Jammu, August 04: To gear up Monsoon fruit plantation in sub- tropical areas of Jammu Division, the Horticulture Department Samba today organised awareness cum interaction programmes here at Panchayat Utterbehani, Purmandal of district Samba. The event was chaired by Joint Director Horticulture Jammu, C. L Sharma.
DDC Member, Avtar Singh was the Guest of Honour of the event also attended by Chief Horticulture Officer Samba, Mukesh Sharma, District Horticulture Officer, Hamid Ahmed, HDO Purmandal, Shreshtha Gour, Sarpanch, Sunita Sharma, besides a large number of farmers including women and PRI members.
Addressing the farmers / fruit growers, the Joint Director said that the objective of organizing such camps was to promote awareness among the farming community regarding the schemes of the department with special focus on plantation schemes. He said that the rainy season is best suited for new plantations, especially in the Kandi areas. He advised the farmers to develop orchards by adopting a cluster approach to avail maximum benefits of the departmental schemes. He impressed upon the farmers to adopt integrated farming in their fields and avail the benefits of Aloevera plantation, provision of bore well, water harvesting tanks, drip irrigation, mechanization, protected cultivation, tools & implements etc. for enhancing their income manifold. he further advised them to frequently interact with the field functionaries of the department to know about the new technologies and project the problems being faced by them in the fields.
The Joint Director urged women farmers to establish individual units for fruit processing/ fruit drying/ spices preparation etc. for which the government has made available liberal funding in the department.
The District Horticulture Officer Samba elaborated in detail about both the centrally and UT sponsored schemes of the department. He also laid emphasis on planting cash crops like Strawberry and exotic fruit crops like Dragon Fruit in their fields so as to get more income from the same area, thereby helping the farmers in doubling their income.
Later, fruit plants of different cultivars were also given to the farmers/beneficiaries for new plantation to be covered under Area Expansion Programmes of the department.
HDO Purmandal conducted the proceedings of the programme.
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