ICAR Leads State-Level Strategy Meet to Chart Sustainable Agricultural Roadmap for Andaman & Nicobar Islands under VKSA-2025

16 December 2025, Sri Vijaya Puram

ICAR-Central Island Agricultural Research Institute, Sri Vijaya Puram conducted a State Level Workshop on Preparation of Actionable Points as a Follow up of VKSA-2025 today.

During the inaugural programme, Dr A.K. Nayak, Deputy Director General (Natural Resource Management), ICAR, highlighted the importance of this workshop in preparing the roadmap for development of agriculture in the vulnerable island ecosystem. He urged considering water resources, soil resources and biodiversity in the islands while developing the plan so that the sustainability is ensured without affecting the farm profits. He advised assessing the farmers’ requirements of various farm inputs, seed/ planting material, propagules of native breeds of fish and animals by involving the state functionaries so that the realistic projections and targets could be set.

Dr A. Velmurugan, Assistant Director General (Soil & Water Management), ICAR, New Delhi provided insights on preparation of action plan in light of Viksit Bharat-2047. He emphasized on farmer-centric approach for research and developmental activities for achieving sustainable solutions to the issues during the interaction.

Earlier, Dr Jai Sunder, Director (A), ICAR-CIARI presented the status of island agriculture, problems encountered by the farming communities and works being carried out at the Institute on these lines. He also highlighted the key researchable issues identified for the Union Territory during the Kharif campaign of VKSA-2025.

Smt Sreedevi, Joint Director, UT Department of Agriculture informed the gathering about the area and production of various agri-horticultural crops and key initiatives taken by the UT Administration in the field of agriculture development.

During the technical sessions, deliberations were made on nine identified researchable issues by the leaders of various research teams. Inputs on various aspects were provided by the officials of Department of Agriculture, Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services and Krishi Vigyan Kendras.

(Source: ICAR-Central Island Agricultural Research Institute, Sri Vijaya Puram)