International Livestock Research Institute and ICAR-Directorate of Poultry Research, Hyderabad collaborative five-day training program on “Advanced biotechnological approaches to augment productivity in poultry for ensuring food and nutritional security” was inaugurated at ICAR-DPR.
The Chief Guest, Dr. Bhupendra Nath Tripathi, Deputy Director General (Animal Science) applauded the alliance between ILRI and ICAR and appreciated the progress made in different collaborative projects. He complimented the team for organizing this training programme for the young faculty members of the NARS system at this juncture where characterization of the livestock and poultry of the nation is taken up in a mission mode. Dr. Tripathi urged the participants to make use of their knowledge gained in this programme and utilize various biotechnological tools for the characterization and genetic improvement of livestock and poultry for various economic traits. He also emphasized that the faculty should propose external funding for their research and also commercialization of the technologies. He urged to formulate multi-disciplinary projects with a holistic approach to address the problems of the industry and farmers.
Dr. H. Rahman, ILRI regional representative, South Asia, in his address elaborated on the long term association between ILRI and ICAR and its benefits to both organizations. He urged the participants of the programme to be more proactive and learn as much as possible and benefit from this advanced biotechnological training programme. He also suggested for exchange of germplasm between Indian and African countries as both experience similar agro-climatic zones.
Dr. Olivier H, Chief Geneticist, ILRI described the commonality between India and Africa in livestock rearing patterns, breed characteristics and ecological terrains. He urged for strengthening the collaboration in the Poultry sector between the two organizations for high quality research, technology dissemination and sharing of genetic resources.
Earlier, Dr. R. N. Chatterjee, Director, DPR, briefed about the various research, extension and capacity building activities being undertaken by the Institute, He said that working in isolation will not fetch better returns and collaboration on a global scale is the need of the hour to achieve solutions for the common challenges. Dr. Chatterjee opined that biotechnological approaches are the new paradigm to improve the productivity and performance of livestock and poultry as the traditional breeding approaches have almost reached a plateau. He urged young minds to make the best use of this opportunity.
Dr. T. K. Bhattacharya, Course Coordinator of the program presented a glimpse of the various activities to be covered during the five-day training program. He said that more emphasis was given to hands on training for the participants to learn the laboratory techniques.
A total of 20 participants from 10 SAUs, 5 ICAR institutes belonging to 13 different states participated in the training programme
The program was attended by the officials of ILRI, New Delhi, Hyderabad and scientists of the Directorate.
