STATE TIMES NEWS
NEW DELHI: Minister for Agriculture, Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjura attended 89th Annual General meeting of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) held here on Wednesday under the chairmanship of the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Radha Mohan Singh.
A team of officers from J&K comprising Commissioner Secretary, Agriculture Production Department, Secretary APD, Directors Agriculture Kashmir and Jammu and Command Area Development Directors and MD AGRO’s also attended the meeting.
During the meeting, the Minister raised various requirements to give further boost to agriculture sector and activities in Jammu and Kashmir. He specially demanded integrated drought research centre at SKUAST (K) for studying the drought responses for various crops and develop mitigation strategies in the state.
Hanjura also raised the issues related to financial support for up gradation of residue analysis and quality control research Lab to raise its status as centre for certification.
He also stressed for establishment of Agriculture Technology information centre at SKUAST (J). He said that it will help to strengthen the linkage between research institution and farms and to build up required confidence among farmers.
Hanjura said that SKUAST needs to be made partners in national initiative on climate resilient agriculture, as Kashmir valley being a temperate zone with unique cropping patterns different from rest of India, is prone to weather vagaries. He said that studies on effect of climate change on different cropping patterns, forecasting and simulation models would reduce ill effects of climate change and enable to implement relevant schemes pertaining to the state.
