300 varieties of paddy on display

BANGALORE: In a bid to generate awareness among paddy growers to return to the traditional way of growing paddy, the Kisan Morcha, a wing of BJP has organise a two-day conference at Palace Grounds starting from Friday.Inaugurating the conference, Dharmendra Pradhan, National General Secretary, BJP spoke about the weakness of national policy for farmers. “The old traditional paddy and its sowing process needs to be revived, as these varieties are not found else where, except in India. Though the yield will be lesser by about 5-6 percent, the advantage is, these old varieties do not have glucose content. They are good for consumption for diabetes and obese patients” said Narayan Reddy.He said, “Through this conference we are trying to show discontentment with the Seed Bill 2011.“According to the Seed Bill, farmers cannot exchange their seeds, which is against the development of farmers.” Further, the government should take up measures to educate farmers about the traditional varieties of paddy," he added.Around 300 traditional varieties of paddy from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Pondicherry, Maharashtra and Goa are on display.Dehele Basmati, Mulu Batta, Zeeriga Sanna (the smallest paddy variety found in India) were among the few varieties of paddy that were displayed during the inauguration of the two-day conference in city.