European Union Delegation Visits ICAR-IARI

12 September 2025, New Delhi

Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi hosted the delegation from the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food at ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi today.

The European Union delegation on Agriculture and Food was led by Mr Christophe HANSEN, EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Food and the members Ms. Catherine Combette, Head, Unit, DG Agriculture; Ms. Maud Feuillet, Policy Officer, DG Agriculture; Mr. Pawel Stachowiak, Counsellor, EU Delegation to India; Akansha Bhushan, Trade Affairs Officer, EU Delegation to India.

Dr. M L Jat, Secretary, DARE and Director General (ICAR), chaired the meeting along with Dr D K Yadava, Deputy Director General (Crop Sciences), ICAR; Dr. Ch. Srinivasa Rao, Director, ICAR- IARI, New Delhi; Shri Abhishek Dev, Chairman APEDA Dr. A K Singh, Former Director ICAR-IARI & Emeritus Scientist; Dr. Viswanathan C, Joint Director (Research), ICAR-IARI, New Delhi and members of ICAR-IARI, APEDA and the rice industry.

Dr Jat in his remarks emphasized the need to take care of people, plant and profit to move towards sustainability with Basmati rice as an example. While praising the Basmati rice researchers for their enormous contributions in reducing duration with improved yields, he emphasized on the needs for periodic updating of Basmati rice varieties owing to the best practices adopted in development, testing and release of new Basmati rice varieties in India so that the small-scale farmers and the consumers can benefit as Basmati rice. Dr Jat also spoke about low carbon rice which is sustainably produced with lesser inputs as low carbon rice, and also the need for safe MRLs of pesticides rather than default limits or Codex levels without risking human health.

Dr DK Yadava, Deputy Director General (Crop Sciences), ICAR briefed the agenda for the meeting including the issue of listing of improved Basmati rice varieties, default MRLs of pesticide residues in EU, the overview of agricultural exports and the trade of organic products between EU and India.

Mr. Christophe Hansen applauded the research efforts towards sustainable production of Basmati rice in India and briefed on the status of GI of Basmati rice, the inclusion of improved Basmati rice varieties in view of the free trade agreement and the negotiations on organic products on the basis of mutually agreed equivalence.

Dr. Ch Srinivasa Rao, Director, ICAR-IARI, New Delhi welcomed the delegation and the participants and extended warm greetings to the delegates to the seat of green revolution and briefed the flagship role of ICAR-IARI in achieving food and nutritional security in India.

The delegation earlier visited the Basmati rice fields, where they were shown demonstrations of the Basmati rice varieties developed by ICAR-IARI.

(Source: ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi)