Welcome to Agri Vision-2025
Dr. Gyanendra Pratap Singh, a well-known wheat breeder, took over the charge of Director of National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources on 28 October 2022. Prior to this, he was leading the ICAR-Indian Institute of Wheat & Barley Research, Karnal, since 2016. He graduated from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in 1984 with Malaviya Gold Medal. Dr. Singh completed post-graduation in 1988 from BHU in the field of genetics and plant breeding. He awarded doctoral degree from CSAUA&T, Kanpur in 1992 in the field of genetics and plant breeding. He is an accomplished and dedicated agricultural researcher & manager having a rich experience on wheat-based system perspective spanning over three decades. Holding the current position of research manager for the national wheat & barley improvement programme, Dr. Singh had the opportunity to plan, redefine the programme objectives and activities based on the vision 2050, ground realties and feedback of stakeholders which led the country to reach an all-time highest wheat production consecutively for the past 5 years.
Dr. Singh is instrumental in the development of 65wheat (11 biofortified varieties) and 03 barley varieties and 01 potato variety benefitting multitude farmers, consumers and industries. He is the main force behind the development and fast spreading of improved wheat technologies including DBW 187, and DBW 222, HD 2967, HD 3086, and DBW 173 as these are readily adopted by farmers as evident from top breeder seed indent and also large number of licensing (950 licenses) through institute’s business incubation model. Dr. Singh took painstaking efforts in successful mitigation of wheat blast threat in India through pre-emptive breeding and surveillance programme by initiating a strong coordination among ICAR, DARE, DAC&FW, SDA and WB government.
Dr. Singh largely focused in intrinsic research on heat and drought tolerance for wheat improvement in India and developed many climate resilient wheat varieties. He also the leader of the cutting edge technologies like Marker Assisted Recurrent Selection and Precision Phenotyping for heat and drought tolerance. He executed more than 10 externally funded projects apart from institute funded projects, majorly focusing on drought and heat tolerance of wheat. Published more than 300 research articles of national and international repute with high impact factors, 23 books, 65 book chapters, 57 technical bulletins, 55 popular articles, 05 Policy/Strategy papers. His strenuous efforts on advancing the R&D led to several accolades at national and international level by honoring with 17 awards. He also a fellow of three academy and 03 registered scientific societies i.e. NASI, INSA, NAAS, ISGPB, SAWBAR, and SSDAT.
Dr GP Singh has a vast experience of about three decades working in ICAR. He has been a wheat breeder at IARI as Senior Scientist (2001-2008) and Principal Scientist (2009-2016) with a focus on abiotic stress and physiological phenotyping with the help of marker assisted methodologies.
His enormous contributions have been recognized with many awards and honours including: Dr. Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Award, 2015; Dr. Nanaji Deshmukh Team Award, 2018; BGRI Gene Stewardship Award, 2018; Dr. AB Joshi Memorial Award, 2020; Dr Amrik Singh Cheema Memorial Award, 2019; Agricultural Leadership Award by National Educational Empowerment and Development Foundation, 2019; Outlook Outstanding Scientist Award, 2020; Dr. B.P. Pal Gold Medal Award, 2016; V.S. Mathur Memorial Award 2014; Indian Society of Genetics and Plant Breeding, New Delhi; AISA National Award for Outstanding Leadership in Agriculture, 2019; Best Scientist Award Young Farmers Association, 2019; Dr. G B Deodikar Memorial Oration Award, Agharkar Research Institute, Maharashtra Association of Cultivation of Science, 2020; Mahendra Samridhi Award, 2016 and 2020.