Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agri. University working on 5 new themes : Radha Mohan

Dr K K Kaushik

Samastipur : Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Radha Mohan Singh on November 15, 2018, said that Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa, Samastipur, Bihar, has begun work on five new themes targeted by Union Agriculture Ministry for the development of agriculture sector. They include “har khet ko pani”, increase the production of pulses, soil health, doubling farmers’ income and more crop per drop. He informed that in two years, positive results have started to appear.

Major works include irrigation through solar power and single phase pumps, seed production of pulse crops, soil testing in farmers’ fields through six mobile soil testing laboratories, food processing to double the income of farmers, mushroom production, honey production, research on reduction of post-harvest losses and efficient irrigation system.

Speaking on the occasion of the first convocation of Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa, Radha Mohan stated that the Modi government has given a lot of support to strengthen this university. Horticulture and Forestry College, Centre of Excellence on Embryo transfer & indigenous breed, a new centre for beekeeping, modern processing center for jaggery production etc are important steps in this direction.

Apart from this, a center for Sahiwal breed in West Champaran district, training centre by National Cooperative Development Corporation, seed storage and sale centre by National Seeds Corporation, fish production by cage culture in all KVKs are also proposed. Radha Mohan said that PM Narendra Modi has launched four new projects to accelerate the ‘Lab to Farm’ programme for all-round development of agriculture. In order to increasing the connectivity of farmers with scientists, technical assessment, evaluation, training and capacity building, the government has initiated the Farmer First programme.

Considering the importance of capacity development for entrepreneurship in rural youth, Student READY (Rural Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana) programme has been started and in order to create new opportunities of employment generation for the youth in agriculture and to prevent their migrations, Attracting and Retaining of Youth in Agriculture (ARYA) has been started, said Radha Mohan.

The Minister said that under the “Mera Gaon Mera Gaurav” programme, agricultural experts of agricultural universities and ICAR have been given the responsibility of a village each to create awareness among farmers about scientific farming, according to a PIB release.