Stressing on the empowerment of the farmers, Advisor to Governor K Skandan on Friday asked for forming farmer unions.
He said by forming unions at various levels and getting themregistered will help farmers avail benefits from various schemes.
Skandan was speaking at a meeting convened to review thefunctioning of the agriculture and horticulture departments of Kashmir withregards to various state and centrally sponsored schemes.
Skandan stressed on the need for taking reformative measures to develop these sectors and also urged for exploring more possibilities of their expansion in the state.
He emphasized on bridging the gap between farmers and officers of the department and exhorted upon them to impart technical skills for improving their production
Divisional commissioner Kashmir, Baseer Ahmad Khan, directorhorticulture, Ajaz Ahmad Bhat, director agriculture Kashmir, SyedAltafAijazAndrabi and other concerned officials were present in the meeting.
The advisor asked for holding regular awareness camps andtraining programmes to acquaint the farmers in far off areas with moderntechniques for emerging trends in organic farming, processing, marketing, andproduction aspects of different crops on scientific lines.
Advisor skandan put emphasis on improving quality and production of horticulture crops to make the sector more vibrant, besides increasing the income of farmers.
He said that the departments should come up with the proper plan about how to solve the problems faced by farmers at various stages of production which includes from buying a seed to marketing the harvest.
The advisor stressed on creating proper coordination withinthe departments and SKUAST so that the benefits can be taken out of theresearches made by the university. He also impressed on carrying out the properdocumentation work of the departmental works and achievements.
Speaking on the occasion, divisional commissioner Kashmir,Baseer Ahmad Khan asked the officials to make the Fruit Mandis more functionaland stressed on the quality control and proper transportation of the goods. Healso asked the Horticulture department to setup a dry-fruit mandi.