New Year Get-Together of the Academy Fellows and Associates was arranged on January 1, 2024 in hybrid mode. Dr. Himanshu Pathak (President), while reflecting on Academy’s achievements during 2023, greeted the Fellowship. The Academy was enriched by inducting 33 new Fellows (including one Foreign Fellows and three Pravasi Fellows), and 12 Associates on January 1, 2024, thus bringing the strength of Fellows to 793 and Associates to 126. Most sought publications including Year Book 2024 were released.
Annual General Body Meeting (AGM)
31st AGM of the Academy was held in hybrid mode on June 05, 2024. Prior to AGM, panel discussions (2) on “Agriculture in Viksit Bharat@2047: Mid Term and Long Term Action Agenda” and “A Roadmap for Second Blue Revolution” and two evening lectures by Dr. Takashi Yamano (Principal Economist, ADB, Dhaka) on “Climate Resilience to Mitigation: Farmers’ Technology Adoption in South Asia” and Prof. Ashwani Pareek, (Executive Director, NABI, Mohali) on “Cracking Nature’s Code: Ensuring Grains in Salt But No Salt in Grains” were organised.
The Presidential Address was delivered by Dr. Himanshu Pathak on “Transforming R&D in Agriculture: Recent Initiatives of ICAR” on June 05, 2024. While emphasizing ICAR’s nationwide network and its significant achievements in agriculture, he mentioned that high inputs costs and low productivity; limited diversification; degraded soil; depleting water resources’ increasing pest and disease issues; significant food losses; high volatility; and climate risks were the challenges still faced by Indian agriculture.
The Foundation Day Lecture, renamed as Prof. M. S. Swaminathan Foundation Day Lecture, was delivered by Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu, Hon’ble Former Vice President of India, on June 05, 2024. He concluded his lecture by reaffirming that Prof. Swaminathan’s legacy would continue to shape agricultural policies and practices, ensuring food security and promoting sustainable development. His vision and leadership would remain a guiding force for India’s agricultural progress and sustainability, marking him as a saviour of farmers and an advocate for ecological stewardship.
Organised a BSS on “Smart Animal Farming: Perspective Planning Towards 5 Trillion Economy” in hybrid mode on March 22, 2024 to identify smart animal farming practices nationwide to maximize benefits for farmers.
Organised an Expert Consultation on “Digital Sequence Information (DSI) for Agriculture” on March 26, 2024 in collaboration with the Centre for Crop & Food Innovation, Murdoch University, Australia and DivSeek International to discuss its importance of generation and storage; role in conservation and use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture for R&D and crop improvement; concerns and issues related to access and use of DSI; and resolving a common mechanism for its use and fair and equitable benefit-sharing.
Organised a strategy workshop on “Maize to Ethanol in India: Prospects and Strategies” in hybrid mode on April 03, 2024 to identify various components of short-term (<3 years), midterm (3-5 years), and long-term (>5 years) planning from harvesting to ethanol production and self-sustaining ethanol distallaries through research and policies linkages. Organised a strategy workshop on ‘Carbon Farming’ in hybrid mode on May 04, 2024 to formulate a policy document to support government initiative to launch ‘Carbon Mission’ for the country to impart resilience against natural and anthropogenic stresses and degrading natural resources, to improve partial factor productivity of agricultural inputs (including fertilizer, water, etc), and to combat climate change for achieving carbon neutrality in agricultural systems.
Organised a strategy workshop on “Crop Protection Solutions: Group MRL & Minor Uses of pesticides” in hybrid mode on July 12, 2024 to discuss the challenges associated with off-label use of pesticides in India. Need for development of Group MRLs, where a single MRL can be applied across similar crops instead of individuals ones, was also discussed.
Organised a BSS on “Water Security: Is Quantum or Management the Issue” in hybrid mode on August 09, 2024. Experts from various Institutions discussed critical factors such as sustainable groundwater management, modern irrigation technologies, and the need for integrated approaches to wastewater management. The discussion underscored the urgency for coordinated efforts to enhance water security across all sectors.
Organised a BSS on “Agrivoltaics in India” in hybrid mode on August 20, 2024. The session focused on identifying suitable areas and commodities for Agrivoltaics, the role of farmers in the expansion of this technology, opportunities and challenges, the need for capacitybuilding programs, and donors’ perspectives on Agrivoltaics.
Organised a BSS on “Cellular Fish Meat Production: Prospects and Challenges” in hybrid mode on September 20, 2024. Potentials of cultivated seafood as a future alternative protein source to meet the growing demand of the human population and other regulatory and safety challenges related to cultivated seafood production were deliberated.
Organised a BSS on “Promotion of Agricultural Exports: Prospects and Challenges” in hybrid mode on October 10, 2024. The session focused on the integration of global agricultural markets, the stability of India’s agricultural export basket, and the potential of leveraging free trade agreements to boost agricultural exports.
Organised a BSS on “Strategies and policy design for enhancing the global footprint of Indian spices” in hybrid mode on November 4, 2024. The session focused on the importance of spices in India’s economy and the potential for their growth in the global market, particularly in areas like neuroceuticals, cosmeceuticals, natural colors, and natural flavors. Besides, the challenges faced by the spice industry including production quality, trade-related issues were discussed.
Organised a BSS on “Underutilized Wild Fruits & Vegetables for Nutritional and Health Security: Policy Perspectives” in hybrid mode on November 14, 2024 and the present status, challenges and future strategies for promotion of cultivation, processing and marketing of underutilised fruits and vegetables were discussed.
Organised a Strategy workshop on “Microplastics Pollution: Strategies for Remediation in Sustainable Environmental Management” in hybrid mode on December 3, 2024. The global issue of microplastic pollution and its implications for the environment and human health, with a particular emphasis on India’s contribution to the problem were discussed.
Organised a BSS on “Climate Adaptive Conservation of Aquatic Genetic Resources” in hybrid mode on December 20, 2024 in view of the changing climatic conditions and the need for a suitable policy for preserving valuable fisheries genetic resources of the country.
Other Activities
Interaction meetings with NAAS Foreign and Pravasi Fellows was held in the Academy on March 20, 2024 with Fellows from Australia, Asia, and Europe regions, and on March 22, 2024 with Fellows from the North and South Americas regions for enhancing their Contributions. The Academy Organised a Workshop in collaboration with the Professional Association of Agricultural Societies (PAAS) in hybrid mode on August 8-9, 2024 to enhance the quality and impact of journals associated with various societies. The issues deliberated during the workshop included: Self-Reliance of Journals; Merger of Journals; Training for Scientific Writing; Combating Predatory Journals; Article Transfer Mechanism; Common Reviewer Database; Journal Graphics Improvement; AI Policy Development; Digital Archiving; Journal Visibility and Support for Society Journals.
“Digital Agriculture” was identified as the theme for the year 2024 by the Academy for Professional Association of Agricultural Societies (PAAS) nationwide to deliberate. Keeping this in view, a national conference on “Digital Agriculture: Empowering Indian Farming” was organized by the Academy in association with Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi and International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) during December 17-18, 2024 at National Agricultural Science Centre (NASC), New Delhi. The issues deliberated during the conference included: (i) Digital Agriculture for Enhancing Productivity; (ii) Last Mile Connectivity and Delivery; (iii) Investments & Policy for Digital Agriculture; (iv) Academia-Industry-Stakeholder Engagement; (v) Discussion on Digital Agriculture by Professional Societies; and (vi) Joint Initiative on Digital Innovations of CGIAR-ICRISAT-ICAR. Further, Dr. Himanshu Pathak (Secretary DARE and Director General ICAR) in his inaugural address emphasized the importance of this field for agriculture research and development in future. In addition, the achievements of ICAR in the field of digital agriculture were highlighted. Finally, it was emphasized that for accelerating the pace of work in digital agriculture, there is a need for (i) capacity building of different stakeholders at all levels in the field of agriculture; (ii) developing a common platform/forum for sharing the knowledge on digital agriculture by different stakeholders at global level; and (iii) joint working of ICAR and CGAIR institutions to avoid duplication of work and complement the research and development in the field of digital agriculture.
