Director, ICAR-Agricultural Technology Application Research Institute (ATARI), Patna, Dr Anjani Kumar addressed, on Sunday, the Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) of 68 districts of Jharkhand and Bihar on the second day of the annual regional workshop. On the occasion, he emphasized on giving special attention to transfer of suitable agricultural technology to small and marginal farmers under the Attracting Retaining Youth in Agriculture (ARYA) project.
Kumar asked the KVKs to give priority and promote a total of 150 Integrated Farming System (IFS) models, profitable agricultural technology and Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) under secondary agriculture, identified as suitable locally. He said that the biggest problem of the farmers is the management of crop residue (straw). He mentioned the success in preventing farmers from burning stubble due to the efforts of KVK, Rohtas and the State Government.
Farmers have started getting additional profit of Rs 7,000- Rs 8,000 per acre due to sale of straw bales by COMFED Company. KVK, RK Mission, Ranchi has identified “Bhutki”, an aromatic variety of rice which was lost for 20-25 years in Namkum area. This local aromatic variety has been registered under PPVRH. Due to this, 1100 farmers associated with the cultivation of “Bhutki” variety are getting benefited. By providing mill machine to a group of 25 women under the TSP Pulses and Oilseeds programme, great success is being achieved in expanding the cultivation of pulses and oilseeds in paddy fallow land.
ATARI Director said that the establishment of custom hiring related to agricultural equipment operated by KVK is a great initiative and a great effort. “More and more farmers should be connected with this initiative, so that the farmer can get better benefits by doing agriculture work with less labor and less cost using accessible agricultural machinery at the center,” he added. He asked all the KVKs to promote the cultivation of millets crop which had been lost for 20-25 years on an area-specific basis, restore and promote area-specific millets out of 10 millets crops.
In the special lecture of the workshop, Senior Manager, IFFCO, Ranchi, Dr RK Verma threw a detailed light on 'Utility of Nano Fertilizer'. He told that the indiscriminate use of fertilizers by the farmers can be reduced by the use of nano fertilizers and this will reduce the fertilizer cost of the farmers and prevent land pollution.
On Saturday, the first technical session of the workshop was presided over by Director, ICAR-RCER, Ranchi, Dr Anoop Das. In this session, Principal cum Senior Scientists of NGO-run KVKs – Ramgarh, Khunti, Koderma, Deoghar, Gumla, Ranchi, Godda, Buxar, Kaimur, Nawada, Sitamarhi presented the Annual Progress Performance Report of the year 2022-23 and the annual progress report of the year 2023-24 presented the action plan.
On the occasion, Dr Das talked about natural farming, organizing maximum exposure and training on advanced cultivation of coarse cereals and promoting processing and value addition in agriculture extension activities.
The second technical session was presided over by Assistant Director General (Agriculture Extension), ICAR, Dr RK Singh. In this session, the principal cum senior scientists of 44 KVKs of Bihar presented the annual progress performance report for the year 2022-23 and the action plan for the year 2023-24. During this, detailed discussions were held on all agricultural extension activities.
On the occasion, Singh emphasized on giving priority to data collection of activities, preparing success stories of climate friendly agricultural upliftment works. He talked about promotion of technology developed and identified by KVKs through ATMA and agriculture and allied departments and proper documentation of extension activities.
The workshop was conducted by Dr. Amrendra Kumar, Principal Scientist, ATARI, Patna. Thank you Dr. Ajit Kumar, scientist of KVK, Ranchi. RK Mission Secretary Swami Bhaveshanand, BAU Director Extension Dr. Jagarnath Oraon and scientists from 68 Krishi Vigyan Kendras of Bihar and Jharkhand were also present in this workshop organized at Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute, Morabadi, Ranchi.