Jammu, Jan 31: National Agriculture Bank and Rural Development (NABARD) has agreed to provide more funding support and guidance in agriculture sector to boost the farming sector in the state.
 The issue was discussed at a high level meeting of NABARD officials held under the chairmanship of Minister for Agriculture, Ghulam Hassan Mir here this morning. During the meeting, NABARD gave a power point presentation about the areas where Bank can provide funding and consultancy support to agriculture department.
 The meeting was attended by Commissioner Secretary Agriculture Production, Naveen Choudary, Director Agriculture Jammu, Ajay Kahjuria, Director Agriculture Kashmir, Dr. Farooq Ahmad Lone, Director Horticulture Planning and Marketing, Javid Ahmed Khan, Chief General Manager NABARD, S.C. Rabra and other senior officers of Agriculture and NABARD.
 Threadbare discussion was held to provide infrastructural, technological and marketing support to help the farmers to switch over from traditional agriculture practices to commercial farming.
 In this direction, the NABARD officials agreed to provide maximum funding support in irrigation, development of Cold Chain Storage and warehouse, an official statement said.
 They also agreed in facilitating the establishment of Cooperative societies for small land holding farmers so that they get benefit of various schemes.
 Speaking on the occasion, the Minister said that there was a dire need for investment in agriculture sector as per the global trend and added that NABARD can help in bridging this gap.
 He asked the NABARD officials to fund for upgrading the irrigation facilities, particularly in Karvas of the state as extending the irrigation facilities to dry areas was the first priority of the Agriculture Ministry.
 He said there was a dire need for developing the cold chain storage and warehouse facilities across the state which would help the farming community to store their products for longer time to get better returns. Lauding the efforts of NABARD in boosting the agriculture activities in J&K, Mir asked the NABARD authorities to come up with a comprehensive funding plan for irrigation and construction of cold chain storage in the state.

Lastupdate on : Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Wed, 1 Feb 2012 00:00:00 IST