Hyderabad: ICRISAT turns spotlight on sustainable farming

To strengthen collaboration between India and the UK's scientific institutions and to further strengthen collaboration specifically in agriculture research, over 50 early career researchers, from both within and beyond TIGR2ESS, are receiving training in key research skills, and a fellowship program will soon be rolled out.

Hyderabad: Around a hundred scientists from varied disciplines, gathered in the city to discuss an India-UK joint research programme, called for more inter-disciplinary research to make Indian agriculture sustainable in a changing world and to ensure food security.

The first General Assembly of TIGR2ESS (Transforming India's Green Revolution by Research and Empowerment for Sustainable food Supplies), a UK-India research program that began in the year 2018 and brought over 20 research institutions together, is underway at ICRISAT from January 20 to 24.

"The General Assembly is an important milestone for TIGR2ESS, affording us an opportunity to strengthen the interdisciplinary nature of our research and put in place plans with tangible outcomes for positive agricultural and socio-economic change in India," said Professor Howard Griffiths, Principal Investigator for the TIGR2ESS program and the University of Cambridge's advocate in Cambridge-India relations.

Crop scientists, sociologists, biologists, nutrition experts, and archaeologists, among others, are discussing the way ahead for the programme. These questions are being answered by six distinct, but fully integrated, flagship projects which are heavily reliant on research collaborations, exchanges, and women empowerment.

Dr Rajeev Gupta, a co-lead in Flagship Project 2, noted that the multidisciplinary approach of TIGR2ESS is crucial for India's Green Revolution to reach the next level. "Screening of several hundred lines of sorghum and pearl millet for water use efficiency is among the many areas where the project has made progress since its inception," Dr Gupta, a Principal Scientist at ICRISAT who oversees genomics and crop trait discovery, said.

To strengthen collaboration between India and the UK's scientific institutions and to further strengthen collaboration specifically in agriculture research, over 50 early career researchers, from both within and beyond TIGR2ESS, are receiving training in key research skills, and a fellowship program will soon be rolled out with India's Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR) which will facilitate 30 Indian researchers to undertake research work at crop science universities in the UK for two years.