Training-cum-farmer’s hostel was inaugurated at ICAR-Directorate of Weed Research (DWR), Jabalpur by Shri Narendra Singh Tomar, Hon’ble Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Govt. of India on 26th February 2021 through virtual mode. The Union Minister said that ICAR-DWR is an unique Institute in the country, dedicatedly working on various dimensions of weed management. He emphasized that weeds are one of the major production constraints competing with crops for resources and sheltering various pests and causing significant reduction in crop yield and quality. He also stated about the dream of the Hon’ble Prime Minister for doubling the farmer’s income by 2022, and to achieve this goal we have to curtail the production cost and increase the productivity by efficient weed management. Training human resources is required to give momentum to the agricultural growth rate in the country. This could be possible if proper infrastructures are developed for training and capacity building. I am sure that the newly developed training-cum-farmer’s hostel at DWR, Jabalpur will surely be helpful to our farmers and other stakeholders to stay comfortably and learn the weed management technologies developed at the Directorate for improving their income.

On the occasion, Shri Kailash Choudhary, Hon’ble Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Govt. of India stressed that the newly developed facility at ICAR-DWR will surely provide the opportunity to our farmers to stay and learn the weed management technologies. He also detailed that weeds are like ‘Bin Bulaya Mehman’ and causing tremendous yield loss and therefore, efficient weed management technologies need to be developed and disseminated.

Dr. T. Mohapatra, Secretary (DARE) & Director General, (ICAR) in his welcome address highlighted the importance of weeds and how they siphon the various resources and compete with the crops and causing yield and economic loss. ICAR-DWR has been established and researching various aspects of weed management since 1989. Based on research, weeds are causing a yield loss of Rs 70,000 crores per annum in ten major field crops he added. Under changing climatic scenario, the knowledge about behaviour of the weeds is important and research work is already in progress in this direction. He also expressed that the facility developed at the Directorate of Weed Research, Jabalpur will be very useful to the farmers, scientists, KVK personals and others to stay and learn about weed management technologies. The overall programme was organized under the supervision of Dr. S. K. Chaudhari, DDG (NRM). At the end, Dr. J.S. Mishra, Director, ICAR-DWR, Jabalpur proposed the vote of thanks.