There’s good news for farmers who are looking for quality seeds at their doorstep amid the 4.0 nationwide lockdown. As per reports, the Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR) in Bengaluru has launched a seed portal through which people living anywhere in the country can get quality seeds at their doorstep after paying online. Moreover, it’s the first such seed portal in India from a public sector unit in horticulture with a wide range of seeds which offers more than 60 high-yielding varieties of seeds for vegetables, flowers and fruit crops.
As per reports, though the ICAR-IIHR seed portal https://seed.iihr.res.in/ was launched by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Director-General Trilochan Mohapatra during the National Horticulture Fair organised by the institute on its campus this February, it has become functional now.
According to institute director M.R. Dinesh, the portal aims to take the institute’s quality seeds to even remote places of the country which do not have access to quality plant material through this portal. “This helps in increasing productivity of horticultural crops as all our seeds are high yielding and have resistance to several diseases,” he said.
Pointing out that IIHR has adopted a novel seed village concept of using skilled farmers to produce seeds, he said the income of farmers who are into seed production is also bound to increase thanks to the seed portal. Environment protection will also get a boost as the use of pesticides will reduce since IIHR varieties have resistance to many diseases, Mr. Dinesh said.
IIHR has branded all of its seeds with the prefix “Arka”
IIHR has branded all of its seeds with the prefix “Arka”, as it is located on the banks of river Arkavathi. Some of the popular varieties of vegetable crops developed by the IIHR include tomato (Arka Rakshak), chilli (Arka Meghana), onion (Arka Kalyan), ridge gourd (Arka Prasan), French beans (Arka Arjun), and okra (Arka Nikita and Arka Anamika).
