The demand for more effective and sustainable agriculture, able to cope with the exponential increase in the human population and the constraints imposed by current climate changes, is growing in the ICGEB community. Genetic engineering of plants, development of eco-friendly biofertilisers, and other agricultural biotechnologies, together with molecular studies on the resistance of plants to biotic and abiotic stress, are among the most characteristic activities of the ICGEB New Delhi Component and the Bacteriology Group in Trieste (Venturi).
Three Research Groups in Delhi work to understand genes and molecules that could lead to improvement in food production and nutritional yield.
Three Groups in New Delhi address the problem of solving edible plant biotic and abiotic stress. The Plant Insect Interaction Group (Nair) studies the interaction of the rice plant with the Asian rice gall midge, an insect responsible for considerable yield loss for farmers in Asia and Africa.