Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 9: Principal Secretary, Agriculture Production and Farmers Welfare, Navin Kumar Choudhary, today discussed modalities for development of agriculture and its allied sectors in Jammu and Kashmir with a team of International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and NABARD at Civil Secretariat.
He asked the experts from both the organizations to formulate a long term plan for increasing the production of mutton and replacement of fruit trees with high density root stocks. He asked them to also look into the possibility of interventions that could be made for promotion of fisheries and dairy sectors.
Principal Secretary told the visiting team that horticulture is the mainstay of a large chunk of J&K’s population and also contributes to our economy significantly. He called it a core sector of UT’s economy as it is not an industry based one. He informed them that the UT produces about 22000 metric tons of apple against which it has CA storage of only 2000 metric tons.
He further informed them that the Government wants to provide end to end solution to growers so that not only their productivity increases but the quality, storage, packaging, grading and marketing of the produce also gets boost. He urged upon the IFAD and NABARD to provide them the solution for replacement of old, senile plantation with the new high yielding varieties in a shortest possible manner besides other interventions to enhance the farmers’ income exponentially.
Navin also apprised the team that J&K is the major consumer of mutton and poultry but scarcely meets its demands locally. He implored upon them to find out ways and means of enhancing its production in J&K thereby creating employment for the youth besides bolstering the local economy.
Principal Secretary also emphasized on the IFAD team to look into the avenues of Fisheries development in the UT. He maintained that its potential, due to our immense fresh water resources, is hundred times more than what has been exploited. He said that the trout fish of J&K can’t be matched in quality world over therefore has an immense export potential. He asked the team to see how this potential could be best tapped by taking benefit from our schemes like Parvaaz etc.
The team asked about several policies and schemes in vogue here in J&K and sought details from the concerned officers. They suggested creation of a team of experts from both the sides who would coordinate with each other continuously for further understanding of the subject. It was given out that this collaboration would lead to formulation of a scientific strategy that would eventually lead to the desired goals in a time bound manner.
All the Heads of Departments of Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Husbandry, Sheep Husbandry, Fisheries, Command Area Development and others from both the divisions participated in the meeting through offline and virtual mode.
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