Dharamshala/Vivekanand Vashisht:- Dr C Paulrasu, Secretary (Agr) to Government of Himachal Pradesh, called for collective, innovative and inclusive approach for building right pathway for the sustainability in agriculture and in this hilly state.
He was delivering his speech as the chief guest on Wednesday late evening at the valedictory session of the 1st National Workshop on ‘Sustainable Agriculture and Agribusiness Development’ at Dhauladhar Heights Resorts in Dharamshala.
Explaining this Dr Paulrasu said that Sustainability is collective for farmers, institutions, private players, and communities and all must move together. He said innovation is essential for technology, smart practices, and new business models to provide right shape to the future of agriculture, whereas, the we cannot ignore inclusion of all communities of society that is the women, smallholders, youth, and vulnerable communities at the centre of transformation.
Dr Paulrasu admired the progress made in the HP JICA Agriculture Project, which has completed half of its term since July 2021. He also commended the successful conclusion of the the workshop was organsied by the Himachal Pradesh Crop Diversification Promotion Project-II for JICA Assisted Projects in India.
Dr Sunil Chauhan, the Project Director in his welcome address assured the state government and the JICA India delegates to accelerate the pace of development in the project keeping in view the expected outcomes of this Rs 1010 crore Phase-II of the Project of creating irrigation systems in over 8000-hectare area of 296 sub-projects benefiting 30,000 families and conversion of about 7000-hectare area for crop diversification. The JICA-India delegates included Sr Representative Wakamastu Eiji, Development Specialist Nishtha Vengurlekar and all delegates were present in the concluding session.
The delegates of the workshop visited the FPO Consortium at Chetru, where they were briefed about FPO formation, the consortium model, aggregation, grading & branding system. At the sub-project area of Dawad, the visitors took a transact walk in the fields and saw SHEP Demonstrations and showcased the market linkage with Reliance India store at Jamanabad. The delegates also visited the Vegetable Multiplication Farm (VMF) at Bhattoo and saw the interventions of the project on protected cultivation practices, farm level demonstrations. The delegates also took around of Collection Centre & Retail Outlet of the project at Bhattoo and were brief about the turmeric processing unit demonstration, direct retail marketing model and interacted with Bhawarna FPC members. Dr Sunil Chauhan, the Project Director, JICA-India delegates, Sh. Baljit Sandhu Sr Consultant of the project accompanied the visitors.
