The Department of Horticulture, North Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Tura in collaboration with NEHU-Deen Dayal Upadhyay Community College for Skill Development (DDUCCSD), Wahiajer, Jowai, and ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR), Bengaluru, organised a ‘Capacity Building Programme on ICAR-IIHR Technologies for the Production of Horticultural Crops in NEH Region’ on Saturday.
The programme, held at DDUCCSD, Wahiajer, Jowai, saw the participation of approximately 200 farmers, predominantly women, who each received 50 kg of horticultural inputs, supplied by ICAR-IIHR, stated a release.
The event aimed to disseminate advanced IIHR technologies to farmers in the West Jaintia Hills, promoting sustainable horticultural practices with minimal chemical use, it stated.
The ICAR-IIHR, a premier horticultural research institute in India, is ranked as the number one research institute among ICAR institutes and has developed 354 varieties and 156 technologies across 58 horticultural crops, it mentioned.
During the event, Principal Scientist at IIHR, Dr T Sakthivel detailed the usage of the distributed farm inputs, it said. While, ADC, West Jaintia Hills district, MB Tongper highlighted the significance of organic agriculture and natural farming, emphasising the potential for GI tags beyond the success of Lakadong turmeric and Khasi mandarin, it asserted.
Director, ICAR-IIHR, Bengaluru, Prakash Patil also gave insights on benefits of using resistant vegetable crops to reduce input costs and encouraged farmers to fully utilise the distributed inputs, it noted. It further mentioned that Deputy Director General-Horticultural Sciences, ICAR, New Delhi, Professor Sanjay K Singh emphasised the importance of chemical-free farming and motivated farmers to adopt the organic technologies provided by IIHR.
Vice-Chancellor of NEHU, Professor PS Shukla praised the event’s success and the enthusiastic response from the women farmers and also suggested creating a WhatsApp group for ongoing farmer support and knowledge sharing and proposed sending farmers to IIHR, Bengaluru, for specialised training, the release said.
Principal, DDUCCSD, Wahiajer, Jowai, Professor SM Sungoh; Dean, SHES, NEHU, Shillong Professor D Walia; Headman, Wahiajer, Sanwatki Laloo, DDUCCSD staff, students, and many attended the programme, it stated,
Dance performance by NEHU students, presentation of mementos to the Vice-Chancellor, Farmers’ and Scientists’ Interaction Session, an exhibition by the Tailoring section students etc., were among the main highlights of the programme, it added.
