Cuttack: Union Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Tuesday inaugurated Central Genomics and Quality Laboratory facility at ICAR – National Rice Research Institute (NRRI) here. The facility has been completed in a record time of less than three years.
The state-of-the-art genomics laboratory will help the farmers in analyzing the quality of soil, water and produce, besides accelerating the development of new varieties of rice and help farmers in realising better price, said Singh. Union Petroleum and Natural Gas, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who hails from Odisha, were also present during the inaugural ceremony.
This laboratory complex houses laboratories of different sectors like environmental science, soil quality, grain quality, food proximate, molecular biochemistry laboratory, nutrition and sensory, genomic selection, marker assisted selection, QTL mapping, bioinformatics and SNP genotyping.
The Ministers also addressed a Kisan Mela (Farmers’ fair).
He also informed that under the Mera Gaon Mera Gaurav, at ICAR-NRRI, Cuttack, at least 21 multi-disciplinary teams covering 30,000 farm families from 105 villages is providing training, visits, advisory service to the farmers.
