Union minister highlights modern biotechnology's role in

Modern biotechnology has a promising role to play in facing the challenges in agriculture through improved technological intervention and development of valuable products,Union minister Parshottam Rupala said today.
The emerging synergy between agriculture and biotechnology will increase crop yield and varieties at low cost, improve nutritional quality of foods and reduce dependency on fertilisers, pesticides and agrochemicals, he said.
The Union minister of state for agriculture and farmers welfare was inaugurating a three-day International conference on 'emerging synergies in agriculture, food processing engineering and biotechnology.'
Rupala said this would also help develop efficient diagnostic tools for identification of plant diseases.

It was worthwhile to go in for solar energy for farming purposes, he said.
This will not only meet the energy requirements of rural areas, but also help in achieving the target of producing 40 per cent of India's total energy needs from renewable sources by 2030.
Some key issues affecting agricultural productivity were reduction in size of land holding, continued dependency on the monsoon and above all reluctance to adopt modern technologies in agriculture, the minister said.
The confernce was organised by the Karunya University here.