Srinagar, Jan 9: Government of Netherlands will provide cooperation in various agriculture and allied sectors to J&K. This was stated by Jeroen Roodenburg, Deputy Ambassador of Netherlands to India during a meeting at New Delhi with Ghulam Hassan Mir, Minister of Agriculture.  Mir was invited by Netherlands Government to discuss various Areas of Agriculture concern.
 During the meeting Deputy Ambassador told Minister that the Government of Netherlands is ready to forward technology, farm Machinery, and elite planting material for Agriculture, Horticulture, Floriculture and Dairy Farming to J&K state, an official statement said.  For that matter Agriculture counselor of Netherlands is going to visit Kashmir soon in near future.
 During the meeting Mir told that previously tourism was thought to be the only thrust areas for the state economy but Agriculture is now being given much focus as it has the tremendous potential for employment generation as well. He said that the availability of European type of climate in JK makes it possible to grow all types of high value crops at very low cost which other wise are being cultivated in Europe at high costs. In order to improve the quality and increase the production of the saffron, government has launched
 Saffron Mission in the state under which quality seed is being provided to the farmers and the marketing shall be done though Spice Board of India, Mir said.
 Agriculture counselor to Netherlands Embassy in India assured to Minister that sufficient support for the production of quality planting material of saffron shall be made available by the
Holland experts.
 In order to fulfil the country’s demand of flowering bulbs, the department of Agriculture is going to start flowering bulb propagation unit at Model Floriculture Center Ganderbal for that matter planting material shall be imported from Holland.
 Deputy Ambassador assured all possible help and cooperation to the minister for the uplift of Agriculture and allied sectors of the state so that besides the improvement of state economy the problem of unemployment could be addressed to a great extent. Henk van Duijn Agriculture Counselors, Anand Krishnan Senior Policy Advisor to Agriculture to Netherlands Embassy in India and Khursheed Ahmad Qasba Deputy Director Agriculture were also present in the meeting.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 9 Jan 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 9 Jan 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:00:00 IST