Transforming producers into entrepreneurs forms Foundation of Future Agriculture: Dir Agri (J)

Jammu  : A meeting between Department of Agriculture Production & Farmers Welfare, Jammu and Earnest & Young, a multidisciplinary professional services organization was held under the chairmanship of Director AP & FW, Jammu, K. K. Sharma at Krishi Bhawan , Jammu here Friday.
The meeting was held to explore the possibilities of developing market linkages with special focus on value addition of Turmeric.
Those present on the occasion included Joint Director Agriculture (Inputs), A.S. Reen, Joint Director (Marketing), Mahesh Verma,Joint Director (Extension), Subash Chander Sharma, Joint Director (Farms), Rajinder Sharma, CAO Jammu, Arvind Baru, CAO Kathua, Vijay Upadhaya, PDO, Susheel Rattan Sharma, Consultant EY, Paritosh Gharu , Technical officer Sanjeev Khajuria and rajat sharma from O&TR group besides Sanjeev Kumar from Sahara Jagrati Manch, a women NGO dealing with cultivation of Turmeric.
The Director Agriculture underscored that future Agriculture is primarily based upon transforming producers into entrepreneurs.
To achieve this purpose department is working towards creating market linkages through processing, value addition, branding, packaging, GI Tagging and marketing of local specialty products like basmati, honey, saffron, turmeric, rajmash, anardana, mountain garlic, gucchi mushroom, kalari etc.
The Director emphasized that the Agriculture Department is playing an important role towards enhancing farmer’s income by training the farmers as agripreneur and further motivating them to adopt farmer friendly technology to cut down the cost of cultivation. He urged the officials of Ernest & Young to support the department in identifying and utilizing the opportunities in the field of brand promotion and marketing of agri products. He impressed upon the officials to short list the related commodities and formulate scope paper to be submitted to EY.
The Ernest & Young team led by Associate Director (EY), Deepika Saini said “As part of our social sector practices, agriculture is our main activity and we are here to share our experiences gained in this regard”. She said that the EY team provides expert consultancy regarding rural retail chain development, agri/organic value chain development, ‘One District One Product” promotion, creating interconnectivity between different Self Help Groups (SHGs) from marketing point of view besides providing advisory on micro food processing enterprises development.
Joint Director Agriculture (Inputs), A.S. Reen asked the EY Team to facilitate the department in procuring quality turmeric seed from a certified government agency and further in establishing turmeric processing units. Joint Director (Marketing), Mahesh Verma presented the vote of thanks.