Wonder rice?
Yes, it looks like that! This new discovery is likely to reduce emissions and offer a good yield!
Much to cheer in the Agri sector!
Yes, problems in agriculture are too familiar and too complex. It is not the claim of any politicians to say they have the solutions to this vast spread of poor people with less than one acre per capita to emerge tomorrow to come out and come to save the world and save India.
Let us at the same time not forget some of the ground realities. With all the challenges India today remains the world’s largest rice exporter. And the time has come when we have to change our mindset and let us not always deplore and feel dejected. The time is right now and here to realize that India is a big democracy and friend of the world’s lesser endowed countries in terms of the production of foods. That we can feed and reach out to the needy and the hungry.
And India has a role to play in the world production of food and food export can play a highly beneficial diplomatic role in winning friends and influencing people all across the world.
Is there any space in the Agri sector to be cheerful about? With the farm laws dragging the farmers in Punjab and Haryana for so long and with the attention of the government and the tired-out Prime Ministers many challenging issues of the day take much of the public attention. It is not an everyday issue with the farmers or others equally. Engaging problems taking much of the government’s time who cares for much bigger or broader issues like those of farmers who are so dispersed across the vast spread of the country, along with the much more pressing international events like climate change and much of foreign travel which is much more important than any other domestic issues.
Climate change and the natural environment with untimely rain and floods inviting the attention of the government machinery, agriculture, let us grant much of a less priority.
In this rather dismal day, today’s scenario comes some cheerful news. The Manila-based International Rice Research Institute has come out with much awaited breakthrough in releasing a new variety of rice that they report has nine characteristics, besides high yield, upto around 4 – 5.5 tonnes per hectare. If the same variety is grown through puddling the yield level goes even further to almost seven tonnes per hectare, researchers claim.
The cross country trials are being conducted right now across 29 sites in Asia
and Africa including India.
What are the nine major traits identified by the researchers?
They are:
Faster emergence of seeds
Emergence from deeper soil
Anaerobic germination
Early rigor and fast canopy closure
Drought tolerance at seedling stage
Drought resistance at reproductive stage
Nematode resistance
Lodging resistance at the root
Medium plant height
No more and detailed coverage of this rice discovery has caught the interest of our mainstream media.
We need more information and a more critical review of this latest development in our Green Revolution Country.
Let us welcome the positive development. We are basically rice growing nation. We have achieved many breakthroughs.
Let us congratulate our own agri scientists and others in the agri departments and related areas.
Let the 100-days daily rural employment scene get integrated with the mainline agricultural activities like raising mainline crops.
Image Source : goqii.com