Chief guest Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog and experts, Policymakers call for Agriculture Research Intervention, Policy Support to boost Pulse Production to address food security.
India Pulses and Grains Association (IPGA), the nodal body for India’s pulses trade and industry, successfully hosted virtual celebrations on the 4th World Pulses Day on behalf of India conveying a global message of “Go Green with Pulse Protein”.
IPGA hosted a live webinar with eminent speakers like; Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog as the Chief Guest, Dr S K Malhotra – Agriculture Commissioner, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Sunil Kumar Singh, Additional Managing Director, NAFED as key note speakers.
Some of the other eminent speakers were Cindy Brown – President, GPC, Greg Cherewyk, President – Pulse Canada, Sachin Khurana, India Representative, USA Dry Pea & Lentil Council, Robynne Anderson – President, Emerging Ag Inc., Prof. Rajiv K Varshney – Research Program Director, Accelerated Corp Movement, ICRISAT, Varun Deshpande – Managing Director, The Good Food Institute India, Vastal Lilani – President, Overseas Agro Traders Association Myanmar and Dr Roshani Sanghani – Allopathic Doctor Hormone Specialist Aasaan Health Solution, Mr. Sunil Patwari – President, Singapore Pulses Federation and Yogesh Thorat, MD, Maha FPC. Ms Akanksha Ghai (BVeg Foods), Tarak Badkas (Altein Ingredients), Chandni Jafri (Earth Craft Shop) Chirag Sabunani (Supplant Foods) are the panellists for discussion on Smart Protein: A new frontier in pulse innovation. Manisha Gupta, Editor- Commodities and Currencies, CNBC 18 was the moderator at the event.
Bimal Kothari, Vice Chairman – IPGA said, “Citing that India has a large processing industry with several thousand dal mills across the country. Most of the dal mill units are too small and do not enjoy scale of economies. The govt. should consider instituting a ‘Dal Mill Modernization Fund’. To modernize Dal mills”.
Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog said, “Pulses are drought-resistant, are affordable sources of protein and also help keep soil healthy. Pulses moreover, have genetic diversity and this paves the way for development of more pulse varieties that are climate-change resilient.”
Dr S K Malhotra – Agriculture Commissioner, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, said, “We have reached to self-sufficiency from pulses deficiency. The next year 2023 will be celebrated as International Year for Millets and pre preparations are on”.
Sunil Kumar Singh, Additional Managing Director, NAFED, said, “Government of India has been taking a slew of initiatives to boost pulse production. If the pulse production reaches 30 million MT, it would be a good way to provide pulses at an affordable price. This cannot be achieved through one part of the value chain alone and therefore, underlines the role from farm level to retail level so that this cheap source of protein is available to the poor to help reduce malnutrition.
Elaborating on the research conducted on these lines, Rajeev Varshney, Research Program Director – Accelerated Crop Improvement underlined the importance of genomic sequencing to boost crop varieties.
