Minister for Agriculture Production, Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjura, today chaired an officers meeting to assess the achievements of agriculture department in implementation of various farmer welfare schemes for 2015-16.
The Minister was apprised of the performance of the department through a PowerPoint Presentation that focused on varied sub sectors of agriculture department like seed replacement, rate of major crops, quality control laboratories, State seed testing laboratory, law enforcement, agri-diversification under vegetable production, mushroom cultivation and apiculture growth. Hanjura took stock of progress on various centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) and their growth scenario in the state viz., Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), National Vegetable Initiative for Urban Clusters, National Mission on Saffron Extension Reform Scheme (ATMA) and Soil Health management. He expressed satisfaction over significant achievement registered in Jammu under New mushroom Units, strengthening of old mushroom units, bee keeping units and apiculture diagnostic van.
The Minister asked pertinent questions to assess the ground situation of agriculture sector in Jammu region and impressed upon the officers to work out latest technological innovations to further streamline the department. He reviewed the performance of fertilizer testing lab and directed the officers to ensure timely testing of all samples so that the farmers would be able benefitted to the optimum.He exhorted upon need of improving certain aspects of law enforcement wing as the sampling and testing of fertilizers, pesticides and seeds indicate the quality of these products to the farmers. He said that the government would explore possibilities of establishing fertilizer testing lab at Lakhanpur.He directed the department to extend the area under Suchetgarh Basmati Rice Cluster (SBRC) pilot project to more villages by incorporating more farmers of the region to shift to organic cultivation of Basmati. He instructed the department to issue utilization certificates in time enabling the government to get more funds from Central Kitty under various CSSs.
“Shrinking agriculture lands is a big challenge and the government is working under a well knit programme to deal with this threat and achieve self sufficiency in agricultural yield”, the Minister asserted. He further directed the department to utilize the services of Rehbar- e- Ziarat to survey villages on yearly basis regarding area of land and crop under cultivation and table the report within a month’s time. He urged for increase in productivity levels through timely intervention of the department which must involve field visits and interaction with farmers for direct solutions to the problems faced by the farmers.Later, the Minister inspected departmental poly green house established to popularize and achieve precision farming and provide farmers with model to demonstrate the benefits of high value vegetable crops like cherry tomato, seedless cucumber, and coloured capsicum etc.The Minister urged upon the department to ensure that maximum farmers understand and accept this model to get the benefit of seed hybrids, judicious fertilizer usage and other technological interventions through numerous awareness programme.
The Minister said that Centres of Excellence (CEVs) will be established at Jammu and Srinagar for the training and the facilities of the vegetable growers of our state.The Minister also visited the seed processing wing of the department and took a detailed account of quality certification of the seeds for increasing the yield in the state. He also took stock of functioning of the godowns established for storage of certified seeds.Among others present in the meeting were Director Agriculture Jammu, Dr SS Jamwal, Joint Director Agriculture (inputs), Sudesh Koul, Joint Director Agriculture (Extension) Ashish Malhotra, Joint Director (SLUB) S R Galotra, Chief Agriculture officers, Agronomist Vegetable, Agriculture Chemist, Agriculture Research Engineer and other Sectoral officers of the department.