A farmer ‘goshthi’ (seminar)/ training programme and farmer field visit was organised by the Department of Agronomy, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Chakhaniya village of Chandauli district on Tuesday. This programme was mainly focused for improving productivity/livelihood of farmers of the weaker section of the society (Scheduled Caste). In this programme, Dr UP Singh, Senior Professor and Head, Department of Agronomy explained about management practices of direct seeded rice (DSR) and conservation agriculture and its significance in lowering cost, enhancing income, climate mitigation and safer environment.
He also advocated that by adopting DSR and conservation agriculture based practices, farmers can reduce 20-25 per cent (pc) cost and increase in 10-15 pc as well as conserving/enhancing the quality of the natural resource base. Prof Singh also focused on adopting a permanent No-till system (Zero Tillage) DSR-ZT Wheat-ZT Mungbean along with 40-50 pc residue retention of all the crops in view of improving resource use efficiency, soil health and biodiversity conservation.
A team of scientists led by Dr P Muthuraman, Head, TTT from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research- Indian Rice Research Institute Hyderabad, along with Dr P Jayakumar, Dr Brajendra, Shitanshu Kumar and Sudha Nair also participated and shared their experiences. Dr Brajendra from ICAR-IIRR Hyderabad, demonstrated the soil testing kit and trained farmers to test the soil. Under this programme, sprayers, fertilisers and soil testing kits were distributed to the SC-farmers. Farmers shared their positive response towards direct seeded rice and zero tillage wheat in terms of cost saving and higher productivity. Dr Nikhil Kumar Singh, Assistant Professor, research scholar Kajal Verma, Sitesh Jha and Santosh Kumar, Data Collector also participated in this programme and expressed their views. The scientists’ team along with farmers visited the fields and were happy to see the performance of demonstrations conducted by the BHU team. Progressive farmers Awanish Kumar, Pradeep Kumar, Prem Shankar Singh, Shashikant Rai, Ratan Singh with 100 farmers of Kandawa, Amara, Chakhaniya, Sikatha and Daina villages participated in this programme.