JK fast becoming self-sufficient in milk production: Navin

Jammu : Principal Secretary Department of Agriculture Production & Farmer’s Welfare and Animal and Sheep Husbandry Department, Navin Kumar Choudhary Tuesday addressed First Dairy Conference for capacity building of farmers organized by the Department of Animal Husbandry Jammu.
While addressing the participating farmers through video conference, he reaffirmed that Jammu and Kashmir is fast becoming self-sufficient in milk.
He added that during last two years nearly 7 lakh people have been provided employment in the agriculture and allied sectors.
During his address, Navin urged the farmers especially big dairy producers to focus more on value addition rather than on milk production only.
He said that the factories can make milk products like butter, ghee, etc where they can also avail benefits of government’s Parwaz scheme under which they can ship their produce in the shortest possible time to national and international markets.
On the occasion, he also congratulated the organizers, resource persons and farmers for the capacity building programme and hoped that the participants would take many positives from the programme and apply them in their dairy businesses in order to run their units successfully and profitably.
On the occasion, he informed that J&K is among top performers in agri and allied sectors and recently in its report, NITI Ayog has ranked J&K at 3rd place in farmers’ income ratings and 5th in agri-allied sectors.
Crediting the increase in milk production to the Integrated Dairy Development Scheme (IDDS), he said J&K is now exporting milk to neighbouring states like Punjab and added that the additional Rs 20 crore has been sanctioned under IDDS which will benefit dairy farmers in a big way.
On the occasion, the Principal Secretary also interacted with the dairy farmers and enquired about the benefits of the programme.
The conference was organized by the Department of Animal Husbandry, Jammu on Feed and Fodder Management for increasing milk production while as Dr SS Lathwal, Principal Scientist, livestock production & Management, NDRI, Karnal Haryana; Mohan Singh Ahluwalia, Union member, Animal Welfare Board of India and Dr AK Pathak, Senior Assistant Professor, Animal Nutrition, SKUAST Jammu were resource persons.