Message by Director
At the outset I wish you a happy new year 2018 and welcome all the rice fraternity to IIRR website.
We are happy to know that the fourth advance estimate for 2016-17 projected the total food grain production in the country to a new record level of 275.68 million tonnes and rice production also to a new high of 110.15 million tonnes. This year’s rice production is higher by 3.5 million tonnes than the previous record production of 106.65 million tonnes during 2013-14. This has been largely due to cultivation of high yielding varieties and hybrids as well as adoption of improved crop management practices developed by the rice scientific workers of the country coupled with favourable monsoon.
The hybrid rice technology contributed towards an additional 4-5 million tonnes to the total rice production in the country and there is avast scope for increased adoption of this technology by the farming community in future. Despite these achievements, we still need to produce an additional 1.5-2 million tonnes of rice every year to meet the target of 130 million tonnes by 2025. This has to be achieved in the context of increasing incidence of pests and diseases and other abiotic stresses and rapidly changing climate, rapidly declining water and soil and degradation of land resources.
Now it is high time to think about nutritional security in addition to food security and need to concentrate more on nutritional security in rice specifically for increasing zinc, iron and vitamin A. Targeting nutritional security of the nation, ICAR-IIRR has been coordinating Consortia Research Platform (CRP) on Biofortification since 2014-15, encompassing rice, wheat, maize, sorghum and other millets in collaboration with National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) and National Institute of Animal Nutrition and Physiology (NIANP). Significant strides have been made in the development of bio-fortified varieties in rice, wheat, maize and pearl millet, which are released and/or being evaluated under AICRP network. Bioavailability studies In-vitro identified DRR Dhan 45 with 50% increased intestinal absorption of zinc and two maize genotypes with ß carotene (100g) meeting 70% of recommended dietary Allowance (RDA).
The progress on the research front has highlighted several future targets and also constraints, which need to be addressed. ICAR-IIRR has evolved a ten point strategy to overcome and achieve the targets envisaged in Vision 2050. Though our food and nutritional security targets are high, the resources such as land, labour, water, etc. are limited. Under such a situation ICAR-IIRR along with the collaborators of AICRIP network is mainly focussing on the strategies for developing new biotic and abiotic stress resistant high yielding varieties / hybrids and to improve rice production and protection technologies to achieve higher yields with lesser inputs. Further the flagship schemes such as CRP Biofortification, CRP-Agrobiodiversity, CRP-Molecular Breeding, CRP-Hybrid Technology and NICRA have also entered in their next phase, which will aid in achieving food and nutritional security along with climate resilient technologies. During the period, we have also revised our research projects to strengthen the collaboration with IRRI, Philippines
Dr. S.R. Voleti (Acting Director)