Jammu, March 23: For capacity building of the farmers, Director Agriculture Production & Farmers Welfare, Jammu, K. K. Sharma today inaugurated Farmers’ training programme on natural and organic farming here at Kisan Kendra, Talab Tillo. The farmers from all districts of Jammu Division will attend the 4- day training programme organized by the Deputy Directorate of Agriculture (Trainings) Jammu.
In his inaugural address, the Director Agriculture underlined the need to go back to natural farming by adopting safe agriculture practices for production of pesticide residue free food. He urged the farmers to follow the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) for self certification, branding and marketing of their produce.
Elaborating further, he asked the farmers to go for authentic organic certification by third parties like Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) for export of the agri produce. He advised the farmers to use organic inputs like vermicomposte, FYM, green manures, bio fertilizer/bio pesticides. The Director further urged the farmers to take advantage of social sector schemes like PM Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM KISAN), PM Mandhan Yojna (PMMDY), e Shram for financial stability.
Dr. Raj Kumar, SKUAST-Jammu spoke on the need of diversification in Agriculture for doubling the farmers’ income.
Dr. Rohit Sharma detailed the future and practices of organic farming in Jammu. He also discussed scope and possibilities of Zero Budget natural Farming.
Dr. Sandeep Dogra, SCA (I&P) deliberated on the concept and techniques of precision irrigation like sprinkler, Drip irrigation, rain guns.
Dr. Arun Khajuria, I/C Plant Health Clinic, Jammu elaborated in detail regarding non chemical management of pest and diseases of food crops.
During interactive session feedback was received and all queries raised by the participants were satisfactorily answered by the resource persons.
Earlier, Deputy Director Training, Deepak Kumar, in his welcome address highlighted that the main focus of the training was on natural and organic farming.
Joint Director Agriculture Extension, Subash Chander Sharma presented the overview of various activities being undertaken by the department of agriculture for enhancing the income of the farmers.
Besides others, those present on the occasion included Agriculture Information Officer, Rohit Gupta, Training officer, Karunanidhi, Programme Officer, Sanjay Dhar, Demonstrators, Asmeeta Sharma and Amarjit Singh.
