The 87th foundation day, awards ceremony and national conference of krishi vigyan kendendras will be organised on July 25 in Patna, Bihar. Narendra Modi will be the chief guest on the occasion and will address the agriculture scientists of the country.
To fast track the lab to land programme, four new schemes of ICAR will be launched by him (Farmer FIRST, Student READY, ARYA and Mera Gaon Mera Gaurav) on the occasion. A document ICAR Vision 2050 will also be released by him. He will also also distribute soil testing kits to three young farm entrepreneurs.
The Imperial Council of Agriculture was originally set up in 1929. After India became independent, it was named as the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR).The organisation today has 100 institutes under its charge of which four are deemed universities. It operates through the eight subject matter divisions from its headquarters in New Delhi. These divisions are crop sciences, animal sciences, agriculture education, agriculture extension, horticulture sciences, fisheries science, natural resource management and agriculture engineering. The ICAR is the largest public sector national agriculture system in the world. It presides over a National Agricultural Research System in which there are 73 agriculture universities including two central and 67 state agriculture universities and 642 krishi vigyan kendras.
For the first time, the foundation day of the ICAR is being organised outside the Capital. The importance of Bihar as India’s first Agriculture Research and Education Institute (IARI) was established nearly 110 years ago at Pusa, Samastipur.
ICAR institutionalises awards in several categories and has been recognising the institutions, scientists, teachers, agricultural journalists and farmers every year on the foundation day. Eighty two awards under 18 categories have been selected for this year.
These comprise three institutions, one AICRP, nine KVKs, 55 scientists, seven farmers and six journalists. Of the 55 scientists to be awarded, 15 are women.
Some of the categories of the awards are ICAR Norman Borlaug Award, Sardar Patel Outstanding ICAR Institution Award, Panjabrao Deshmukh Outstanding Woman Scientist Award, Jagjivan Ram Abhinav Kisan Puruskar /Jagjivan Ram Innovative Farmer Award (national/zonal) and Chaudhary Charan Singh Award for excellence in Journalism in agricultural research and development.