Shadow Correspondent
JAMMU, FEB 10:
Four days exposure visit of KVK farmer club members conducted by Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Doda SKUAST Jammu and sponsored by NABARD under CAT programme with the objective of doubling the farmers income by acquainting them on scientific cultivation of vegetable, introducing with exotic vegetables, Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (MAPs) and their processing; was today concluded at Jammu. This exposure visit had earlier been flagged off by Sh Bhupinder Kumar, District Development Commissioner Doda. The visit was planned by the team of scientists from KVK Doda including Dr Ravneet Kour, Dr Narinder Paul, Dr Sanjay Khajuria Dr AS Charak, and Dr GN Jha under the guidance of Dr R.K. Arora, Associate Director Extension and Incharge KVKs, SKUAST Jammu. Dr Narinder Paul accompanied the group of visiting farmers. During the visit, 24 vegetable grower farmer club members with small and marginal land holdings from different areas of District Doda visited Indian Institute of Integrative Medicines (IIIM) Jammu and SKUAST Jammu main campus at Chatha. They had wide range of interactions with the scientists of both the institutions and visited the fields, production and processing units.
At IIM Jammu, farmers learnt about importance, production and processing of different medicinal and aromatic plants with special reference to District Doda conditions, their distillation, processing and product development from the scientists. At field station IIIM Chatha they got demonstrations on distillation of lemon grass and lavender. They also interacted with Dr Ram A. Vishavakarma, Director IIIM and Dr Suresh Chandra Chief Scientist.
At SKUAST Jammu, farmers learnt about cultivation of low volume high value vegetables, protective cultivation of vegetables, mushroom cultivation, vermicompost production, management of serious pests and diseases of vegetables crop, scope of vegetable seed production and organic farming practices. Dr Satish Sharma, Dr Sachin Gupta, Dr Narinder Panotra, Dr RS Bandral and Dr Amitesh Sharma gave exposure to the farmers about various innovative technologies.
