Anup Karwa receiving award from Dr John Holdren at the 3rd Indo-US JCM Ceremony.
Indo-US Joint Commission Meeting (JCM) on Science and Technology held on 17th November, 2014 at New Delhi co-chaired by Mr Y S Chowdary, minister of state for science and technology, government of India and Dr John Holdren, director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, USA conferred a certificate of appreciation for scientific innovation to Dr Anup Karwa of SFPL Crop Life Sciences (P), Jalna for the project to develop a technology that confers stress tolerance in crops. The event was attended by several eminent dignitaries of DST, DBT, CSIR, Technology Development Board, USAID, Indo-US S&T Forum and other ministries. Prof. K VijayRaghavan, secretary of Department of Biotechnology (DBT), government of India was also present.
The Indo-US JCM awarded most innovative bilateral projects of India and USA that can potentially revolutionize the social entrepreneurship and offer innovation driven solution to tackle problems of this century, from which SFPL's technology mitigates impact of climate and enables the crops to flourish under different stresses.
The product enables a broad-spectrum of agricultural crops to flourish under areas of drought, extreme temperatures and saline soils. The first field trials on Cotton, Maize, Okra and Onion yielded 18-22 percent extra over the control plots under stressed conditions like limited water. This product strategy is set to enhance below and above ground crop biomass under stress conditions by improving water and nutrient use efficiency of plants thereby giving additional earnings to the farmers.
"We are pleased to receive this prestigious recognition which motivates us to develop indigenous biological technology solutions that can address agriculture productivity especially due to erratic climate scenario faced by tropical countries. SFPL envisage to commercialize novel biological products tailored for Indian farming community", said Mr Sharad Lahoti- Director of SFPL.
