A DIALOUGE ON BUILDING INDIAN GOOD AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES TOWARDS AN INDO-GAP
On 6 October CII’s Young Indians under the Farmer Nets Platform organised the fifth AGROMAX at Shilpgram, Panjabari in Guwahati. The seminar witnessed a large turnout of around 350 young farmers, government officials, industry leaders and expert scientists from West Bengal and the seven North Eastern states, which participated in the day long experiential sharing and ‘next practices’ discussions. The day saw some eminent speakers interact with the farmers over three sessions. They included distinguished luminaries like Dr. Bhupati Das Chairman – CII Assam State Council & Managing Director, Numaligarh Refinery Ltd., Mr. Neeraj Verma, Secretary Agriculture, Government of Assam, Mr. Chintan Shah, Co-Chairman- Yi Farmers Net, Mr. Debajit Chaliha, Director Green Gold (Assam) Pvt. Ltd.,& Mr. Mrigen Kalita ,Secretary of Agriculture, Government of Assam among others.
Dr. Rahul Mirchandani, National Chairman – Young Indians & Executive Director of Aries Agro Limited, addressed the issues related to the need of good agricultural practices that will help Indian farmers in ensuring sustained higher harvests to adequately combat the global food crisis. He aimed at picking tested methods used by the farmers in some of the selected areas, which will be approved by the team of experts & would be replicated across the country including the northeast. Mr. Ajay Agarwal, Chairman Yi, Assam in his welcome address expressed his pleasure at the great turnout of farmers and the participation of distinguished guests and experts, who participated in the fifth AGROMAX seminar in Guwahati.
"Yi farmers network has committed itself to ensuring that knowledge is made the true catalyst to enhance agricultural productivity in India from their current dismal levels and has a membership of 7200 farmers who are part of the Yi Farmer’s Net with Aries agro Limited. The Yi Farmer’s Net organises AGROMAX every year and this year the theme for the Yi farmers network was on, “The world today has moved towards developing EuroGAP, GlobalGAP, and similar recommendations for good agricultural practices. India needs young farmers to engage in vigorous debate and discussion to agree on a specific Indian equivalent to these global standards. All editions of AGROMAX this year and ongoing regional and local events and activities would focus on engaging in comprehensive deliberations and constructive dialogue with various stakeholders on creating an 'IndoGAP' that is relevant and useful to the Indian farmers.”
At the 5th AGROMAX in Guwahati, Mr. R T Jindal, Principal Secretary & APC, Government of Assam elaborated his views on the agricultural sector in India that is witnessing radical change. The growing usage of high yielding hybrid/Gm seeds, spread of micro irrigation systems, increase in area under cultivation of horticultural crops and adoption of scientific cropping practices by farmers are healthy trends that promise to usher in another green revolution in Indian agriculture. All the trends require intensive farming with a singular focus on improving productivity levels from existing land area. To ensure that productivity levels and consequent farm yields are of the required quality and quantity, crops must be grown using good agricultural practices that specifically focus on integrated nutrition management and scientific crop protection. He reiterated the need for states to emulate the best practices in the business to usher a second green revolution across the nation.
The AGROMAX witnessed participation of members from all across the Industry platform including top government officials, opinion leaders, Industry associations, private entrepreneurs, agribusiness students & farmers, research scholars & academicians. The actions points for CII that were derived from this edition of the AGROMAX were: Documentation through films on the best practices of the region, workshops in village areas for sharing of best practices and finally CII-Yi in association with the government to organise study tours to understand best practices in other states.
