Presently, value addition of the produce and utilizing the crop residues is attaining high priority. Secondary Agriculture is high value addition to primary agriculture. It helps in using all parts of an agricultural produce (e.g. crop residues, animal hair, bones, viscera, etc), processing to enhance shelf-life, increasing total factor productivity, and generating additional jobs and income for farmers. Certain alternative agriculture activities like lac culture, beekeeping, mushroom cultivation, agri-tourism, etc, also fall under the ambit of secondary agriculture. By-products from agricultural crops, if processed appropriately for deriving industrial products could pave a way in getting better economic returns from agriculture. The advancement in technologies, equipment, and processes would enable enhanced secondary agriculture practices giving range of materials of better quality, yield, nutrition, and convenience. Hence, the secondary agriculture and the bioprocessing have potential to give a strong boost to the economy, societal status and environmental protection.
Keeping in view the importance of secondary agriculture in rural industrialization in order to improve farmer’s income, it was proposed to further widen the mandate of the IINRG. Therefore, the Governing Body of ICAR Society in its 256th meeting approved the proposal and the new name of the Institute as National Institute of Secondary Agriculture. Consequent to this decision of the Council, Indian Institute of Natural Resins and Gums has been rechristened as National Institute of Secondary Agriculture (NISA) w.e.f. September, 20, 2022.
Though, the institute would keep on working on the production and value edition of natural resins and gums, widening of the mandate would bring a lot of new responsibilities and open newer vistas of research. The institute would need to set its priorities and focus on value addition of prioritized commodities, sustainable utilization of the by-products and waste minimization to substantially reduce the environmental pollution besides creating wealth from the waste. Mere change in name will not enthuse and create newer opportunities – strengthening of the research infrastructure and required additional manpower dedicated to secondary agriculture and establishing regional stations in different agro-climatic regions would be the first requisite to bring out positive outcome in the near future.
NISA would surely get success in its prime objective of increasing the income of Indian farming household by making money out of the underutilized agricultural products. It will become a world class institute in secondary agriculture in the time to come.