Horti Deptt conducts farmers’ awareness-cum-interaction prog

Jammu: The Department of Horticulture Jammu is making all the efforts in creating awareness among the farming community about plantation of fruit crops in the rainy season.
In continuation to the campaign, the Department on Tuesday conducted farmers’ awareness cum interaction programme at village Narayani, Kotmaira upper panchayat of block Khour under the chairmanship of Joint Director Horticulture Jammu C. L Sharma.
District Level Subject Matter Specialist (Pomology) Sandeep Gupta, HDO Khour Amit Saraf, besides a large number of farmers including women, Sarpanch and PRI members of the area participated in the camp.
Addressing a large gathering of farmers / fruit growers, the Joint Director, C L Sharma said that the goal behind organizing such camps was to promote awareness among the farming community regarding different schemes of the department with special focus on plantation schemes. He said that the monsoon season is best suited for new plantations especially in the kandi area and the farmers should adopt a cluster approach in establishing new orchards to avail maximum benefits of the departmental schemes. He urged farmers to adopt integrated farming in their fields and avail the benefits on different components viz: Aloevera plantation bore well, water harvesting tanks, drip irrigation, mechanization, protected cultivation, tools & implements etc. for upliftment of their socio- economic status.
The Joint Director Horticulture further emphasized on the need to establish individual processing units for fruit processing/ fruit drying/ spices preparation etc. for which liberal funding from the government was available in the department.
“Women farmers should form their Farmers Club/ FPO’s / Self Help Group’s and processing units on community level to avail the best incentives” he added.
District Level Subject Matter Specialist (Pomology), Sandeep Gupta elaborated in detail about both the Centrally and UT sponsored schemes of the department. He also briefed the farmers about the technical aspects of fruit plantation and the potential of the Horticulture sector in employment generation. He also laid emphasis on planting cash crops like Strawberry and exotic fruit crops like Dragon Fruit in their fields so as to get more income from the same area, thereby helping the farmers in doubling their income. HDO Khour carried out the proceedings of the programme.