fish in the basket
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1970S
The Indian government is preparing an export-oriented policy for fisheries with a special emphasis on inland fishery, which has a share of only 2 per cent in India’s overall export in the sector, said Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh. He asked Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to take its technologies to doorstep of every fisherman so that real economic benefits reach the fish farmers.
The minister said transport is a major bottleneck for making inland fisheries connected with the export hub and asked ICAR to study if using drones for transporting the products and inputs for farming could be a solution. Officials cited an instance of shrimp farming in Haryana’s Sirsa and other districts where seeds are procured from Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu and then, they are picked up from the Delhi airport and transported directly to fish ponds.
The minister said fishery export in 2025-26 jumped by about Rs 10,000 crore to more than Rs 72,000 crore and credited India’s free trade agreements (FTAs) with several countries on achieving the success.
Next 2 years target
Addressing the foundation day event of ICAR, Singh credited ICAR’s scientists for providing necessary technologies to make India the largest producer of milk and the second biggest in fisheries in the world. He assured that his Ministry would release more funds to ICAR to carry on the research projects provided the technologies reach farmers.
Speaking on the occasion, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan set some targets for ICAR scientists to achieve in next two years when it celebrates its 100th Foundation Day in 2028.
Chouhan asked for development of at least 100 climate-smart villages by the centenary as well as deployment of 100 young scientists to work on frontier areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, gene editing and climate-smart agriculture; each of ICAR’s 113 institutes and affiliated agricultural universities to develop one innovation with demonstrable national impact; and each ICAR institution to adopt one aspirational district and build a replicable model of agricultural transformation there.
Low pulses yield
He urged ICAR to intensify its efforts to raise productivity in pulses and oilseeds, without harping on genetically modified (GM) technology, where India continues to rely heavily on imports. “If countries without access to GM seeds can get better yields in pulses, why can’t India,” he asked.
Pointing out that once they get access to irrigation, farmers tend to shift towards rice and wheat, and it was a trend witnessed across Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha and other parts of eastern India as irrigation coverage expanded, pushing the country to depend on pulses imports to meet demand.
Terming the low productivity of 5 quintals per acre in tur, urad and moong as a major challenge, he asked ICAR’s Director General M L Jat to find a solution. Commenting on Jat’s suggestions on making India self-sufficient in fertilisers, Chouhan assured the audience that he would take it up with Finance Minister Nirmala Sithamaran.
Crop diversification
The Agriculture Minister said that though India’s crops production has risen, the focus should now shift to quality.
Addressing the event, Jat said ICAR would push for crop diversification under a roadmap for 2047, which is prepared in consultation with NITI Aayog, in which area under rice, wheat will be reduced and maize, nutritional cereals, pulses and horticulture crops would be expanded.
To fructify Chouhan’s suggestion of reorienting to demand-driven research, ICAR has formed 52 task teams cutting across its divisions and institutions, each working under a defined theory of change framework, Jat said.
Doubling output
He said ICAR is working on meeting a target of 2.1 billion tonnes of agriculture production by 2047 from current 1.3 billion tonnes. Similarly, horticulture production would be raised to 797 million tonnes from 369.7 million tonnes, milk to 628 million tonnes from 247.87 million tonnes, fisheries output to 40 million tonnes from 19.5 million tonnes, and agroforestry cover to 50 million hectares from 28.4 million hectares.
But, he said, to acheive the target there has to be an improvement in some key areas. Farm mechanisation needs to be raised to over 80 per cent by 2047 from current 47 per cent and nutrient use efficiency should more than double to 75 per cent from 35 per cent. Similarly, water use efficiency has to be raised to 40-80 per cent and post-harvest losses, should be brought down to zero from current 20 per cent, he said.
He said that ICAR has developed 386 crop varieties (already released) across 34 crops in 2025, including 94 per cent climate-resilient and 29 biofortified varieties. In horticulture, 117 varieties across 57 crops were released.
Published on July 16, 2026
