3-day symposium on entomology begins

Rajendranagar: The knowledge of advanced science and technology should be effectively utilized in research on a wider scale, stressed Dr. SN Puri, president at Entomology Society of India, here on Monday. Puri participated as a chief guest at Prof. Jayashankar Telangana Agricultural Univesity, after inaugurating a three-day symposium on ‘Entomology 2018: advancement and challenges’, jointly organised by the university, entomology society and plant protection society.

Plant protection scientists should play a key role in ensuring increased income of farmers, Puri said. He urged them to pay attention to the damage caused by pests in fields and to know how to save crops and by reducing crop losses suffered by farmers due to lack of storage facilities He gave a call for sustained efforts to strengthen research on the use of insects in raising various food products and their utility values.’ This would help overcome problems in the export of farmers ’produce’.

Dr. Raghuvardhan Reddy, former VC of the university, and president of Agri-Biotech Foundation, who was the chief guest at the inaugural function, suggested to scientists to strive to reduce the investment expenditure incurred by farmers, while using insecticide on crops. ‘Scientists should adopt inter-disciplinary approach’. Dr V Praveen Rao, vice chancellor of the university, called for digitization of topics involved in protecting crops. ‘This would pave the way for farmers to tide over the crisis caused by pests in less time’, he said. He observed that use of insecticide in the country was less than that in vogue abroad. At the same time, there was a need for giving sound technical advice to riots on misuse of pesticides.