Leading seeds and pesticides company Syngenta India has signed MoUs with ICAR’s Karnal-based Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI) and Hisar-based Choudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University (HAU) that will help its research and extension to reach out to more farmers to promote sustainable agriculture practices and improve crop yield.
The Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) were signed Tuesday by Susheel Kumar, MD and country head of Syngenta India, with Director RK Yadav on behalf of CSSRI and with vice chancellor BR Kamboj on behalf of HAU, a company statement said.
The MoU with CSSRI is focused on promoting sustainable agricultural practices and improving soil health and resilience in salt-affected areas, while the MoU with HAU aims to promote diversified sustainable farming systems for improving productivity and working towards promoting diversified sustainable agriculture practices, the statement said.
“Both the MoUs mark a significant step towards strengthening our collaborations with experts in the agriculture domain. Innovations are at the core of our functioning to effectively meet the challenges of a changing world, from climate change, soil erosion and biodiversity loss to the demands of farmers and the wider society. Since our contribution is a combined effort, we believe in taking all stakeholders along to make agriculture in India a model of sustainability and prosperity of farmers,” said Syngenta’s Kumar, who is also an alumni of CCSHAU, Hisar.
According to BR Kamboj, vice chancellor of CCSHAU, the MoU Syngenta India will help the university to promote diversified sustainable farming systems for improving productivity and working towards realising the goal of Viksit Bharat.
Kumar said that the need of the hour is to adopt a multifaceted approach by engaging all stakeholders to meet the challenge of increasing farm productivity. “We believe in a partnership approach and we have been collaborating proactively with public institutions, growers as well as non-government organisations in India.”
As per the MoU, CCSHAU and Syngenta India would work together to develop skills of stakeholders, promote the use of ICT-driven tools and technologies to enhance decision making through accurate, reliable and timely information for agricultural research and sharing the output with the farmers, the company said.
The collaboration will implement projects related to capacity building of rural youth in agriculture and allied sciences, safe use of crop protection chemicals and adoption of new technologies through Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), Agriculture Diploma Technical Schools, Farmers Groups and other institutes of the university under Syngenta’s IRISE (Inculcating Rural India Skill Enhancement) initiative.
On the other hand CSSRI’s Yadav said the institute will conduct joint research and development projects on soil salinity management and improving crop productivity, through sustainable agricultural practices with Syngenta India.