A lifetime achievement award was given to Dr. Bhawarlal Jain on the 22nd Feb 2020 posthumously, at a well-attended inaugural ceremony of the International Conference on Banana at Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, organised by ICAR-National Research Centre for Banana. The award was received by senior associates of the company. The function was attended by Deputy Director General Horticultural Sciences, ICAR, Dr. A. K. Singh, who gave away the award.
The function was also attended by Dr. K. Alagu Sundaram, Deputy Director General Agricultural Engineering, ICAR, Dr. N. Kumar, Vice Chancellor, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore Dr. N. K. Krishnakumar, Biodiversity International, New Delhi, Dr. W. S. Dhillon, Assistant Director General, Horticultural Sciences, ICAR and Dr. S. Uma, Director NRCB, Trichy.
The award comprised of a plaque, a certificate and a citation describing - Padmashree Dr. Bhavarlal Jain’s contribution to the Banana industry in India
‘Farmer First’ was the underlying theme with which Dr. Bhavarlal Jain has been working all these years that transformed Banana industry into an economically viable avocation for millions of farmers in the country.
Hailing from a sleepy village Wakod in Maharashtra, Dr. Jain felt that the banana growing techniques needed to be revamped urgently for its very survival in the country. This led to the introduction of tissue culture technology and internationally acclaimed Grand Naine variety into India, by him.
Scaling up the technology, taking it to the farmers’ fields and standardizing the package of practices with drip irrigation and fertilization, a silent revolution was in the making. Farmers incomes trebled and India soon featured as an important player on the World Banana map.
Every third banana fruit consumed in the country today is a tissue cultured banana thanks to Jain Irrigation founded by Dr. Bhavarlal Jain. Amazingly, over 80 million plantlets are annually delivered across the country bringing smiles to the faces of millions of banana farmers.
