New industry body to promote agricultural technologies

Major seed and agri technology companies on Monday launched Alliance for Agri Innovation (AAI), which they said will promote new and emerging agricultural technologies for the benefit of Indian farmers.

These companies include Rasi Seeds, Shriram Bioseed, Bayer Bioscience, Dow Agro Sciences, DuPont Pioneer, Mahyco, Metahelix, Monsanto and Syngenta, according to a release from the Alliance.

"AAI will focus on and work towards promoting the development of agricultural biotechnology and other emerging plant breeding innovations to create value for farmers in India," it said.

The industry body will work with all stakeholders to create an ecosystem that provides protection to Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and is thus conducive for value creation through innovation, as per the release.

Shivendra Bajaj, Executive Director of the AAI, said the body would work to engage with all sections of the society to create an enabling environment that would leverage the benefits of agri-technology to spur the development of agri economy.

"Our members have come together to create an industry-wide alliance to promote innovations in seed technologies that include biotechnology and other plant breeding technologies," Bajaj said in the release.

AAI president Paresh Verma said extremely low productivity continued to be a bottleneck in the efforts to sustain India's food and nutritional security.

"This will become even more challenging as climatic adversities increase due to the impact of climate change. Through AAI, we aim to engage with all the stakeholders in the ecosystem, especially the farmers, to promote development and adoption of innovative technologies to address these challenges," Verma said.

--IANS

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