes, agricultural universities, KVKs (krishi vigyan kendras), FPOs, entrepreneurs, startups, public and private companies. During the event, there will be technical sessions and farmers-scientists interactions on important issues including climate resilient agriculture, crop diversification, digital agriculture; entrepreneurship development of youth and women.

Major highlights will be sale of Pusa seeds of important varieties and on-spot agro-advisories. Rabindra Padaria, joint director-extension at IARI, said," We are expecting around 1 lakh visitors during the three-day Mela".

During the 2023 event, farmers had bought seeds valuing around Rs 2.2 crore and IARI is expecting that this time, the number will be much higher than that. The event was held in Jharkhand.

Bhagirath Choudhary, Minister of State for Agriculture, will be the chief guest of the Valedictory Session on February 24, 2025. Himanshu Pathak, Secretary DARE and Director General, ICAR will preside over the inaugural and valedictory sessions. Realizing the growing significance of climatic risk and nutrition, the research programme at IARI has laid emphasis on developing climate-resilient crop varieties and bio-fortified cultivars with enhanced nutrient profile along with higher productivity.

During 2024, various crop cultivars in 10 different crops -- 7 in bread wheat, 3 in rice, 8 maize hybrids, 1 pearl millet hybrid, 2 chickpea cultivars, 1 pigeon pea hybrid, 3 mung bean varieties, 1 lentil variety, 2 double zero mustard varieties and 1 soybean variety -- were released, according to a statement by IARI.

Source: Business Standard