In News: Recently, CSIR Floriculture Mission has been approved for implementation in 21 States and Union Territories of India wherein available knowledge base in CSIR Institutes will be utilized and leveraged to help Indian farmers and industry reposition itself to meet the import requirements. The Minister was addressing the gathering at the launch of “CSIR Floriculture Mission” through virtual mode.
About Floriculture Mission:
- Mission Launched by: Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)
- Mission Implemented in collaboration with:
- Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR),
- Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC),
- Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA),
- Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Ltd. (TRIFED),
- Fragrance and Flavour Development Centre (FFDC) and
- Universities.
- Scientists of CSIR laboratories across the country have been asked to develop the land available at each laboratory to be set up as a model under the “CSIR Floriculture Mission”.
- Mission knowledge base of the CSIR Institutes will be utilized and leveraged to help Indian farmers and industry reposition itself to meet the import requirements.
- Mission focuses on commercial floral crops, seasonal or annual crops, wild ornaments and cultivation of flower crops for honey bee rearing.
Significance of the Mission:
- Import Substitution: At least 1200 million USD worth of floriculture products are being imported by India every year from different countries.
- Agro Climatic diversity: India has diverse agro-climatic and edaphic conditions (physical, chemical, and biological properties of soil), and rich plant diversity, still it shares only 0.6% of the global floriculture market.
- Raising Income: Floriculture has the potential to provide employment to a large number of people through nursery raising, floriculture farming, entrepreneurship development for nursery trade, value addition and export.
Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)
- Established by the Government of India in September 1942 as an autonomous body.
- Ministry: Ministry of Science & Technology.
- Known for its cutting edge research and development knowledge base in diverse science and technology areas.
- Ranked first in the Nature Ranking Index-2020.
- The Nature Index provides close to a real-time proxy of high-quality research output and collaboration at the institutional, national and regional level.
Source: PIB
