Srinagar: Joint Secretary, Department of Agriculture Cooperation &Farmers Welfare (DAC&FW), Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India Prasanta Kumar Swain who is on a two day official visit Friday visited the Agriculture complex Lalmandi, and made a visit to the Departmental Quality Control Laboratory.
Director agriculture Kashmir and Senior Officers of the department were also present on the occasion.
During the visit he made a detailed inspection of the Laboratories and interacted with concerned scientists. During the interaction he was apprised that the Quality Control Laboratory is a standard Lab fully equipped with latest equipments, having facilities for organic analysis, fertilizer analysis and pesticide analysis with a reputation of 100% accuracy.
He was informed that the testing of quality, grade of Saffron and Honey has been started during this year with ten parameters of saffron which includes bitterness, flavour and colour.
Director Agriculture informed the visiting officer that during the current year 214 number of tests for quality of Pesticide/ Fungicide were conducted , out of which 10 products were found misbranded which were published in print and electronic media and the stocks of the said products were seized.
The Soil Chemist of the department put forth the requirement of high quality equipments in the laboratory for improving the efficiency of working
Later, the Joint Secretary visited the Soil Testing Laboratory and Mobile Soil Testing van at Bijbehara Anantnag and Horticulture Nursery at Bijbehara.
