Badal Seeks cooperation to develop varieties of crops with less water usage in Punjab

CAIRO(EGYPT): Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal visited the Agriculture Research Centre of Egypt, the largest such facility in whole of the Middle East and interacted with its directors and other agricultural experts to seek their cooperation to adopt agriculture practices on the most modern and scientific lines besides developing varieties of crops with less water usage in Punjab. 



The Chief Minister was accompanied by his Media Advisor Harcharn Bains, Secretary Science Technology and Environment Viswajit Khanna, his Special Secretary K.J.S Cheema, Seretary Punjab Pollution Control Board Babu Ram and Chief Engineer Punjab Water Supply and Sanitation Sita Ram Agarwal. India’s Ambassador to Egypt Swaminathan was also present in the meeting.  

Giving the details Chief Minister's Media Adviser Harcharan Bains said that during the meeting with the Agri-experts and directors of ARC, the Chief Minister apprised them about the problem of saline groundwater in Punjab and sought their technical support to use less water for crops like cotton and paddy apart from techniques to enhance the productivity of cotton in the state. Badal also sought technical assistance from ARC to make use of efficient and cost effective treatment of water for agriculture purposes.

The Chief Minister also urged the ARC for exchange of technical know-how between their agri-experts and our agri- researchers and scientists of Punjab Agriculture University Ludhiana, besides giving training to our agri-experts at ARC, subscription of ARC journals and also sought their cooperation in the field of wheat & cotton research.

The Directors of the ARC apprised Badal that they have developed varieties which have short cycles in order to conserve water for example for wheat they have developed variety which had 120 days cycle, as compared to 160 days earlier and for maize 90 days compared to 150 days earlier.             
It may be recalled that the leading players in the solar energy technology, agriculture, water management solution companies to fight the problem of water salination, Reverse Osmosis System (RO), cleaning of underground wells and ponds, environmental and water pollution made their presentations to the Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal Thursday evening to explore the possibility of joint collaboration between Israel and Punjab in these fields.

The international water management solution companies namely Tahal, NETA, AMIAD filtration systems and NITRON, besides three world renowned firms in solar energy viz Wind Tulit, L’Evision and MSD Energies made presentations to the Chief Minister at Tel Aviv in Israel. 

Prominent among others who were present in the meeting included Prof. Dr. Mohamed M elgarhi, the Vice President of ARC, Prof. Dr. Mohamed Abdel Mageed Aziz, Director of cotton Research Institute, Dr. Ayman F abou Hadid, President Dr. Mohamed Abu  Zeid el nahrawy, Director of Field Crop Research Institute, Engineer Mohmed Reda Ismail, Head Agri extention and Services Centre besides others.