Agriculture officers’ co-ordination meeting held at conference hall of Directorate Agriculture, Kohima on February 16.
Kohima, February 16 (MExN): Addressing the agriculture officers’ co-ordination meeting held at conference hall of Directorate Agriculture, Kohima on February 16, M Ben Yanthan, Director of Agriculture said, “the last few seasons has not been easy for our farmers because of the pandemic, the drought-like situation and pest and disease incidence the worst being FAW in Maize that has its occurrence since May 2019.”
According to a press release, the Director said that despite the pandemic during last few years, the Agriculture Department has been at the forefront in the development of agriculture in the State and with the added challenges of creating employment opportunities for the post-Covid returnees and also due to resultant urban to rural migration, the Department is continuously giving extra effort in effective implementation of various centrally and state sponsored schemes for timely delivery of the necessary advisories and agriculture inputs to the farmers.
“State Government has declared drought of moderate nature w.e.f September 15, 2021 which continued for 5, 6 months, adding that the worst is not over, as the Kharif season approaches, we are experiencing unprecedented rain, hailstorms and extreme cold all over the State since January which will equally effect the crop seasons and its agronomic practices. Hence, maple Kharif preparedness has to work out seriously by all the Stakeholders to mitigate any eventualities,” he stated.
Yanthan said that while taking advantage of the recently established Soil Testing Laboratories in District Headquarters and 74 Blocks by the Soil & Water Conservation Department and the Automatic Weather Forecasting Stations installed, the advantage and beneficial usages may be disseminated to the farmers under Agriculture Advisories to prepare them for various agricultural operations and Control measures against pest and diseases anticipated. Also, the ATMA personnel may be roped in to organize need based pre-Kharif awareness campaigns at the Block or Farm School Level with technical trainings on specific crops.
Yanthan also said that today at National level much emphasis is given on Natural Farming and Organic Agriculture’ and here in the State has the advantage of being organic by default, the wide gap needs to be bridged between FPOs, FPCS (Organic. Farmers) and Farmwemen, SHGs by encouraging on the post production and value chain market linkages through the direct intervention of NSAMB Agri-EXpo, Dimapur. Stating that the small efforts being done with King Chilii, Ginger, Turmeric, Large Cardamom, Kiwi, Pineapple products being exported outside the State, which should lead to bigger consignments and larger shipment orders from both the Domestic and Foreign Buyers.
e-Agriculture through application of IT tools can be an added advantage, particularly the Mobile Apps to disseminate technologies, advisories to the Users and ICT application to find end to end solution for solving farmer’s problems.
Further, Yanthan also said that one very serious challenge facing by the Department is to make Agriculture attractive to rural communities especially rural youths and educated unemployed also, to give an effort to gradually halt rural to urban migrations as mechanization coupled with modern farming techniques including value addition with marketing linkages which will surely open up vistas of opportunity towards this challenge.
At the inaugural session preparedness for Kharif 2022 and various schemes on RKVY, NFSM, ATMA, PMKSY, RAD, SMAM, MOVCDNER, EARAS & AGRIL STAT, SMSP, AGRI ENGG and PM KISAN was also discussed at the meeting.
During the second session, N Jacob Yanthan, JDA presented the PowerPoint presentation on departmental activities, IPM and overview field application and field photos. While seed testing certification and INM rain fed farming was presented by Dr I Amenla, JDA, Manures and fertilizers and Natural and Organic production aspect by Dr James K Chawang, DDA and Organic Section. The meeting was chaired by C Peter Yanthan, Additional Director, Agriculture.
