Agri deptt launches Crop Calendar

July 21, 2021 36 Views No Comment

KAITO URGES DEPTT TO CREATE MORE ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE ECONOMY

DIMAPUR , July 21: Minister for agriculture and cooperation Kaito Aye launched “Crop Calendar Nagaland”, a guide book for agriculture officials and for farming community on July 20.

Addressing at the launching programme, Kaito acknowledged the department for its tireless efforts in publishing the calendar which was the first of its kind, covering all the districts of Nagaland.

He expressed hope that the calendar would be a source of information for the department officials and the farming community.

He urged the officers and staff to continue creating more activities for the improvement of economy in the state.

He said that amid the pandemic, climatic change had affected farming community in the state which had led to reduced production. In this regard, Kaito encouraged them to come together to improvise, provide information and create activities.

Agriculture Production Commissioner (APC) Y. Kikheto Sema said that earlier Nagaland faced a drought like situation but it was now already a drought because “70% of war field had been affected”.

He said that it was important to create more water bodies in the villages and advised the department to approach the villagers out of MGNREGA in order to create the water bodies.

Kikheto also suggested that the calendar translated into local languages to reach out to all the agricultural farmer community.

In his introductory remark, director Ben Yanthan said that the department had set goals for food security by 2025, empowering and improving the living standards of the farming community.

He said that around 2, 50,360 farming households across the state would have to produce food for their own sustenance.

To achieve this vision, he informed that the department was focusing on various strategies under CSS programme. Maintaining that the pandemic had also affected timely agriculture activities, Ben Yanthan informed that the department had worked out strategic contingency plan 2020 to deal with crop failure or damage due to various reasons with alternative cropping options in order to compensate the food requirement.

The director also stated that the first edition of crop calendar 2020 would have about 500 copies printed and 1500 copies of district wise crop calendar, where printing was still in progress.

While the crop calendar publication expense was sponsored by ATMA Nagaland, he informed that all the deputy directors of the directorate were assigned to work out their respective district crop calendar.

In this regard, he shared that this was made possible in consultation with district/sub-divisional officers where SARS, KVK and ICAR officers were taken on board to share their technical expertise.

Source: http://www.nagalandpost.com/agri-deptt-launches-crop-calendar/236734.html