On the second day of Pusa Krishi Vigyan Mela, Shri Radha Mohan Singh honourable minister of agriculture visited the mela. He visited demonstration stall and had interaction with farmers and scientists. Pusa Krishi Vigyan Mela provides platform for the direct exposure to latest technologies and developments in agriculture for farmers. The technical session on “Innovations in Secondary Agriculture for enhancing income of farmers” was held on the second day of farmer’s fair. The session was chaired by Dr. H. S. Gupta, Former DG, BISA & Director, ICAR-IARI and other dignitaries were Dr A K Singh, DDG, Agricultural Extension and Director, IARI; Dr. Joy Krushna Jena, DDG (Fisheries) & (AS); Dr J P Sharma, Joint Director (Ext). At the outset, the Chairman overwhelmingly congratulated all the Padma Shri awardee farmers and also thanked them for their contribution to agriculture sector. He requested them to share their journey and motivate the fallow farmers present at the fair. Dr. J.P. Sharma, Joint Director (Ext) emphasized on the use of value addition in agriculture sector. He told that small innovations can help farmers to get better price for their produce and achieve desired income in a short span.
Padma Shri Sh. Kanwal Singh Chauhan shared his experience about his journey from 1957 to till now in the field of baby corn production. He later on also started mushroom, capsicum and tomato cultivation and gained the success. He mentioned about the benefits reaped out from Haryana state government crop cluster development scheme which led to his success. Today he exports daily 8 tonnes of baby corn to U.K. He also requested the scientific community to work on the reduced use of chemical pesticides.
Padam Sri Sh. Sultan Singh ji from Karnal, Haryana shared his experience in fish farming. He started with just Rs 500 investment and became a millionaire. Along with fish production, he also started breeding catfish and reared shrimp in adverse climatic conditions. He had also developed a recirculatory aqua-culture system to increase productivity. He aspires to replace KFC chicken by his own FISH BITE product in future.
Shri Bharat Bhushan Tyagi is awarded “Padma Shri” for farmer-led innovations in organic farming. He said that receiving an award like this come with responsibility toward the nation and farmers of our country. He motivated farmers to take up organic farming and assured that it gives more benefit in turns of income. Padma Shri Sh Ram Sharan Verma Ji hails from Daulatpur village, Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh. He started his journey with banana cultivation in 1986 and later he introduced many new crops such as potato, tomato, Mentha in the old rice-wheat-sugarcane belt of Uttar Pradesh. He also developed his own hybrid and tissue culture technique and runs “Hi-Tech Agriculture & Consultation” services at Daulatapur village. Dr S. K. Jha, Professor, FS&PHT informed farmers about the advantage of processing and value addition of agricultural and horticultural crops. Processing increases the value of primary agricultural commodities and protects farmers from market price fluctuations thus enhancing income. Dr Neelam Patel, I/C, CPCT highlighted the various methods of protected cultivation technologies and how farmers in peri-urban areas can get benefited by adopting such technologies. Dr D. K. Yadav, ADG (Seeds) & Head, SST discussed on the benefit of taking up small scale profitable seed production enterprise and seed production technologies. Dr V K Singh, Head, Division of Agronomy highlighted the component of 1 ha and 1 acre Integrated farming system models at Krishi Mela. He emphasized its importance for 86% of small farmers as it has the potential for providing nutritional security with enhanced farm income. Dr Y. V. Singh discussed the biofertilizer and organic farming technologies of agriculture.
