The Department of Agriculture has planned to join hands with the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) to establish a technology demonstration farm on the city outskirts where high-yielding quality seeds giving bumper harvest even in extreme conditions are to be prepared on a large scale.
Though India has been the largest producer of pulses in the world, it is also the largest importer of these edible seeds thanks to ever expanding huge domestic consumer base.
When it comes to black gram, the situation remains the same. Due to fermenting capability of this pulse, it is used widely in fermented foods that are the specialty of south Indian cuisine like idli, dosa etc. Production of black gram in India stands at 1.3 to 1.5 million tonnes annually, which is approximately 10 per cent of the total pulses produced in the country with Madhya Pradesh leading the table. Since consumption level of this pulse is too high to be fulfilled by the country’s domestic production, imports particularly from Myanmar are necessary to fill the gap in demand and supply. India imports around 35,000 tonnes of black gram annually and the import trend has been increasing constantly.
The main reason behind the dwindling production of black gram is the Yellow Mosaic Virus that destroys the plant when it would be ready for harvest. Since the BARC has prepared high-yielding and drought-resistant black gram varieties and successfully introduced the same in some parts of the country, the department has planned to utilise its expertise by setting up BARC technology demonstration farm at Karaiyiruppu near here where it has seed farm. First, the BARC experts, in association with officials of the department, will produce tonnes of high-yielding and disease and drought-resistant black-gram seeds to be distributed to farmers.
When J. Daniel Chellappa, Senior Scientist of BARC’s Technical Coordination Section, Chennai, camped here on Thursday to participate in the harvest of groundnut at Palayamkottai Central Prison, he visited the department’s seed preparation centre at Karaiyiruppu and assessed the infrastructure facilities there.
“We’ll share our expertise with any department after assessing the infrastructure available with our prospective partners. The facilities at Karaiyiruppu and the land available with the department for our researches are sufficient. If the proposal is cleared by higher-ups of BARC and the Department of Agriculture, farmers will be getting quality seeds to enjoy a bumper harvest,” he told The Hindu.
