Scientists at the Central Agricultural University Manipur (CAU) stressed on promoting millet production and natural farming at the 15th Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) meeting of KVK, Imphal East held on Tuesday.
The KVK meeting was held at the Directorate of Extension Education, CAU, Imphal.
Millet is one of the highly nutritive and dietary fibre crops which can be cultivated with low water supply and can be used as an alternative crop in paddy lands where there is no proper irrigation facilities, said scientists at CAU Manipur.
According to director of Extension Education CAU, Imphal, Ph Ranjit Sharma, the trial and experiment of cultivating millets in the state has become a great success where cent percent of the farmers who were provided with millet seeds witnessed positive results.
As 2023 is declared as the international year of millets, it is the perfect opportunity to start cultivating different varieties of the millet crops on a larger scale for better productivity, he added.
The SAC meeting was chaired by vice-chancellor of CAU, Imphal, Anupam Mishra, and was attended by representatives from various departments including Agriculture, Horticulture, Veterinary, MSRLM and innovative farmers from across the Imphal East district.
The participant farmers in the meeting pointed out the need of supplying more equipment and machinery to the farmers in order to boost their productivity.
Taking note of the suggestion from the farmers, the officials of KVK assured to deal the matter by collaborating with the College of Food Technology, CAU, Imphal and also suggested that the framers can use the equipments of CAU or borrow equipments from the 40 tools banks located in Imphal East at a minimal rate.
During the meeting, a slide show on the achievement of KVK, Imphal East was showcased besides sharing the success stories of the farmers using the equipment procured by the KVK.
