Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers welfare Gajendra Singh Shekhawat Tuesday kick started two days workshop on ‘Olive Research and Development in India’ at ICAR-Central Institute of Temperate Horticulture Srinagar.The workshop was organized by Oilseeds Division, Department of Agriculture and Corporation & Farmers Welfare and ICAR-Central Institute of Temperate Horticulture Srinagar.Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers welfare was the Chief Guest and other dignitaries who participated in the inaugural session were Sunil Kumar Sharma, Minister of State for Transport, Revenue, Public Works, Rural Development & Panchayati Raj, Agriculture Production, J & K, Dalgit Singh Chib, Vice Chairman, Kisan Advisory Board, J & K, Prof. Nazeer Ahmed, Vice Chancellor, SKUAST (K), Shalimar, Srinagar, Dr W. S. Dhillon, Assistant Director General, Horticulture Science, ICAR-New Delhi, Dr Rajbir Singh, Director ATARI, Ludhiana, Dr A. A. Sofi, Former Director ICAR-CITH, Srinagar, Dr Anupam BARIK, Additional Commissioner (OS), DAC&FEW, New Delhi, officials from SKUAST (K), Srinagar, IARI, New Delhi, State Horticulture Department J& K, State Agriculture Department J & K, participants and farmers from different states like Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir etc.
Dr Desh Beer Singh, Director, CITH, Srinagar welcomed all the dignitaries and participants and gave detailed information on research and development done by the institute on olive and also imposes the possibilities of olive cultivation in other parts of the country. Dr W. S. Dhillon, ADG, Horticulture, ICAR, New Delhi in his remarks gave detailed information on the horticulture production and potential in the country. He emphasis upon the need to production of quality planting material in olive for large scale production and popularization.Gejendra Singh Shekhawat, Hon’ble MoS for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in his address gave the projections of agriculture production and productivity of the country to meet the demand of the nation. He pointed out the role of research and development for combating the challenges faced the farmers in past like Bengal famine etc. He praised the performance of agriculture, fisheries, horticulture and other sectors for record production during current year but still there is a scope for further improvement to meet the ultimate demand of the nation. He pointed out that India is importing about 68% of cooking oil and thus there is the challenge for farmers and scientists to decrease the import of cooking oil and make the availability of the cooking oil sufficient to feed the nation. In his address he said that olive oil consumption has increased five times from last ten years and there is large probability for enhancing its acceptability due to high value index. Thus it becomes challenge for scientists to produce the quality planting material and work on different research aspects of olive for making it a success story for lost of the states in the nation. India has a vast potential for olive cultivation which need to be tapered by the joint efforts of scientists and farmers. At the ned he praised the efforts made by the scientists of ICAR-CITH, Srinagar for the olive cultivation under Kashmir conditions a success story. (CNS)