Chancellor of Rani Laxmibai Central Agricultural University, Jhansi, former Vice-Chancellor Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and former Secretary, DARE and Director General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Prof Panjab Singh said the West has recognised the importance of India in making possible the increase in agricultural production in view of the ever increasing population of the country.
He was addressing the 30th Regional Annual Workshop of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) of Uttar Pradesh, organised by the ICAR-Agricultural Technical Application Research Institute (ICAR-ATARI), Kanpur, in collaboration with the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, BHU, here on Friday. In achieving the record production, he expressed his concern over the state of degradation of natural inputs like air, water, soil etc and talked about integrating their conservation with production in the coming times. Prof Singh pointed out that today’s agriculture is very different from the agriculture of the bygone era. “Rooftop gardening, vertical farming are some of the new areas that we have to pay attention to.” he said underlining that the condition of the farmers has not increased parallel to the growth in agriculture, which needs to be addressed.
Prof Singh released the publications of KVKs and some selected participants, including Padma Shri awardee farmers Chandrashekhar Singh, Sethpal along with Yashkendra Singh, Ramamurthy Mishra, Shivkumar Maurya, Amarendra Singh, Ram Kirat Mishra etc were felicitated for their remarkable contribution in the area of agriculture. Presenting the welcome address Director, ICAR-ATARI, Dr SK Dubey informed that at present a total of 89 KVKs are functioning in the state under nine agro-climatic conditions. Two KVKs are also functioning in many of these districts. Dr Ranjay Kumar Singh, Assistant Director General (Agriculture Extension), ICAR, mentioned that it is necessary to analyse the success factors of several flagship projects of Government of India in UP as the state has topped the country in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems of production. Dr KK Singh, Vice-Chancellor, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology, Meerut, said through the work of KVKs, an average increase of `3500/ha has been obtained by the farmers on their fields.
Dr AK Singh, V-C of Chandrashekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur, in his address, while describing UP as the powerhouse of agriculture, informed that there was an increase in area under foodgrain production from 50 to 324 million hectares in the country. Dr US Gautam, Deputy Director General (Agriculture Extension), ICAR, New Delhi, in his address, talked about the effort to take necessary action to improve the service conditions of the personnel of KVKs and to increase the budget for the work of the centres. Prof VK Shukla, Rector, BHU in his presidential address expressed concern on the points raised by Dr Gautam and urged the agricultural scientists to improve the work as per the intention of the government. Director Institute of Agricultural Sciences, BHU, Prof Yashwant Singh, while proposing the vote of thanks, called upon the visitors of sustainable agriculture and global welfare to return to India’s ancient agriculture and sage tradition. The entire programme was coordinated by Dr Raghavendra Singh, Principal Scientist, ICAR- ATARI, Kanpur.