Port Blair, May 07: Quinquennial Review Team (QRT) of CARI under the Chairmanship of Dr. S.L. Mehta along with Dr. Baldeo Singh, Dr. S.K. Pandey and Dr. Narayan Rishi as members visited Diglipur on 2nd May, 2012 along with Dr. D.R.Singh, Director CARI and his team of scientist comprising of Dr.S.K.Zamir Ahmed, Dr.Jai Sundar Dr.M.Sankaran, Dr. T.Subramani and Mr.L.B.Singh representing social science, animal science , horticulture and forestry and KVK.
Immediately on their arrival the team visited Out Reach Centre (ORC) of CARI supported by NABARD to attend farmers meet during the training programme on ‘Tuber Crops’ organised by Division of Horticulture & Forestry and ORC for the farmers. At the outset Dr. S.K. Zamir Ahmed, Senior Scientist and Coordinator ORC briefed about the activities undertaken by ORC in the mode of training and demonstration for effective transfer and adoption of technologies in agriculture and allied field by the stakeholders of the area since July, 2009.
Dr. D.R. Singh, Director, CARI informed that the ORC is acting as a centre for transfer of technologies and bridging the gap between the farmers and Scientists. He assured for all cooperation from his team of scientist in transferring need based technologies. Shri Madhu Sudan Nair, Pradhan, Keralapuram and Mr. Alok Biswas, Progressive Farmer and member, IMC from Madhupur and Shri Manindra Mistry, Progressive farmer from Deshbandhu Gram also interacted with the team and requested for a permanent centre of CARI at Diglipur for which they assured for all the necessary support.
Dr. S. L. Mehta, Chairman of QRT and chief guest of the function exhorted the farmers to form cooperatives for producing and selling their products directly to the market, which will earn them good remuneration and self esteem. He cited his own experience wherein the farmers of Rajasthan are earning good value for their farm products by directly selling to the market through cooperative societies. Dr. S.K. Pandey and Dr. Baldeo Singh members of the QRT spoke about the value addition in horticulture crops and empowerment of women in agriculture for better livelihood. They also distributed good planting material of tapioca, sweet potato, elephant foot yam, HYV of rice to the selected farmers. Beside, coconut dehusker both paddle and hand operated were also given to the farmers with a view to enhance the efficiency and reduce the drudgery. They also visited the Agromet tower installed by the institute at Kerlapuram.
On 3rd May, 2012 to witness the work of NAIP, FPARP and ORC in the field the team visited Madhupur and Deshbnadhu village to see fish based farming system and land shaping programmes, vegetable cultivation at RK Gram, groundnut at VS Palli and land based IFS with poultry at Kerlapuram. They also interacted with the farmer and suggested for better interventions to increase the income from the farm. The vegetable market at Subhash Gram was also visited to see the existing price pattern of the vegetable, fruit, cereals and fish. On the way back they saw the mangrove biodiversity and the KVK site allotted at Nimbudera.
