The State Agriculture Department and Indira Gandhi Agriculture University (IGAU) Raipur will jointly organise a day-long “Soil Health Workshop” on the occasion of World Soil Day on Saturday (December 5).
Chief Minister Raman Singh will inaugurate the workshop at IGAU’s Swami Vivekanand Hall at 11 am.
The inaugural programme will be presided over by Union Minister of State for Steel Vishnu Dev Sai.
Agriculture Minister Brijmohan Agrawal, Chairman of Chhattisgarh Textbook Corporation and MlA Devji Bhai Patel, Parliamentary Secretary of Agriculture Department Tokhan Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary of Agriculture Department and Agriculture Production Commissioner Ajay Singh, Agriculture Research Council of India New Delhi Deputy Director General (Agriculture expansion) Dr AK Singh, Vice-Chancellor of Indira Gandhi Agriculture University Raipur Dr SK Patil will be special guests on the occasion.
December 5 is observed as World Soil Day and year 2015 is being observed as International Soil Year, under which a campaign is being conducted to create awareness of people about importance of soil for human life.
In the year 2002, International Soil Association had proposed that December 5 should be observed as World Soil Day as soil is an important ingredient of human life. later on December 20, 2013 in its 68th General Meeting,
United Nations General Assembly decided to observe December 5 of every year as World Soil Day.
In the context, Agriculture Minister Brijmohan Agrawal informed that Agriculture Department has chalked out time-bound action plan for distribution of soil health cards to farmers of Chhattisgarh.
As per the Central Government guidelines , grid for irrigated and non-irrigated land has been finalised. As per which, 8.78 lakh samples of soils will be tested and farmers will be provided soil health cards during the next three years.
In the day-long workshop, an exhibition on theme ‘soil health’ and also a technical session will be organised, during which soil experts will suggest measures to maintain soil health. Nearly 500 representative farmers from all the districts of the State will take part in the workshop.