The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) spread in about 3,400 acres and located at Patancheru in Sangareddy district is going to celebrate Golden Jubilee. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will formally inaugurate the programme on February 5th. The campus was decorated for the celebrations.
Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, Union Minister for Agriculture Narendra Singh Tomar and ICRISAT Director General Jacqueline d’Arros Hughes will be present.
Research and innovations by the ICRISAT has changed lives of crores of people in Asia and Africa.
ICRISAT was established on March 28, 1972, as part of a global institutional framework to share scientific agricultural breakthroughs and innovations that help overcome poverty, malnutrition and environmental degradation in the harshest dryland regions of the world.
The Bhuchetana (soil health mapping) programme taken up by the ICRISAT in Karnataka has yielded excellent results and the incomes of farmers have improved considerably. Using information and communication technology the yield of pigeonpea has increased between 30 per cent to 50 per cent.
ICRISAT being the only International Agricultural Research Center (IARC) with headquarters in India. The Institute collaborates closely with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). In 1979 genebank for sorghum, millets, pigeonpea, chickpea and groundnut established. In 1980s the institute set up offices in Africa. In 1991 Director General Leslie D Swindale was awarded the Padma Bhushan. In the same year, the world’s first pigeonpea hybrid is released by ICRISAT. In 2007 ICRISAT’s early advocacy for climate resilient crops and climate awareness delivers the Noble Peace Prize to ICRISAT. In 2011 – ICRISAT launched Agribusiness and Innovation platform. In 2012 the genome sequence of pigeonpea is published, followed by groundnut (2016) and pearl millet (2017).
The same year, ICRISAT’s Digital Agriculture programme was operationalised with an i-hub inaugurated. In 2019 ICRISAT won the CSR award and the next year two groundnut varieties developed by ICRISAT and ICAR-DGR were released. In 2021, the Tropical Legumes project led by ICRISAT won the Africa Food Prize.
