Chizokho Vero
Thipuzu (Phek) | March 28
Parliamentary Secretary for Social Welfare & Women Development Chotisuh Sazo today asserted that the fast changing climate and global warming has become the greatest concern of the day which may have a harmful impact on land productivity unless one undertake appropriate mitigation and adaptation strategies and action plan.
“Bio-safety, bio-security and bio-prospecting are the upcoming areas that demand greater attention now,” he told a one day Farmers’ workshop on Climate Resilient Agriculture for Sustainable Production and Food Security here this morning organized by Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), National Research Centre on Mithun, Porba under National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture Programme of CRIDA, Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), Hyderabad.
“We need creative and imaginative solutions for these imaginative issues,” he said. Mention may be made that Thipuzu village has been adopted by KVK for climate resilient agriculture where it will assist the farmers through trainings, demonstration; soil testing, installation of mini weather station plus necessity equipment so that the farmers do not suffer for productivity due to climate change. This village has taken up Kiwi plantation on large scale and expecting a yield of 1 to 2 lakh kgs of Kiwi within four to five years.
For the success of Climate Resilient Agriculture programme in the village, Sazo suggested that soil testing be done in all the village and appropriate crops be identified according to the suitability of climate and soil.
He also asked the KVK to provide its technologies and improved varieties of crops that are found to be high yielding, adaptable and sustainable.
The Parliamentary Secretary stressed on the need to introduce and improvise traditional technologies at the same time to set up demonstration plots and provide improved equipment and machines, and also, conduct more training and interactions. He also stressed on the need to set up another KVK at Chozuba Sub Division.
Sazo said India is an agricultural country where one third of population depends on agriculture sector directly or indirectly and agriculture continues to be the mainstay of the Indian economy. “Adequate production and even distribution of food has lately become a high priority of global concern. With the ever changing of agricultural scenario and global competition, there is a need of exploiting the available resources at maximum level,” he said.
Agriculture in India, through research and technology development has made a considerable increase in the production of food grains, milk, oilseed, vegetables and fish production. He expressed happiness that ICAR has been playing an effective role in building the nations’ economy. He hoped that it would continue to play greater role in improving the socio-economic condition of our people.
He said, the north eastern region has the richest bio-resources, standing 8th out of 25 bio-diversity “hotspots in the world.” “It is the home and origin place of many species of flora and fauna. Yet we still remain poor with the richly available natural resources. We are yet to tap these natural resources into our benefits,” he said adding we are not poor because we lack natural resources or the nature was cruel to us , but because we lack attitude and the will.
He told the workshop that the difference between the poor and rich countries does not reside in the available natural resources nor the age.
He cited an example where Japan has a limited territory, 80% mountainous, inadequate for agriculture and cattle raising, but it is the second world economy today. The country is like an immense floating factory, importing raw materials from the whole world and exporting manufactured products. Another example is Switzerland, which does not plant cocoa but has the best chocolate in of the world.
“The difference is the attitude of the people, framed along the years by the education and the culture,” he said. He strongly felt that agricultural institutes should take up the noble mission of generating human resources that serves as job creators, rather than job seekers.
Sazo said integrated farming systems approach involving appropriate combination of crop husbandry, livestock, horticulture, vegetable, goatery, piggery, fishery, apiculture, mushroom, sericulture etch has to be emphasized.
He also maintained that as Nagaland is also one of the richest reservoir of biodiversity, commercialization of discoveries emerging from such efforts may help in technological empowerment of the state and country. In the new millennium, he said the challenges in our agricultural sector are quite different from those met in the previous decades. The enormous pressure to produce more food from less land with shrinking natural resources is a tough task for the farmers and the scientists.
“To keep up the momentum of growth a careful economic evaluation of inputs like seeds, fertilizers, irrigation sources and improving our soil nutrients etc. are of considerable importance,” he said.
Dr. C. Rajkhowa, Director, NRCM, Jharnapani including several others also spoke on the occasion.
Later, KVK handed over one each of equipment and machines of power tiller, Mould Board Plough, Mechanized Reaper, Water Pump, Folder Chaff Cutter, Manual Rice Transplanter, Pedal Thresher, Power Thresher for paddy, Digital weighing machine, Sprinkler irrigation set, mini weather station and two set of Cono weeder to the Village Climate Risk Management Committee for custom hiring purpose.
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