Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar inaugurated the world’s second-largest refurbished state-of-the-art National Gene Bank at the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), Pusa, New Delhi. On this occasion, Shri Tomar said that the farmers of India are fully capable of accepting the challenges faced by the agriculture sector and conquering them. He said that our farmers are skilled human resources even without any major educational degree. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is constantly concerned about the welfare of the farmers and concrete steps have been taken by the government through several schemes to increase their income.
Appreciating the services of visionary experts like Prof. B. P. Pal, Prof. M.S. Swaminathan and Prof. Harbhajan Singh, Shri Tomar said that they had laid a strong foundation for the conservation of diversity of indigenous crops in the country. “We have a glorious past, for the progress of the country, everyone should keep moving forward with a sense of responsibility towards the future. This revamped state-of-the-art National Gene Bank is a powerful step in that direction. The staff working here must have felt satisfaction and happiness that how they are serving the agriculture sector and the country while saving the heritage. Today, the need for biofortified crop varieties is being felt, somewhere there is an imbalance, which the government is trying to overcome by taking the farmers along”, he added.
