29th Annual Workshop of AICRP on Biological Control of Crop Pests organized

21 - 22 May, 2020, Bengaluru, Karnataka

The ICAR-National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources, Bengaluru organized the “Virtual XXIX Annual Workshop of All India Coordinated Research Project on Biological Control of Crop Pests” from 21^st to 22^nd May, 2020.

In his inaugural address, Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra, Secretary (DARE) & DG (ICAR) urged the research organisations to go beyond commercialization by strengthening the partnerships with private companies for testing, validating and registering the potential bio-control products. The Director General stressed on exploring the measures to advise the companies for reducing the pesticides applications. Emphasizing on the exploration of the Government funding for the generation of toxicological data to register the bio-pesticide products, Dr. Mohapatra stressed on allowing the private companies to promote the products after adequate field testing and registration.

Accentuating on establishing an active collaboration with the State Government, the Director General urged the Krishi Vigyan Kendras for conducting more field demonstrations and trainings. He also stressed on conducting the field trials on biological control in the North-Eastern States, especially, in Sikkim. Dr. Mohapatra highlighted the importance of generating molecular signatures for the promising bio-agents and depositing the same in recognized nodal Centres.

Dr. Tilak Raj Sharma, Deputy Director General (Crop science), ICAR accentuated on the need for using the local isolates of bio-agents and studying their impact through socio-economic expert analysis. Dr. Sharma urged for studying the market share of the bio-agents in comparison with chemical insecticides. Stressing on the need for conducting the research on plant-pest-microorganism interactions and stability and host range of bio-agents, the DDG also emphasized on developing the nano-carriers for bio-pesticides and drones to apply bio-agents. Dr. Sharma urged the bio-control workers for studying the association of microbes with entomopathogenic nematodes and developing methods to up-scale the bio-agents’ production. He also advised the AICRP BC to collaborate with the ICAR-National Institute of Biotic Stress Management, Raipur; ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi and ICAR-National Research Centre for Integrated Pest Management, New Delhi.

Dr. P.K. Chakrabarty, Member, Agricultural Scientists’ Recruitment Board & Former ADG (PP & Biosafety) and Dr. Rajan, ADG (PP & Biosafety) shared their views on registration of microbial bio-pesticide products.

Earlier, in her welcome address, Dr. (Ms.) Chandish R. Ballal, Director, ICAR-NBAIR, Bengaluru & Project Coordinator, AICRP on Biological Control of Crop Pests outlined the Project’s highlights for the period 2019-20. She also underlined the monitoring and management of the recent invasive pests and preparedness for tackling the invasive attacks.

The senior officials of ICAR Institutes along with 89 Scientists and 9 Company Representatives participated in the workshop.

(Source: ICAR- ICAR-National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources, Bengaluru)