Bill Gates Visits IARI in Pusa, Shows Interest in Research on Climate Resilient Agriculture

On Wednesday, Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates visited the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, the seat of India's green revolution, and spent one and a half hours at the Pusa campus here in the national capital.

Co-chair and trustee of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, showed deep interest in agri-research programmes of IARI, particularly climate resilient agriculture and conservation agriculture

"It was a very great visit today. Bill Gates spent almost one and a half hours here. ...He was highly impressed with the national research programme in India. He said, 'I should invest in the national programme'," IARI Director A K Singh told media here.

Gates visited the IARI's climate change facility and saw how elevated level of carbon dioxide is being simulated and crops are grown in fields.

He also visited a programme on conservation agriculture in the maize-wheat cropping system. Gates showed deep interest in conservation agriculture because one of his goals is to address the problem of malnutrition globally, for which he is making investments in developing sustainable agriculture tools, Singh added.

Gates also saw drone technology, developed by IARI, for monitoring insects and diseases in the fields, as well as a programme on drought-tolerant chickpeas.

Asked if Gates promised funds, IARI Director said, "It is for us to move forward with proposals. We have quite a little funding from his foundation. These projects have to go to the next phase after five years. We did put it in his ears. He was very receptive." IARI has got funding for projects on the digitisation of plant breeding, using genome selection and human resources development in the field of new science like genome editing and so on.

-With PTI Inputs

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