Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar on Thursday said the country that is moving towards Atmanirbhar Bharat should become self sufficient in raw cashewnut production too. More efforts were needed to expand area under cashew cultivation for this purpose, he said. Inaugurating the silver jubilee building of ICAR-Directorate of Cashew Research, Puttur, in virtual mode, Mr. Tomar said there was urgent need to come out with technologies to make India self-sufficient in raw cashew. Though India produces 7.5 lakh tonnes of raw cashew, it heavily depends on imported nuts to cater to the needs of processing industries. Commending the directorate for releasing many cashew varieties, Mr. Tomar said scientists should research to give technologies like high-density planting, high yielding varieties, and better cultivation practices so that farmers are benefited and get better income. Cashew processing industry, by giving more employment opportunities to women laborers, has been remarkable in contributing towards “Mahila Sashaktikaran†(Women Empowerment), the Minister said. Speaking on the occasion, Minister of State Shobha Karandlaje congratulated the staff of the directorate and cashew farmers for having got the new infrastructure. She highlighted the problems faced by cashew farmers and industrialists and told that the Directorate should conduct further research and come out with high yielding, bold nut type varieties so that farmers could get better price. Another Minister of State Kailash Choudhary said there existed a wide scope for area expansion and efforts should be made to disseminate new technologies to farmers under ‘lab to land’ concept of the Prime Minister. He said nearly 10,000 FPOs (Farmer Producer Organisations) were being promoted and cashew farmers also would be eligible for special FPOs. Indian Council of Agricultural Research Director General Trilochana Mohapatra said the directorate has made considerable contribution to development of cashew in India since its inception in 1986. Three new cashew varieties were recently released, two of them could produce bold nuts and one was a dwarf variety. Having a huge germplasm collection of over 550 genotypes, the directorate has the potential to come out with better high yielding varieties to add to countries cashew production. Earlier, A.K. Singh, Deputy Director (Horticulture), gave a brief introduction about the directorate and the new building. T.N. Raviprasad, Acting Director, DCR, Puttur expressed his gratitude to people who were instrumental in getting the building.