The ambitious “Kisan Sampark Abhiyan” has received an overwhelming participation of a total of 1.10 lakh farmers in its massive orientation programmes held during the first four rounds of the programme which began on April 24 this year, the administration said on Thursday.
An official spokesperson said the fourth round which was held from May 15 to 17 saw massive participation of farmers with coverage of a total of 1097 panchayats during all four rounds conducted till 17th May.
He said that Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, himself participated in the Kisan Sampark Abhiyan and visited Dooru Panchayat in Anantnag district and Hardpanzoo panchayat in Budgam on May 15 and 16 respectively. An overwhelming participation of farmers in both the panchayats bears testimony to the fact that farmers are enthusiastic about the newly launched Holistic Agriculture Development Programme.
Lieutenant Governor asked the educated youth to take advantage of the schemes under Holistic Agriculture Development Plan (HADP) as it was a unique and first-of-its-kind initiative in the country, whereby interventions in all the domains of agriculture and allied sectors are available. He expressed confidence that, with the implementation of HADP within the next five years, J&K shall have the distinction of being the first to double farm incomes besides having double-digit growth in the agriculture sector.
The Agriculture Production Department is currently engaged in a first-of-its-kind, ground-breaking, and extensive farmer orientation exercise. “Under the Kisan Sampark Abhiyan, ambitious goals have been set for reaching out to every farmer in each Panchayat of the UT within the next four months. The exercise started on April 24 and will last until August 31, 2023, and has been planned under Holistic Agriculture Development Programme (HADP), a turnaround programme which has been approved in Agriculture sector by the UT government recently,” the spokesperson said.
All districts in the UT are observing a series of orientation programmes under Kisan Sampark Abhiyan simultaneously during the first three days of the week. The government has released a thorough calendar that is specific to each district. Officers and Officials from the Agriculture, Animal/Sheep Husbandry, Horticulture, Sericulture, and Fisheries departments who were trained in advance during the 641 training sessions, held throughout all districts from January to April, are acting as the resource persons for the farmer’s orientations.
Notably, a creative method is being implemented to use short films/videos to describe various initiatives and projects. The farmers will be shown a total of 49 short films/videos about HADP and other centrally supported programmes at various locations in J&K. In addition, a question and answer session was also held following each video screening session to allay farmers’ concerns.
Additionally, pamphlets and brochures detailing all of the programmes are being given to the farmers in Hindi, Urdu, and English. These brochures also included contact information for every department under UT’s agriculture production department.