PHD Chamber in association with the Jharkhand Government held a conclave on Friday to promote holistic growth of the horticulture sector in the State; enhance horticulture production; improve nutritional security and income support to farm households.
The theme of the conclave, held at a city hotel, was ‘Harnessing the potential in developing the state economy’.
Speaking on the occasion, Co-Chairman, Jharkhand Committee PHD Chamber, Pawan Bajaj, said that horticulture plays a vital role in enhancing the economy and as a whole can meet the required demands too in the days to come.
“We need to deal with vital issues like enhancement of irrigation system, imparting skill development training to farmers, combat suicide cases. We also need to team up with the policy makers and must focus on to sensitize farmers on use of modern techniques and knowledge,” said Bajaj.
Senior Scientist, ICAR, Eastern Region centre (Plandu), Dr. Bikash Das, during a technical session, said that we need to focus on the horticulture plan for the progress of the State keeping the tribal farming techniques in mind.
“There are certain techniques which are practised in tribal system as they are strongly associated with the forests, hills and remote area. They believe in plant diversity and animal component too plays a pivotal role here. Moreover, technological interventions must be identified to enhance the horticulture practices in the State and the state government must focus on initiating few agricultural colleges,” Das pointed out.
Several aspects of the horticulture sector were discussed during the two technical sessions. The thrust of the speakers was to establish convergence and synergy among multiple on-going and planned programmes for horticulture development, to provide equilibrium in growth of the horticulture sector through an area based regionally differentiated strategies which include research, technology, promotion, extension, post harvest management, processing and marketing in consonance with comparative advantage of each state and region and its diverse agro climatic features.
Notably, Jharkhand experiences wide spectrum of climate and soil on which a large range of horticultural crops such as fruits, vegetables and other tropical tuber crops ornamental, medicinal and aromatic plants, spices, cashew and cocoa can be grown.
The combined efforts of the Central government, state governments and the farming community have succeeded in achieving record production of 264.77 million tonnes of food grains during 2013-14. This production has been achieved through effective transfer of latest crop production technologies to farmers under various crop development schemes, which further need to be improved.
To increase the productivity in the horticulture sector, Prakash Kumar Singh of Sriram Fertilizers and chemicals, said, “Selection of seeds is mandatory; imbalanced use of chemical fertilizers must be avoided by the farmers. Considering the consequences of global warming, new seeds must be used in farming. Other mandatory practices involves soil testing, engagement of co-operative societies and drip irrigation helps in further enhancing productivity.”
PHD Chamber, Jharkhand committee chairman Deepak Rungta proposed vote of thanks.