Minister for Agriculture, Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjura today flagged-off two groups of farmers comprising of 188 progressive farmers from Jammu Division for participating in Krishi Unnati Mela IARI Pusa New Delhi being held from March 15 to 17 and Kissan Mela on 15th of March at KVK Gurdaspur, Punjab respectively. The Minister also flagged-off a group of 30 progressive vegetable growers of Block Marh under Chief Minister’s Special Project-Intensive Vegetable Development Cluster to Punjab Agriculture University Ludhiana for a study visit.Interacting with the farmers, Mr Hanjura urged them to take full advantage of the tour and extensively interacting with the experts to knowhow the latest and innovative techniques in farming and enhancing the crop production. He impressed upon them to get themselves equipped with the knowledge and latest technical know-how for boosting the productivity by adopting the multi-cropping system. He said that the main objective of such visits is to acquaint the farmers with latest techniques, methods and machinery to be used for agricultural activities and enhancing the efficiency, general awareness of cash crops, saving time and money through improved practices by the farming community and such opportunities definitely prove quite useful for them.
The Minister said government always gives thrust for organizing such interactive inter-State, inter-region tours for the farmers on regular basis to instill exposure of latest equipment, fertilizers, organic farming, water conservation, vegetable cultivation and marketing to increase their income. He hoped that the visiting farmers will avail benefits of the study tour and attain technical knowhow about modern farming. On the occasion, the farmers put forth some demands including waiving off KCC loans, up-gradation of irrigation facilities, and implementation of Crop Insurances Scheme and Old Age Scheme for farmers. The Minister gave them patient hearing and assured to examine these on merit.At Krishi Unnati Mela, the main attraction will be on Digitization in agriculture, organic farming, agri-business models, precision farming, skill building and entrepreneurship development, live demonstration on production technologies of crops, integrated farming system, protected cultivation, farmers visit to experimental fields of IARI, water use technology: Micro Irrigation and sensor based irrigation system, recycling of waste water for agriculture, display and sale of various farm equipments, bio-fertilizers, agro-chemicals, innovative farmers products and machinery and on spot soil and water testing.
The farmers group will also attend different Kissan Goshtis and recognition to innovative farmers. Besides interaction with the experts and scientists the farmers will also get a chance to interact and meet their fellow farmers and progressive and innovative farmers of other states. The farmer at Kissan Mela KVK Gurdaspur will also visit Choudhary Shravan Kumar Himachal Pradesh Krishi Vishavavidhalaya (CSKHPKV) Palampur to know about various aspects of organic farming, bee keeping, drip & sprinkler irrigation. The farmers group will also be taken on tour to CSIR- Institute of Himalayan Bio-resource Technology (IHBT) Centre at Plampur (HP) to learn about Bamboo Cultivation, Tissue Culture, Floriculture and Extraction of Rose Flower Extract. The farmers group will also attend the expert lectures on different topics at IHBT.Director Agriculture Jammu, Joint Director of Agriculture (Extension) Jammu, besides other Senior Officers of the department were also present on the occasion.