New Delhi: IFFCO (Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Indian ICAR (Council of Agricultural Research) on Monday. This MoU has been signed between two organisations for joint research in Nano Fertilizers. The MoU has been signed by ICAR's Director Dr Ashok Kumar Singh and IFFCO's Director (Marketing) Yogendra Kumar in presence of Dr BS Dwivedi (HoD – Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry) ICAR, Dr Vinod Kumar Singh (Head & Principal Scientist – Agronomy) from IARI-Pusa and New Delhi were also present. This information has been shared by IFFCO's Managing Director (MD) Dr US Awasthi on twitter.
Nano fertilizers are different from traditional chemical fertilizers in nutrition value and in terms of environmental and ecological consequences. This MoU is supposed to offer an unprecedented opportunity of research in nano fertilizers to develop concentrated sources of plant nutrients having higher-absorption rate, utilization efficacy, and minimum losses.
Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO)
Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) is a multi-state cooperative society engaged in the business of manufacturing and marketing of fertilisers. It is headquartered in New Delhi. The company was started in 1967 with 57 member cooperatives it is today the biggest co-op in the world by turnover on GDP per capita with around 35,000 member cooperatives reaching over 50 million Indian farmers. With around 19 percent market share in urea and around 29 percent market share in complex fertilisers (P2O5 terms), IFFCO is India's largest fertiliser manufacturer.
The cooperative was ranked 66th on the Fortune India 500 list of India's biggest corporations as of 2017 with a net worth of $2.3 billion as on March 2018.
Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI)
The Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), commonly known as the Pusa Institute,[3] is India's National Institute for agricultural research, education and extension. The name Pusa Institute is derived from the fact that the institute was originally located in Pusa Bihar as the Imperial Institute of Agricultural Research in 1911. It was then renamed as the Imperial Agricultural Research Institute in 1919 and following a major earthquake in Pusa, it was relocated to Delhi in 1936. The current institute in Delhi is financed and administered by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). The IARI was responsible for the research leading to the "Green Revolution in India" of the 1970s.