ICAR Regional Committee Meeting Inaugurated...Opportunities in agricultural research highlighted

Jammu, 10 June 2010

‘Growth in agriculture is the only hope for increasing employment’, said G.H Mir, Minister of Agriculture from J&K in the inaugural session of 3-day XXI Meeting of ICAR Regional Committee No.1 held at Sher-E-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Chatha.

He said that unemployment in the state was a big problem and the decreasing land available to agriculture due to mass urbanization along with increasing demand of food is another area of concern. While commending the role of ICAR in maintaining food security despite such challenges, he emphasized the need of quick transfer of the technologies to the farmers.

Ali Mohammad Sagar, Minister for Rural Development, said that strategies need to device-out to save agriculture of hilly states. Sham Lal Sharma, Minister of Horticulture and Floriculture, suggested that opportunity in cultivation of medicinal plants may be exploited to raise income from agriculture.

Aga Syed Rahullah, Minister of Animal and Sheep Husbandry called for time bound research in the  animal sciences sector while Javed Ahmed Dar, Minister of State for Agriculture, appealed to tap agriculture potential of state.  

“Agriculture research is the only area where you invest one and get seven as return,” highlighted Director General of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Secretary, DARE, Dr S. Ayyappan. ‘Objective of organizing such meetings was to find out problems and device out collaborative measures to enhance agricultural profitability’, he added. On dealing with climatic change effects, Dr. Ayyappan assured that Council would provide all support to state governments and agricultural departments in this regard. Listing marketing linkage as major limiting factor in hill states, he said that use of fertilizers in J&K was quite low as compared to national average, If this factor is taken care production can go up manifolds.

Dr H.P Singh, Deputy Director General, Horticulture, ICAR, in his opening remarks outlined the objective of this meeting and Dr B. Mishra, Vice-Chancellor of Sher-E-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (Jammu) hoped that deliberations in the meeting would pave way for development of agriculture and allied sectors in the area.

(Source: NAIP sub-project on Mass Media Mobilization, DIPA and CIPHET)