• The exhibition and the meet were inaugurated by Tripura, Chief Minister, Mr Manik Sarkar.

• Dr. Rohini Kumar Singh, Director Research, Central Agricultural University delivered the welcome address which was followed by the lighting of the lamp by the distinguished guests.
  
  Dr Rahul Mirchandani, Member, CII National Council on Agriculture and Executive Director, Aries Agro Limited in his key note address emphasized the need to increase agricultural productivity in order to ensure food and nutritional security of ever increasing population of India. He also shared the industry views for the development of the agriculture sector in North East region and said industry was always ready to invest in the commercially viable projects. CII had identified demand driven research and its extension to the end-users as a priority agenda to rejuvenate Indian Agriculture. Dr Mirchandani stressed that scientists should identify the research opportunities and should convert language of science to the language of commerce that would help the industry to commercialize the research.

• Mr Manik Sarkar, Chief Minister, Tripura in his inaugural speech expressed his appreciation for the efforts put in by the Central Agricultural University for organizing SAU-ICAR-CII Industry Meet (Eastern Region) and bringing all the key stakeholders on a single platform for research and technology development and its adoption in the field of agriculture. He emphasized that agriculture was one of the main component of our national economy and due importance should be given for the development of agriculture sector which would lead to growth of the economy. Government of India should focus on framing new agricultural policy to increase the production and, also, the income of the farmers involving rural youths. More emphasis should be given to bring more land under irrigation, he stressed.
  
  Mr Sarkar added that there was an urgent need to bring synergy between Researchers, Industries and Policy Makers for the maximum benefit to the farmers. While highlighting the fact that Tripura would soon become a power surplus state, the Chief Minister took this opportunity to urge the industrialists of the agriculture sector to invest in the north-eastern states in general and Tripura in particular. Further, he emphasized the need of developing robust and low-cost technologies focusing resource poor and marginal farmers of the region. 
   
• Dr. S. N. Puri, Vice-chancellor, Central Agricultural University (CAU), Imphal in his concluding remark extended warm welcome to the chief guest and all the dignitaries.  He took this opportunity to apprise the chief guest and the august gathering about the strides made by the CAU, Imphal with regard to capacity building and human resource development in the NE region by imparting quality professional education among the youths of the region in the fields of agriculture, fisheries, veterinary, agricultural engineering, horticulture & home science. The Vice-Chancellor highlighted the fact that the students of CAU have performed very well in All India Competition of Junior Research Fellowship Examination conducted by ICAR, New Delhi for seeking admission in national institutes / deemed universities. In this regard, he also mentioned that during the current year, 21 students of College of Fisheries have succeeded in securing admission with fellowships at Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Mumbai. He reiterated that the University is poised to make greater contribution in research and technology development.
   
• Prof. J. R. Dhanze, Dean, College of Fisheries proposed the vote of thanks to all the dignitaries including the chief guest of the function, Mr Manik Sarkar, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Tripura, Dr. S. N. Puri, Vice-chancellor, CAU, CII-representatives, invitees, press and media and the organizing team of the College.

• Session I: Voice of Industry – Aligning Research with the Industry
  
  
• Objective of the session was to share the industries’ views on the requirement and need and also to align the research accordingly.
   
• The session started with opening remarks by the Session Chairman Dr. Sanjeev Saxena, Principal Scientist, Indian Council of Agricultural Research. He formally welcomed all the dignitaries and participants in the session and mentioned that researchers should understand the industries’ expectations and industry also should come forward for the commercialization of the researches developed by the scientists. Further, he emphasized for demand driven research and added that academia should also visualize the future requirement to undertake researches accordingly. 
   
• Dr. R. Mirchandani mentioned about the Young Indians, an initiative taken by CII, wherein more than 11,000 young progressive educated farmers from different states have been selected and were being projected as brand ambassador to motivate other rural youths. More than 108 schools are participating in the initiative and the students are exposed to advanced agricultural technologies. He also pointed out that it was very important for the farmers to desist the herd mentality which was usually detrimental to them. He also put forth his views as:
   
• Organic farming may be great but look for safe chemicals
• Focus on area specific and crop specific research
• Ascertain impact on nutrient deficiency on human health
• Perform co-operative farming not by making society but through pooling resources
   
• Dr Mirchandani emphasized that research could not be done in isolation and there should be integration of research with the industries’ need.
   
• Mr Mukul Varshney, Vice President, John Deere India Pvt Ltd mentioned that Agriculture in India was huge with 140 million hectare under cultivation and for many of the crops India stood globally first and the second largest producer whereas productivity rank was amongst 100. There are about 120 million farmers in India, out of which only 20 million have tractors.  The horse power consumption per hectare is only 1.4 in India against about 14 in Japan. Down the line, Bt. Cotton and sugarcane are also not meeting the expectations of the farmers. Therefore, he opined that focus on integrated production, value addition and sustainability was the need of the hour. There has been a trend of reduction in investment in agriculture and the Government of India is trying to reduce subsidy. This trend would likely to continue in future too. He pointed out that farmers usually believe that modernization was expensive but actually it was not so. Rather, cost-benefit analysis should be looked into.
  
  He put forward:

·         Identify and focus on small group to identify modules for industrialization

·         Natural Resource Management Technology should be brought to farmers

·         Provide money to the farmers to adopt technology but take back the money after 3 years after farmers have understood the benefits.

·         Cost benefit analysis should done for new technologies and good return will attract investment

• Mr Angshujyoti Das focused on Risk Mitigation measures and informed that based on specific need of the farmers customized forecast solutions could be developed. He remarked that there were several affordable technologies available that could help farmers in making better decisions with regards to selection of crops, planning of agriculture operations and marketing of their produces leading to better production, productivity and profits. He also cited the use of smart android phone of costing less than Rs. 5000 through which farmer could easily get the information about weather, market pricing etc.
   
• Mr Vijay Kumar Browning, Vice President, TAFE stressed that Government should frame the policies keeping in mind the small and marginal farmers and suggested the Custom Hiring Centres as one of the good solutions to increase the farm mechanization. He added that Water Harvesting and Water Management should also be focused.

• Session II - Panel Discussion: Offering of State Agriculture Universities and Research Institutes vis – a – vis Need of the Industry

• The main theme of the session was to share the technological solutions already available with universities and ICAR institutes and also to focus on solutions of the requirements and needs of the industries with regard to research and development. 
   
• Dr. S. N. Puri chaired the session and welcomed all the representatives from public institutions including agricultural universities & ICAR institutes, and private enterprises. He pointed out that the purpose of this session was to find out solutions and the support from the industry for the adoption and the commercialization of the technologies already developed or being developed by the CAU, SAUs & ICAR institutes. Dr Puri informed the participants that a lot of research has been done and now there was need to collaborate with Industry to commercialize and transfer the technology to the ultimate user. He urged the scientists to share benefits and economies of technologies available instead general details. 
   
• Dr Rohini Kumar Singh, Director Research, CAU, Imphal, presented the technologies available with the CAU in the field of agriculture. He stated that Rice variety CAU-R1 stood first in Kharif crop production in Manipur with a production of 10.2 tonne per hectare at farm level. The fertilizer requirements have been standardized as 60:40:30 NPK kg per hectare for this variety. Another variety developed is extra early variety of rice that takes 100-105 days only and has a yield of 5 tonne per hectare. 
   
• With regards to adoption of these varieties by farmers, Dr. S. N. Puri mentioned that although CAU had a breeder seed program but unable to meet the demand of the seed. Therefore, there is a scope for industry to collaborate for commercialization of these varieties.
   
• Dr. M. Datta, Joint Director, ICAR, Tripura Center, informed that considering the acreage of Paddy, Maize and Pulses, Tripura urgently needed modern rice mill, maize grinding mill, pulse / dal mill, oil expeller. He also pointed out that Pineapple could be grown up to 5-6 months of the year and it could be taken up for processing and value addition. Similarly, Tripura climate is suitable for flower cultivation as well. He opined that industry should also focus on contract farming, development of pork based products, etc. in the area.
   
• Dr. D. K. Kaushal, Principal Scientist, ICAR complex for Eastern Region, Patna, apprised about development of rice polish based pig feed for growing pig utilizing phytase @ 20 g/kg feed and also informed about the utilization of other non-conventional grains for developing feed.
   
• Dr. J. R. Dhanze emphasised on location specific technologies in the realm of aquaculture and mentioned that technology for run-off water harvesting has been developed at the College of Fisheries for the farming system approach which could be replicated by the corporate sector for enhancing the overall productivity in the vast underutilized land mass of North-Easter Region.
   
• Dr. P. K. Srivastava, Dean, College of Agricultural Engineering and Post Harvest Technology, CAU, Gangtok presented the protocols of the two technologies that were ready for commercialization viz:

• Value addition to Pineapple
• Packaging of fruit and cut flower.

• Dr. S. N. Puri highlighted that excellent variety of Pineapple was produced in huge quantities in the NE region, however, its transportation was a major concern. Scientists have developed new technology to produce powder of Pineapple that retains the aroma of the fresh Pineapple. Further, Dr. Puri emphasized that NE region has various unique varieties of Orchid but its shelf life was very short. With the developed packaging, the Orchid can be kept fresh for about 2 weeks. Industry should come forward for the commercialization of these innovative and useful technologies.
   
• Dr. Teekam Singh, Senior Scientist, Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI), Guwahati informed about the various flood and drought resistant varieties of paddy developed and released by the institute. He also shared about Integrated Paddy-Vegetable-Fish Farming System having area allocation of 50% trench for fish, 20% dyke for vegetables and 30% for paddy to cultivate paddy, vegetables and fishes simultaneously. This system has resulted into increased net income of the farmers.
   
• Dr. Ms. K. Sheela, Dean, College of Home Science, CAU, Tura shared about the technology developed for natural dyes production and has a potential of being commercialized.

• Session III - Panel Discussion:  Response by Industry

• Initiating the proceeding of the session, Dr. R. Mirchandani thanked for the presentations made by the representative from the public institutes. While appreciating that diversified areas pertaining to crops, post harvest management, aquaculture, reducing risk, water harvest, etc. were covered, some topics like balanced nutrition of plant was also to be focused. He emphasized that there was a need to go for soil mapping / crop zoning based on location specific micronutrients. He reiterated that there were only scattered success stories of organic farming, and it was important to look for safe chemicals on top of organic cultivation.
   
• Mr V K Browning, Vice-president, TAFE, opined that for the success of any project it was important to focus on following before the start of any project?
  
  How am I going to market the research output?
  
  Is it commercially viable?
   
• Mr M Varshney opined that research institutes should take up research and focus on cost effective solution while scaling up must be taken up by the Industry. Once solution has been established, it should be tested for scaling up through CII. He opined that even at research planning stage, industry should be involved. Further he added that forecasting and prediction were also very important component of modern agriculture.
   
• In concluding remark, Dr S N Puri highlighted that while going for entrepreneurship development, it was important to make an inbuilt mechanism for financial aspect. He emphasized that it was very difficult to get the bank loan without mortgaging any property and the fresh Agricultural Graduates were deprived of the loan facilities provided by the financial institutions. He stressed that there should also be some provision to help young entrepreneurs. In the last, Dr Puri emphasized for the better coordination and collaboration between researchers and industry to bring the desired growth in the region.
   
• Mr R Vaidyanthan, Director, CII thanked all the participants from the research institutes and industry for giving valuable inputs. He specially thanked organizing committee members of College of Fisheries, Central Agricultural University for their contribution in organizing the Meet.

CII, in partnership with State Agriculture Universities (SAU) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) organized the SAU ICAR CII Industry Meet (Eastern Region), third in the series, at College of Fisheries, Central Agricultural University, Lembucherra, Agartala (Tripura) on 3 July 2012.  All the universities related to agricultural education and research in the region including state agricultural universities & Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi and all the ICAR institutes of the region were invited to participate in the meet.  Progressive farmers, academicians, entrepreneurs, researchers and industry members participated in the programme and discussed the strategy for the growth of agricultural sector. Coinciding with the Meet, an Exhibition focussing on technologies offered by the State Agricultural Universities, ICAR Institutions and the Industry was also organised.