Srinagar, Apr 7: In a bid to promote agriculture and its allied sectors, Minister for Agriculture Ghulam Hassan Mir today urged youth to take agri practice as full fledged profession.
 “It is irony that in our society agriculture is not considered as the priority sector by people, they don’t want to indulge in this field. We should not forget that development of any state or country depends on this sector. If you look at countries like USA and China, they have well organized agriculture sector which is the major contributor to their respective GDP,” Mir said, adding that agriculture is the backbone of economy.
 “Here we are witnessing an unusual trend— that the people affiliated with agriculture sector feel ashamed about disclosing that they are farmers. They should be proud of what they are doing,” Mir said.
 While referring to growing rate of unemployment, Mir said the agriculture alone can solve this problem. “Agriculture is such a vast sector that it can absorb large number of youth. Besides it will help our GDP to grow at faster pace. It makes a person self sufficient and that the person can provide employment to other people.”
 Minister stated that there is need to take the researches from the labs to the lands. “Many of our institutions are conducting research in agriculture, but what we need is to put this research into practice in our day to day farming. It will lure youngsters toward this noble profession”
 He said: “We need to bring cost of production down that can be brought by using latest advanced technologies. “State government is working very hard to bring advanced technologies for the use of farmers in state. That reduces their cost of production and will increase their profit margins. We need to upgrade our marketing strategies in order to increase productivity of agricultural output.”
 Urging youth to be part of revolution in agriculture and its allied sectors, Mir said: “We have to pledge that we will bring revolution in the agriculture and its allied sector to give impetus to our economy.”
 Mir was speaking at an award distribution ceremony at SKICC for progressive farmers under “support to State Agriculture Extension Programmes for extension reforms scheme” for 2011- 12.
 Pertinently, share of agriculture in the GDP is 17 percent while it contributes 27 percent to state GDP.
 The Minister on the conclusion distributed prizes among progressive farmers.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 7 Apr 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 7 Apr 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 8 Apr 2012 00:00:00 IST