ORGANIC FARMING
Recently agriculture department along with its extension wing held a day long training programme on organic farming. The duration was very less and the farmers along with youth who had travelled a distance were disappointed that the programme was only for one day.
Instead of doing such publicity stunts, the government especially Directorate of Agriculture Lal Mandi should organize workshops and training programmes for weeks for the farmers so that they can understand the real techniques for organic farming. In the recent past especially the UT administration is trying to get only programmes done with publicity and there is no application of mind that such programmes should finally be true to be beneficial for the farmers.
As usual after the day long programme a long press release was issued for the media and trying to give an impression that they have done a great job by giving a lecture to the farmers for one hour and calling it a day long programme for organic farming.
The advisor in charge of agriculture should discourage such publicity stunts organized by the agriculture department in the name of training programmes and should instead ask for a ground report about the plight of farmers who switched over to organic farming and could not even get the market for their produce.
Agriculture department has failed to provide equipment financial assistance and market intervention to those villages that have already started organic farming of their own and are facing financial reverses.
The recent lockdown and lack of market and lack of interest by the agriculture department to provide them market for their fresh vegetables have resulted in huge loss to the youth in many villages of Kashmir.
