Review Workshop of Farmer FIRST projects held at ICAR-CIFA

21^th March, 2023, Bhubaneswar

ICAR-Agricultural Technology Application Research Institute, Kolkata organized Review Workshop-cum- Field visit of Farmer FIRST Programme at ICAR-CIFA during 21- 22 March 2023.

The Principal Investigators along with Co-PIs, farmer representatives, research scholars, field assistants of these 4 centers participated.

Dr. P.K. Roul, Vice Chancellor, OUAT, Bhubaneswar inaugurated the workshop. He conveyed great satisfaction about the way the project is achieving its objectives and motivated the farmers to build greater coordination with institutes for achieving desired outcomes in farming. He emphasized on adopting one or two villages and converging the efforts of all four centres in Odisha so that a replicable model emerges.

Dr. P. Dey, Director, ICAR-ATARI made a brief remark about the project status, its implementation and suggested that centers will have less varietal replacement programmes and more of crop/livestock management interventions.

Dr. A. Sarangi, Director, ICAR-IIWM said how technology should be properly disseminated to the farmers to create an impact in each and every enterprise they have undertaken.

Dr. P.J. Mishra, Dean Extension, OUAT in his address said that farmer’s innovations should be given first priority and to be documented.

Dr. P. Das, Director (I/C), ICAR-CIFA also interacted with the audience by explaining the sustainability of the project so that the good work continues in the long run even without the support.

In the technical session PIs of the four centres of FFP Odisha presented salient achievements of 2022-23 and action plan of 2023-24.

The farmer representatives from all the centres have expressed great sense of satisfaction from the project and support associated with it and assured for the sustainability of the project in the coming years.

The meeting was attended by 55 participants and it was coordinated by Dr. H. K. De.

(Source: ICAR-Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture,  Bhubaneswar)