The green agriculture project of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of United Nations (FAO) with a funding of about Rs 40 crore will be undertaken in Uttarakhand to encourage organic farming, livelihood and work on mountain agriculture.
This seven-year programme will also focus on varied aspects including sustainable livelihood, traditional knowledge based practices, biodiversity conservation in mountains and agriculture along with the mitigation of human-wildlife conflict among other issues. The FAO representative in India, Shyam Khadka said this while addressing the media after a meeting with State chief secretary Shatrughna Singh and other officials of the State on Friday.
Considering the detrimental effects of ‘modern’ agriculture practices like monoculture and increased usage of chemical fertilizers, the green agriculture project will encourage the locals to undertake organic farming of traditional crops in a manner that will not only provide livelihood for locals but will also address other important issues of biodiversity conservation, food security, human-wildlife conflict, climate change and ground water conservation. Khadka said that modern agriculture practices have replaced the traditional varieties of crops, some of which have already been lost.
In addition to encouraging farming of traditional native varities, other important aspects like mountain biodiversity conservation, how to bring back traditional food habits of the people, revive traditional knowledge base and conservation of ground water among other aspects will also be addressed in the seven-year project. Apart from Uttarakhand, the green agriculture project will also be undertaken in Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha, added Khadka.
Earlier, FAO officials discussed various aspects of the programme in a meeting with Chief Secretary Shatrughna Singh, additional chief secretary S Ramaswamy, former chief secretary RS Tolia, principal chief conservator of forests Rajendra Kumar Mahajan and other officials at the Secretariat.
A general consensus was reached to implement the project in the Corbett landscape. Along the northern boundary of Corbett national park where some patches have been abandoned by villagers, due to human-wildlife conflict deterring farming, could be a suitable area for implementing the project to generate livelihood by reviving organic cultivation of traditional native crops in a manner that also addresses human-wildlife conflict among other issues.
later in the evening, the FAO representative also met CM Harish Rawat at the Vidhan Sabha. He informed Rawat that organic produce of Uttarakhand is in demand but requires branding. At a time when global warming is exerting a negative effect on agriculture, he said that scientific research has been conducted in agriculture but no specific policy has been made for mountain agriculture. The agriculture department will be the nodal department for implementation of this programme which will also involve selected institutions of academics, research and related spheres.