Port Blair, Dec 11: Promotion of Organic Vegetable Cultivation at Neil Islands” in Mission Mode was launched on 1/2/2015. Since the launch of the mission, to facilitate organic cultivation in Neil Island the Department of Agriculture provided organic inputs like 50 MT organic manure (neem manures), 430 kg/lit bio-fertilizers/bio pesticides in addition to traps and lures. All the farmers have been provided soil health cards to assess the status of major as well as micro nutrient of their field.
To encourage and motivate the farmers for practicing organic cultivation the Department conducted various trainings/demonstrations/Farm Schools/Campaign for the farmers of Neil Island.
Recently a news item captioned as “Farmers of Neil islands cry for attention, organic farming without proper support turned out to be disastrous for Neil Island farmers” appeared in a local daily on 28.10.2015. In response to this, immediately, a team of Department officials visited Neil Island on 29.10.2015 to take stock of the situation. A meeting was held in the vegetable market complex Neil Kendra which was attended by about 60 farmers from all the 5 villages of Neil Island. The team also visited the fields of few farmers viz. Shri Krishna Bawali, Shri Nityananda Biswas and Shri Dhinenandu Roy at Ram Nagar village to study the field situation and observed good performance of vegetables and paddy.
In this connection the Secretary (Agri) herself made a visit to Neil Island on 7/11/2015 in connection with the availability of organic agricultural inputs at Neil Island and interacted with farmers and PRI members.
From field visit and interaction, it was found that there is no shortage of organic inputs in Neil Island. The farmers are interested in Organic Cultivation but there is apprehension that there might be a decrease in production in organic cultivation as compared to the use of chemical fertilizer. Hence they are demanding for chemical fertilizers.
In view of this, many immediate measures were taken. A team of ATMA functionaries conducted training and demonstration on organic cultivation including vermi-compost simultaneously in all the 5 villages of Neil Island on 05.11.2015. To ensure continued motivation to farmers to practice organic cultivation and to address their queries, an Agriculture officer has been posted to Neil Island exclusively.
