APC Y Kikheto Sema, Minister G Kaito Aye,a and Director M Ben Yanthan during the release of the crop calendar on July 20. (Photo Courtesy: Dept of Agriculture)
Dimapur, July 20 (MExN): Nagaland Minister for Agriculture and Co-operation Kaito Aye has released a guide book for the agriculture officials and for farming community titled ‘Crop Calendar Nagaland’ on Tuesday. The book is ‘the first of its kind’ covering all districts of Nagaland and is published by the Agriculture department, a press release from the department informed.
Addressing at the launching programme, Kaito acknowledged the department for their tireless efforts in publishing the crop calendar. He also expressed hope that this crop calendar would provide a source of information and knowledge to the department officials as well as the farming community.
The Minister underscored that the agri and allied departments plays an important role in agriculture activities especially during this time of pandemic and urged the officers and staff to continue their efforts towards creating more activities to improve the state’s economy. He also said that climatic changes have affected the farming community in the state and led to reduced production. As such, he encouraged the departments to come together to improvise, provide information and create more livelihood enhancing activities.
Further, Kaito opined that the zone wise identification of crops in the calendar would make it more convenient to approach different communities of the farmers in the state. He also reminded the senior officers to monitor and guide the field workers properly in order to bring out effective measures.
APC Y Kikheto Sema also spoke on the occasion and said that Nagaland is already facing a drought because at least 70 percent of the fields have been affected. He also said that it is important to create more water bodies in the villages in order to alleviate the situation and be prepared if the same situations continues in the future.
Kikheto also made a proposal for the calendar to be published in local languages in order to reach out to the larger farmer community.
Director Ben Yanthan highlighted the Department of Agriculture’s goals for food security by the year 2025, and goals for empowering and improving the living standards of the farming community and said that around 2,50,360 farming households across the State will have to produce food for their own sustenance. To achieve this vision, the Department is focusing on various strategies under CSS programmes, he said.
Stating that the COVID-19 pandemic has also affected timely agriculture activities due to country wide lockdown, he said that the department has worked out strategic contingency plans to deal with crop failure and damage with alternative cropping options to compensate the food requirement.
The Director also said that about 500 copies of the first edition of crop calendar will be printed and printing of another 1,500 copies of district wise crop calendar are in progress. The publication expense for the crop calendar was sponsored by ATMA, Nagaland, he added.
He also further stated that all the Deputy Directors of the Directorate were assigned to work out their respective district crop calendars and this was made possible in consultation with District/Sub-Divisional officers where SARS, KVK and ICAR officers were taken on board for sharing their technical expertise.
