Excelsior Correspondent
Jammu, Nov 19: Director Agriculture Production & Farmer Welfare, Jammu, Inder Jeet along with team of officer conducted an extensive tour of Samba district to inspect the progress of various Farmer Welfare Schemes and field activities being under taken by Department of Agriculture.
He interacted with 30 mushroom growers in a single village, Nud and inspected some Mushroom Production Units where he instructed the staff for organizing the mushroom growers in to Farmers Producer Organization (FPO) that will ultimately help in scaling up the level of production and better marketing by Product Branding, Value Addition and Better Market Linkages.
Director appreciated the efforts of the young entrepreneur, Puspinder Singh of Kartholi (Samba) who has established mushroom production unit of more than 5000 bags capacity and has earned the profit of about Rs. 5.5 Lakh from the sale of Button Mushroom last year.
At Kolpur, Director interacted with a group of vegetable growers under Intensive Vegetable Development programme. He urged the farmers to diversify their farming through activities like Apiculture, Mushroom, Seed Production, production of high value vegetables under protected and controlled conditions to get round the year production for high returns. He further advised them to shift organic farming.
Earlier, Inder Jeet, while interacting with the Self Help Group (SHG) of 30 women farmers engaged in the cultivation of organic vegetables, turmeric and oil-seed at village Dhurie, assured them of all possible help by the department. Director was appraised that some farmers in same village have been motivated and identified for Aleovera cultivation, for which director instructed the officers to work on providing proper marketing avenues to the farmers.
At village Tanda, Director was shown cluster of organically grown vegetables and other food crops. Some farmers raised the issue of damage to crops and vegetable nurseries by Industrial / pesticide pollution which is harmful for environment and human health as well. Director assured the farmers to depute the team of experts from Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) soon for detailed studyof the problem and suggesting the remedial measures there off.
The team of officer including Chief Agriculture Officer Samba, Sanjay Verma, SDAO, Samba, Varinder Dogra, SMS- SDL, R. K. Mathu, SMS-DL, Sanjay Raina, MDA, Avatar Singh, AEOS and AEAs accompanied the Director during the visit.
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