Millets and climate change resistance

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday launched 35 crop varieties that are climate-resilient. He said that climate change is a big challenge for agriculture and the entire ecosystem and stressed the need to step up efforts to fight it.

The 35 varieties include a drought-tolerant variety of chickpea, wilt, and sterility mosaic resistant pigeon pea, early maturing variety of soybean, disease-resistant varieties of rice, and bio-fortified varieties of wheat, pearl millet, maize and chickpea, quinoa, buckwheat, and winged bean.

Through video conference, the Prime Minister also distributed a Green Campus Award to agricultural universities and interacted with farmers who use innovative methods.

The prime minister said that in the last six to seven years, science and technology are being used on a priority basis to solve the challenges related to agriculture. ”Our focus is very high on more nutritious seeds, adapted to new conditions, especially in changing climates," he added.

Due to climate change, he pointed out, that new types of pests, diseases, and epidemics are emerging, because of this, there is a threat to the health of humans, and livestock and crops are also being affected. He remarked that when science, government, and society work together, results will be better. Such an alliance of farmers and scientists will strengthen the country in dealing with new challenges.

The Prime Minister said that efforts are on to take the farmer out of the crop-based income system and encourage them for value-addition and other farming options.

He stressed the need to further develop millets and other grains with solutions from science and research. He said that the purpose is that they can be grown in different parts of the country according to the local needs, asking people to be prepared to use the opportunities provided by the UN declaring the coming year as the Year of the Millet.