Directorate of Extension Education of Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana used to organize monthly meetings of Progressive Goat Farmers’ Association regularly for the last many years for the welfare of goat farmers of the state. Due to pandemic Covid-19 conditions, the meetings were reoriented through online mode on monthly basis and many farmers initially showed keen interest in these webinars.
However, recently the participation of goat farmers in such webinars dipped significantly. To boost their participation and to motivate the goat farmers, University has restarted the monthly seminars in physical mode. In this first post-Covid Seminar which was held at Farmer Information Centre, 27 goat farmers of the state including a lady farmer participated.
The key speakers were Dr. Shukriti Sharma from the Department of Veterinary Medicine and Dr. Rajesh Kasrija from the Department of Veterinary and Animal Husbandry Extension Education. They made beautiful presentations on the topics “Health management of goats” and “Reproductive management of goats”, respectively. The farmers interacted with the scientists enthusiastically.
Importance of Monthly Meeting
Dr. Parkash Singh Brar, Director of Extension Education conveyed that these monthly meetings are playing an important role in the strengthening of goat farming enterprise and overall in knowledge enrichment of farmers through farmer-scientist interactions.
He further emphasized and assured the participants that in the future more relevant lectures depending upon the needs and queries of the farmers will be conducted by the university.
Dr. Rakesh Kumar Sharma, Head of the Department motivated the farmers and association members to attend these meetings so as to get updated with new technologies and to discuss ongoing problems with the university scientists.
The utility services provided by GADVASU Ludhiana were also shared with the new participants. They were made aware of the establishment of a ‘Tele-Advisory Centre’ at GADVASU, Ludhiana. Any livestock farmer can now contact the university experts on dedicated mobile numbers-62832 58834 and 97919 97919. Last week University also organized a week-long ‘Training Course on Goat Farming’.
Interested Farmers Can Start Goat Farming As An Enterprise
The farmers of the state who are interested to start goat farming as an enterprise are advised to get basic training from GADVASU. The next training will be held in the month of December 2021. The interested candidates can submit the application forms at Farmer Information Centre on any working day. For more information, they may contact at 0161-2414026.
