ICAR to set up Centre for Disaster Management in Tamil Nadu

Updated on: Thursday, December 20, 2012

Indian Council of Agricultural Research is considering setting up a Centre for Disaster Management in Tamil Nadu, a top official said.
  
Dr S Ayyappan, Director General,ICAR, said, delivering his address to the 33rd convocation of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University here that The major challenges being faced by Tamil Nadu, which was contributing enormously to the agricultural development of the country and having large rainfed area were erratic monsoon and the serious effect of Tsunami.
  
The priority area in Tamil Nadu should be enhancing input efficiency, reducing production cost, managing abiotic and biotic stresses, promoting farm mechanisation and post harvest management, he said.
  
Stating that Tamil Nadu contributed seven per cent of rice, coarse cereals four per cent, maize nine per cent, oil seeds four per cent,banana 13 per cent of the total production in India, he however, said the state was facing challenge to increase production of pulses, which was only two per cent.
  
Ayyappan, who is also Secretary,Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Ministry of Agriculture, said ICAR was looking forward to one per cent of the agriculture GDP to be invested in agriculture research.
  
Capital investment in agriculture as a percentage of the GDP has been stagnating at around 14 per cent in recent years, he said. The real challenge was to enhance investment in the sector both by public and private sector in a sustained way.
 
"If agriculture fails, nothing else can succeed. If agriculture succeeds, every other sector also becomes successful," he said.
  
Though India ranked high in production of various commodities such as milk, wheat, rice, fruits, and vegetables, the agriculture sector faced many challenges, with rising demand for food items and relatively slower supply response in many commodities resulting in frequent spikes in food inflation, Ayyappan said.
 
In general, a decline of the relative share of agriculture in the overall economy should not give any cause of worry if there was a concurrent fall in the percentage of the total population dependent on agriculture, he said.

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