Australian high commissioner visits BISA

Australian High Commissioner to India Harinder Sidhu today visited Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) in Ladhowal here.
Welcoming Sidhu, Managing Director, BISA & CIMMYT Representative in India, A K Joshi briefed her about the genesis, mission and activities of BISA as well as International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), an official said.
Sidhu, who is the senior research engineer at BISA, explained about the 'The happy journey of The Happy Seeder -- a series of advancements' made under the research project funded by Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) during 2002-2010 at PAU here and latter at (CIMMYT)-BISA in collaboration with PAU and machinery manufacturers and farmers, he said.

He also explained about the latest improvements made in the Happy Seeder and the development of super SMS (straw management system) attached to combine harvester which provides impetus to the large-scale adoption of Happy Seeder technology, the official said.
The enjoy also explained economic, soil health, water conservation and environmental benefits from the adoption of the Happy Seeder technology, he said.
Sidhu said, "Am very impressed to see all these developments and enthusiasm of the farmers and other stakeholders for scaling conservation agriculture practices for sustaining the food bowl."
She said Punjab and Australia have a lot of things in common and could learn from each other's experiences.