Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha rightly underlined that agriculture is the most important and sensitive sector for the economy and vital to survival of humanity. To tackle wide range of impacts on people’s lives due to diverse challenges worldwide, Agriculture Universities must be connected to the global nervous system to quickly adopt the latest knowledge.
Holistic Agriculture Development Program (HADP), he pointed out, has brought a culture change in farming, agriculture innovation, to acquire and apply knowledge. It has surely stimulated engagement among change agents to establish full-fledged agri-business incubation centre for new start-ups.
The agricultural universities with their futuristic and courageous initiatives are leading the path of dynamic economic growth, excellent collaboration and increasing global cooperation to redefine agricultural education and skill development, he said.
J&K’s Agriculture and allied sectors powered by the Holistic Agriculture Development Program are offering multi-fold growth opportunities to farmers and agri-entrepreneurs.
Given its substantial contribution to the total GDP, Agriculture is an important sector of the economy. Jammu and Kashmir’s economy is mainly dependent on it as almost 70% of the population is directly or indirectly engaged in agricultural and allied activities.
With the endeavor to double the contribution of Agri-GDP in next five years from $4 billion to $8 billion, the government constituted UT Level Apex Committee (UTLAC) for framing a “comprehensive Agriculture Policy” for holistic development of farm and allied sectors in J&K.
At least 29 projects, approved by the Apex Committee for Holistic Development of Agriculture and Allied sectors, are being implemented in Jammu and Kashmir.
The plan worth Rs 5013 crores is tipped to bring a significant change in the lives of the huge population linked with the farming sector in J&K.
Of late, the administration has put a lot of focus on agriculture and the allied sector. In fact, the Lieutenant Governor said that this decade in the agriculture and horticulture sector belongs to J&K. The policies through ‘holistic development’ plan have laid the foundations for a ‘sea change’ in the economic growth of J&K.
The administration recently stressed that its effort is to make sub-tropical fruit cultivation a multi-faceted business by increasing efficiency of orchards with the help of various interventions like setting up new nurseries and new plant material testing labs.
The government must continue to focus on technology as penetration of the latter in the farm sector is happening at multiple levels across the globe including in many parts of India.
