ICAR-National Rice Research Institute, Cuttack organized “Regional Workshop on Farmers’ Rights and Exhibition on Agro-biodiversity”
ICAR-NRRI, Cuttack organized “Regional Workshop on Farmers’ Rights and Exhibition on Agro-Biodiversity” on 17th Nov, 2017 sponsored by the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority (PPV&FRA), Dept. of Agriculture Co-operation (DAC), Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Govt. of India, New Delhi.
Dr. H. Pathak, Director of the Institute welcomed all the dignitaries, scientists from different Institutes/SAUs/Govt. Departments and farmers from all the states. The Chief Guest Shri S.K. Pattanayak, IAS, Secretary (Agriculture), Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Govt. of India inaugurated the programme and congratulated the farmers of Odisha for submitting maximum number of rice varieties. He encouraged them to submit more and more other crop varieties for registration with the PPVFRA and take advantage from the plant genome savior community award under benefit sharing. Dr. T. Mohapatra, Secretary (DARE) & DG, ICAR graced the occasion and spoke about the importance of the wild and weedy rices apart from native landraces/varieties in developing new varieties in the context of adverse climatic fluctuations causing severe damage to the crop. The Chairperson of PPV&FRA and Jt. Secy (Seeds) Dr. B. Rajinder, IAS highlighted the importance of Farmers’ Rights in the PPV&FR Act. Shri GK. Dhal, IAS, Agri. Prod. Commissioner, Govt. of Odisha while addressing complimented the scientists of NRRI and State Agriculture Department in arranging several awareness programmes among the farmers about the Act which resulted in collection, conservation and submission of more than 950 rice varieties to the PPV&FR Authority for registration. Dr. R.C. Agrawal, Registrar General of PPV&FRA had proposed vote of thanks on behalf of the Authority for making the programme a grand success.
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The technical session on “Mainstreaming of Farmers’ Varieties in Seed Chain” was held under the chairmanship of. Dr. Ajay Parida, Director, Institute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar and the lead speakers were Shri M. Prabhakar Rao, President, National Seeds Association of India, Dr. B.C. Patra, NRRI and Dr. R.P. Singh, Director (Seeds), Birsa Agricultural University, Ranchi. Several issues on farmers varieties, their rights, mode of registration were discussed after all the presentations were made.
More than 500 participants including scientists from ICAR Institutes, State govt. officials and farmers from three states namely, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand attended the programme. There were 25 exhibition stalls from different stakeholders who showcased their exhibits on agro-biodiversity theme.
Dr. B. C. Patra, Principal Scientist and Nodal Officer, DUS Testing Project, NRRI was the Organizing Secretary of the Regional Workshop and the Biodiversity exhibition.