Department of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare Kishtwar in collaboration with SKUAST Jammu have joined hands to revive & reintroduce Black Zeera Cultivation in the District. On the direction of Director of Agriculture, Jammu, K.K Sharma and under the guidance of District Development Commissioner, Kishtwar Dr Devansh Yadav, the department has distributed 60,000 Black Zeera Tubers among 30 progressive Farmers of Block Padder (Funded through NABARD & procured from Himachal Pradesh) under the close supervision of Chief Agriculture Officer, (CAO) Amjad Hussain Malik and in collaboration with SKUAST, Jammu.
During the distribution, the CAO Kishtwar also interacted with the farmers of Padder area and made them aware about the cultivation of Black Zeera on commercial lines. Besides, the Department of Agriculture, District Kishtwar for the first time laid 20,000 Black Zeera Tubers for revival/rejuvenation over a 10 Kanal of area in the Zeera Research Farm, Atholi, Padder,
It is pertinent to mention here that the same tubers have been introduced at Saffron Development Farm, Berwar, Kishtwar on trial basis. The Chief Agriculture Officer asked the concerned officers to supervise the activities regarding Zeera cultivation and record its data for future references.
He mentioned the utility of spice which will only become successful if it is introduced in other parts of non-traditional areas of the district in the future.