Kolkata: In its endeavour of providing marketing opportunities alongwith with the Prime Minister’s vision of doubling farmers’ income and uplifting the Agriculture/ Horticulture sector of J&K, the department of Horticulture Planning & Marketing in collaboration with Invest India (ODOP Team) today organized first of its kind Mega Buyer-Seller meet at Kolkata .
During the meet about 250 farmers, SHGs, FPOs and entrepreneurs hailing from different parts of J&K participated in the event and interacted with visiting buyer delegations who included big merchants, exporters and giant corporations.
In the opening remarks, the Director Horticulture (P&M) Vikas Sharma while introducing the department emphasized on the role being played in the growth of agriculture/horticulture sector of J&K. He highlighted a number of interventions that the department launched for the betterment of the farming community and successfully resulted in the achievement of many goals set out by the department.
Hailing J&K as a heavenly repertoire of famous high value Horticultural / Agricultural products, the Director Horticulture Planning & Marketing during the presentation stressed upon effective promotion, certification, branding and packaging of these products to make them successful not only in National but International markets as well. He directed the meet towards face to face interaction between delegation of buyers and sellers from J&K where many issues were discussed and future opportunities cum collaborations were explored.
The meet was graced by West Bengal Agriculture Minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay who Speaking on the occasion applauded the efforts of the UT government and posted that meetings like these will help in increasing inter-state trade, to form new strategies, partnerships and to gain industry knowledge benefitting both West Bengal as well as J&K.
Meanwhile Director Horticulture Kashmir G.R Mir who is also part of the officials present at the meet gave a detailed presentation regarding the Horticulture sector of J&K and the areas where the government was pushing the sector. He stressed upon the need to have more such meets which will help farmers to showcase their products directly to the buyers, thus enabling the buyers to get exclusive opportunities to deal directly with the producers and their products.
During the meet, the buyers who were visiting different stalls were excited about the business opportunities in J&K.A number of buyers received product samples and a number of orders were placed at the spot by them.
An interactive session was also held between the officers from J&K government that included Special Secretary Mohammed Farooq Dar and the trade associations of West Bengal and Orissa. Detailed deliberations on the issues related to the inter-state trade were discussed at length. Various associations appreciated the initiative of the UT government and requested to conduct such meetings in future soon.
The event concluded with a Vote of thanks by Director Horticulture Planning & marketing Sh. Vikas Sharma (JKAS) described the event as a result of consistent guidance of Financial Commissioner (Addl. Chief Secretary ) of J&K Atal Dulloo.He also thanked all participants including Commissioner Agriculture Government of West Bengal Jayanta Kumar (IAS) with special thanks to Invest India for making this event a huge success and with hopes to hold events like these for the ultimate benefit of the Agriculture/ Horticulture industry of J&K.