The Punjab government led by chief minister Bhagwant Mann is taking concrete steps to pull out farmers from traditional wheat and paddy crop cycle in the next five years, which would be implemented at the grassroots level by promoting diversification of crops.
Charing a high level meeting with a delegation and senior officers of the Agriculture and Horticulture Department at Punjab Bhawan here today, state Agriculture Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal said that the agriculture experts from all over the country and world are welcomed to suggest the farmers of Punjab for alternative remunerative solutions to wheat and paddy which would be implemented by the government.
The agriculture minister said a road map is being prepared by the state government to promote tissue culture in vegetables and fruits cultivation and suggestions of the agricultural experts have also been taken to make it a success.The minister said tissue culture would be promoted in the state to increase the production and quality of fruits and vegetables.
The minister furtehr said fruits and vegetables can not be stored for long and it has been learnt that most of the times, fruits and vegetables damaged during the transportation as it takes many days to reach its destination to other parts of the world by sea route.Similarly, transporting the fruits and vegetables by planes also not a profitable business as the cost of the aircraft itself is extremely high.
Kuldeep Dhaliwal said that in order to set up a direct marketing infrastructure in the state itself, the government led by Bhagwant Mann will set up small cold stores and packhouses for farmers across the state so that the farmers can store the fruits and vegetables for several days and the farmers can sell directly to the consumers at a lucrative price.
On this occasion, ACS Department of Agriculture, Sarvjit Singh, Director, Gurwinder Singh, Director, Horticulture Department, Dr. Salinder Kaur, Harpreet Singh from the Union Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. SN Chandak and Amit Bhardwaj were also present.