Srinagar: A three day National Seminar on Agriculture and More beyond 4.0 concluded at Shalimar Campus of SKUAST-Kashmir. The Seminar was organized by Society for Community Mobilization for sustainable development in collaboration with SKUAST-Kashmir & Jammu. AtalDulloo,Additional Chief Secretary,GoJK was Chief Guest during the Valedictory function which was earlier inaugurated by Lt. Governor, ManojSinha.
Dulloo while speaking on the valedictory function congratulated both universities for highlighting important issues in agriculture farming 4.0 and Beyond. Speaking on the occasion he stressed on necessity of refining strategies and devising programmes to bring smile to farmers. He highlighted the role of universities in devising land use plans, crop modeling, use of ICT tools & services, innovations, Artificial Intelligence, Marketing interventions and complete value changes for transforming farmers into entrepreneurs. He informed that the Government of J&K will start a digital agriculture mission soon to further boost programmes in agriculture and allied sectors for which sufficient financial support shall be met. On the occasion he felicitated Scientists, Students, Research-Scholars, Progressive farmers, Innovators in the field of agriculture. Among others Prof. M.C. Sharma former Vice-Chancellor IVRI was felicitated with Life-time Achievement Award and Professor. N.A. Ganai Vice-Chancellor SKUAST-Kashmir Conferred with the Academic Excellence Award. Organizing Secretaries Dr. Sameera Qayoom along with Imriti Devi Outstanding Women Scientist Award and Dr. R.R. Barman were conferred Special Recognition Award during the event.
Prof. Nazir Ahmad Ganaiin his concluding remarks informed that Jammu & Kashmir is transforming into a major agricultural hub of the country based on revised policy decisions and reforms undertaken in recent past. Concerted efforts to promote knowledge based & technology driven innovations, data driven real time solutions and precision agriculture tools, Artificial Intelligence, mechanization, automation market intervention besides creating a global image for education, research and agricultural products.
Prof. J.P. Sharma and President Community Mobilization for sustainable development outlined challenges faced by the agriculture sector and possible policy decisions to mitigate them for farmers welfare. He laid stress on processing, packaging, labeling, certification, agri-business management and improving the skills of farmers and marketing of agri-products. He further desired that we have to move from productivity to profitability in order to increase the share of agriculture GDP of the country.
Dr. Sachin Gupta, Chancellor Sanskriti University in his remarks thanked organizers of both the Universities for conducting the event which shall help the Scientist/Scholars/Farmers to share common platform and devise solutions to the growing issues in the agricultural sector. AnMoU between both farm universities was signed in presence of Additional Chief Secretary, ShriAtalDulloo to boost collaboration in entrepreneurship and R&D sectors.
Dr. Sarfaraz Ahmad Wani, Director Research/Convener summarized the key recommendations of the Conference. More than 500 papers,284 presentations, 100 poster presentations, 15 lead papers,16 publications, 04 keynote papers were presented under different themes by Delegates/Scientists/Research-Scholarsto deliberate on issues concerning agriculture and the way forward. During the Conference it came to fore that scientists/policy makers have to move beyond agriculture 4.0 have to create a new age agricultural revolution based on science and green technology which can provide growth and sustainability to agriculture and allied sectors. Special focus needs to be granted on crop planning, disease forecasting, water/nutrient management, value addition, e-commerce, FPOs and reduction in post-harvest losses by use of advanced tools and technologies. Books/manuals on organic vegetable/vegetable seed production/strawberry/kiwi/grape cultivation were released.

KR Desk