<p>Nataraj Karaba, Professor and Head of Crop Physiology, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru, on Tuesday emphasised the need to go for genetic engineering techniques to develop superior varieties of cashew.Delivering the 39th Foundation Day lecture at the Directorate of Cashew Research (DCR), Puttur, in Dakshina Kannada, he said that the hologenome concept which has helped in other crops may also help cashew in exploring better-performing cashew cultivars.</p> <p>In his virtual address, S.K. Singh, Deputy Director General (Horticultural Science), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Delhi, said that farm scientists should come out with new technologies to face the challenges of modern-day cashew farmers. </p> <p>Expectations of the cashew industry for increasing the total yield, biotic and abiotic stress experienced by the crop, and getting better prices for the farmers need to be addressed urgently. There is a need to take the modern farming system to the farmers using improved technologies and encourage value addition in the form of developing and marketing a variety of by-products to enhance farmers’ income, he said.</p> <p>Dinakar Adiga, Director, DCR, in his introductory remarks, recollected how the directorate has grown to cater to the needs of cashew farmers in the last four decades. He explained the various technologies and varieties developed by the DCR for cashew farmers.</p> <p>The award for best research paper of DCR was given to Manjunath and his team for their studies on the mechanisation of cashew nut separation.</p> <p>Different publications of the institute on cashew processing, agribusiness entrepreneurship, and transfer of technology were released on the occasion.</p> <p>A web application ‘Cashew Farmers Tracking System (CFTS)’ was also released on the occasion. This application would help cashew farmers to get details of the purchased varieties and the database would help the institute to track the farmers up to their village level.</p> <p>Gopalkrishna Kamath, a member of the Institute Management Committee of DCR and a cashew processor by profession, said that there was a big gap in demand for raw cashew nut by the industry and its production in the country. The industry and research fraternity together need to work to overcome this barrier, he said.</p> <p> </p>