Minister for Agriculture, Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjura, today exhorted upon department officers to intensify facilitating efforts for welfare of farming community and work in targeted mode to achieve doubling of farmer’s income by year 2022.The Minister said this after jointly inaugurating the One day Exhibition cum Kisan Mela here today with Minister for Industries and Commerce Chander Prakash Ganga.The Exhibition cum Kissan Mela was organized by the agriculture department Samba under “Support to State Extension Reforms Mission on Agriculture Extension’’ (ATMA) with the active participation of agriculture and other allied departments. The mela saw participation by more than 1000 farmers.Stressing on the importance of such events, Hanjura said that these events play a major role in sensitizing farmers about new technologies, high yielding variety of seeds and other innovations being introduced in the sector besides providing better market exposure to the agriculture produce of the state.The Minister said the government is making all efforts for sustained growth of agriculture sector by introducing several innovative measures to enable farmers to get maximum returns from their land.Hanjura stressed upon the officers to ensure effective implementation of Government sponsored schemes meant for socio-economic transformation of farmer’s community.
“This will help in achieving the target of doubling the income of farmers by 2022”, he asserted.He maintained that agricultural marketing reforms are being worked out and stress is being laid on farmer-producer organizations for value addition and increasing farmer’s income. The Minster asserted that more such Melas would be organized at block and panchayat level to apprise the farmers about latest techniques being used in farming sector.Minister for Industries and Commerce Chander Parkash Ganga, addressing the gathering praised the department for organizing the mela in Samba. He said that these initiatives will help the farming community to get aware about the new agri technology that s available at their door step.He asked the institutions like SUKAST to ensure that the farmers are consistently apprised on new researches, technologies being developed by state agriculture scientists, so that they can utilize these in their farms and increase their productivity. Vice Chairman Jammu and Kashmir Advisory Board for Development of Kisans Daljeet Singh Chib, Vice Chairman Jammu and Kashmir Board for the Welfare of OBC Rashpaul Verma, District Development Commissioner, Samba Sheetal Nanda, Director Command Area Development Jammu Jitender Singh, Director Agriculture Jammu H.K. Razdan and other Officers of the Agriculture and Allied Departments were also present on the occasion.The dignitaries visited the various stalls highlighting the new technologies and achievements and inspected the live samples displayed by the farmers.