The School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Lovely Professional University organized ‘Seminar on Agriculture and Biodiversity' for farmers of various villages at Sh Baldev Raj Mittal Auditorium of the university. Organization was held in collaboration with Punjab Biodiversity Board, Chandigarh and was sponsored by National Biodiversity Authority, Government of India. The theme of the seminar was “Our Biodiversity, Our Food, Our Health”. For this, more than 120 farmers from more than 20 villages like Kultham, Mehli, Talwandi Jattan, Ghumna, Daduwal, Mehtan, Hardaspur, etc participated and got awakened about the importance of medicinal plants and soil testing practices. Students from the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Agriculture, Basic Sciences, Bioscience and Biotechnology also participated in the seminar.The lecture on importance of medicinal plants, their cultivation and processing was delivered by renowned experts from the related government agencies and agriculture industry. Laying special emphasis on the various techniques used in Animal Husbandry, Dr Ajitpal Singh Dhaliwal (Animal Husbandry Specialist) from Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Bathinda educated the farmers about practicing dairy farming, poultry farming and pig farming efficiently.
The farmers were also trained for “best practices for soil testing” by Sh Pankaj Vijayvergia (In-charge) from National Fertilizer Limited, Jalandhar for estimation of minerals such as sodium, potassium and phosphorous. They were told about various upcoming beneficial policies of the government for their betterment and instructed to provide soil samples from their fields for which the report and certificate will be provided to them after testing by NFL, Jalandhar. Towards the end, cultivation of medicinal plants by the esteemed guests, farmers and LPU staff was done at the “Herbal Garden” of School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, LPU.The farmers appreciated the advanced endeavours of LPU in the field of agriculture. Emphasising upon the importance of domestic farming, Dr Amarjit Singh Sandhu (Vegetable Specialist) from Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Bhatinda said: “It is essential to revive domestic farming in order to fulfil the domestic needs and decrease dependency on the markets.”LPU Senior Dean Dr Monica Gulati shared: “Non-availability of quality planting material and guidance for their cultivation are the major constraints coming in the way of commercialisation of traditional Indian medicine. It is very important to create awareness amongst our major stakeholders i.e. farmers regarding biodiversity of medicinal plants and their cultivation. LPU is proud to host such events that help the farmers to stay updated with recent farming techniques and government policies.”