Capacity building of farmers one of the focus areas under HADP: Chowdhury Iqbal
SRINAGAR: A group of 50 Mushroom farmers from ten different districts of Kashmir division was on Tuesday flagged off by Director Agriculture Kashmir Chowdhury Mohammad Iqbal for an exposure cum training visit outside the UT of J&K from the directorate of agriculture Kashmir.
The five-day exposure visit has been organised by the Farmers Training & Education Centre (FTEC) Ganderbal in collaboration with project coordinator Mushroom Kashmir, under the Holistic Agriculture Development Program (HADP) 2024- 25
Iqbal while interacting with the mushroom farmers on the occasion, said that the visit has been organised to make the farmers aware of the latest technologies for commercial mushroom cultivation, real-time trends in farming and cultivation of different agricultural crops on scientific lines.
He impressed upon the mushroom farmers to interact with the mushroom scientists, experts, and extension functionaries to get acquainted with up-to-date methodologies in mushroom cultivation on scientific lines. He asked the farmers to enhance their technical skills in the field of mushroom farming and to adopt the advanced technologies after learning from such training/exposure visits.
Director Agriculture said that under the HADP special attention has been given to the capacity building of farmers and to achieve this target a number of programs have been devised.
Giving details of the programme, the Deputy Director Agriculture (Trainings)Kashmir, Idris Bashir said that the group of 50 farmers from all the districts of Kashmir division would visit Punjab Agriculture University (PAU)Ludhiana Punjab, and some other research institutions during the tour.
Many farmers on the occasion expressed their gratitude to the department for this opportunity. They said the tour would enhance their knowledge and skills. The Joint Director, Agriculture, extension/ mushroom, Sartaj Ahmad Shah, and other senior officers of the department were also present on the occasion.