Agri dept. to adopt 'model farming village’ in each district

Dimapur, June 12 (EMN): The department of Agriculture will be adopting a convergence approach, to its present activities of clusters and schemes by creating 'model farming village or area' compulsorily in each district.

This was informed by the director of Agriculture, M Ben Yanthan during a training and co-ordination meeting on Friday at the directorate’s conference hall, according to a DIPR update.

He said need-based and result-orientated activities will be implemented in other villages or farms in convergence mode which is expected to lead to higher productivity of food grains and area expansion, fulfilling twin objectives of food and nutritional security and making farming commercially attractive especially for the educated youths and bolster link between farming and other sectors of economy.

Stating that post Covid-19 pandemic, people are expecting the department to play a major role in economic development of the state, including livelihood and employment issues, he said time has come to review, rethink, revitalise and interventions both in policy and execution perspectives.

Yanthan also said that despite their efforts, hard work and the resources available, there seems to be no tangible results to be quantified and documented on a large scale, adding that contribution of agriculture and allied sectors in the gross state domestic product is also gradually declining.

‘The reason maybe our interventions might have been too fragmented to see visible results,’ he said.

He also opined that poor projection of the results might be because of unresponsive or progressive farmers constrained by geo-physical limitations with limited natural resources or due absence of proper and effective monitoring and evaluation mechanism.

Pointing out that Nagaland is an agrarian state with 70% of the population engaged in agricultural activities, he encouraged the farmers to change their mindset by using right technologies to make farming more remunerative. He said it is time to sit together, discuss, plan strategies and put right thing into implementation on the ground.

The director also encouraged the officials to rededicate themselves and be a part of the mission to reach the target vision "Food for all" by 2025 to ensure food security.

Saying that agriculture is the most important economic activity in Nagaland, he reiterated that it is necessary to improve productivity and consequently sufficient food grains production through sustainable and scientific management practices.

Informing that the new Agriculture Produce and Livestock Model Act (Promotion and Felicitation) has already approved and notified by the state government, he said, along with this, the contract Farming Act (promotion and felicitation) is under process.

Taking advantage of the opportunity he called upon the agriculture experts to encourage the farmers to adopt the right technology, so that sufficient agriculture production is made available for trade and marketing, development of agriculture and uplift livelihood of farmers.

Yanthan also released the 1st edition 2020 success stories of Sub Mission on Agriculture Mechanisation.

Training on record-keeping, accounting and audit-related matters was provided by senior agriculture officer Haridasan T K.