Advisor Skandan for farm mechanization to boost farmers’ income

Srinagar: Advisor to Governor, K Skandan Wednesday asked the agriculture experts to work on increasing the reach of farm mechanization to boost farmers’ income.
Addressing at a concluding session of one-day workshop on “Small farm Agriculture Production and Post Production Mechanization” at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Sciences and Technology (SKUAST-K) here, the Advisor asked the agri experts to work on Change Management in order to change the mindset of farmers and convince them to use modern farming technologies.
The workshop was organized by Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) in collaboration with SKUAST-K for ‘Regional Committee Zone-I’ which include J&K, Uttarakhand and Himachal Prade The day-long workshop was also attended by agriculture universities’ heads, experts, scientists, scholars and students, and heads of several business organizations.
The Advisor, in his speech, exhorted that there is need either to implement the vast agriculture tools or whether the existing tools are obsolete or have flexibility to get desired results in agriculture production, besides, increasing the reach of farm mechanization to small and marginal farmers and promote farm mechanization among the stakeholders.
Highlighting the role of agriculture universities, Advisor Skandan said the farmers should be made aware about the vital aspects of both the technologies and change so as to boost farmers income.
He also suggested for micro level steps like creating farmer oriented mobile apps where they would be provided information snippets of benefits of farm technology.
He also urged business organizations to come up with farm based centers where the farmers would be showcased with better technologies so as to convince the farmers to buy modern technology, adding these service centers would eventually become hub of interaction and development.
The Advisor concluded that people need to carry forwards the legacy of farming and agriculture activities which has remained lifeline of country and its culture.
Assistant Director-General (Engineering), ICAR, KK Singh, Vice Chancellor SKUAST-K, Prof )Dr Nazeer Ahmed among others also spoke on the occasion.Later, Advisor released booklet titled “Transferable Technologies”.