In a bid to promote organic farming in Haryana, an Organic Certification Agency would be set up for grading and authentication of organic produce near the farms so as to ensure reliability of organic products on reaching the market.
This decision was taken at a review meeting of various projects chaired by Haryana Chief Minister Manohar lal. The Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Om Prakash Dhankar was also present at the meeting.
The Chief Minister gave directions to the concerned officers to constitute an Organic Certification Agency which would reach the source i.e. farms, and certify to assure the consumer that the product is purely organic. Manohar lal also desired that the government should make a system, and motivate the farmers to adopt organic farming.
He said in Gurukul of Kurukshetra, the institute for training farmers would be completed by March 2019 after which it would commence training.
The Chief Minister was apprized by the officers that 20 clusters had been formed in 11 districts of the state where 674 farmers were doing organic farming. On this, Manohar lal said they should fix a target for organic farming.
Regarding the Horticultural University, the officials informed the Chief Minister that under this University, four regional centers would be set up at the cost of Rs 486 crore; one will be built in Jind, one in Ambala, one in Jhajjar and one in Sirsa.
The area under micro irrigation is increasing and farmers are being encouraged to adopt the scheme, it was informed.
The Chief Minister was also informed about different canals and tail-ends where water has reached.
Manohar lal directed the officers that work should continue on such tail-ends and on canals whose capacity had been increased. Competition should be created among farmers for micro irrigation so that they would extensively adopt this method resulting in saving of water. The officers should also prepare data of micro irrigation and upload it on his dashboard, he added.