Director-general of ICAR Mangla Roy inaugurates a poultry centre at BAU on Sunday. Picture by Manik Bose

Ranchi, Feb. 8: Birsa Agriculture University (BAU), Ranchi, is well on the path to take its annual piglet production from 600 to over 2,000 per year, thanks to a mega seed project funded by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi.

Director-general of ICAR Mangala Rai today inaugurated the project at BAU. This is the first ICAR-funded programme in the country.

Under this project, ICAR has agreed to provide Rs 1.31 crore to the institute that has to meet an annual target of producing 900 piglets. However, dean of Ranchi Veterinary College, BAU, A.K. Sinha said that they intended to produce at least an 1,400 additional piglets each year. The programme will end in 2012.

“The more the farmers are encouraged to set up piggeries, the faster would be their economic growth given the ever-increasing demand for pig meat. A local variety of pig comes to weigh 35kg in a year though a new variety of pigs, termed T&D, developed by BAU weighs more than 135kg in the same period,” Rai said.

The ICAR director-general also promised a centre of international excellence with additional funds, an international hostel to attract boys and girls from other countries, a specialised fisheries college and more grant for ongoing research projects. However, he lamented that the state government has done little for agriculture studies.

The head of the department of animal nutrition, Ranchi Veterinary College, Sant Kumar Singh said that BAU receives an annual demand of 1 crore piglets of the T&D variety, a cross breed between the local variety and the British Tamworth breed.