Training on soil held at Nagaon

A two days officers training programme on ‘Soil Health Card’ was organized recently at the Regional Agricultural Research Centre ( RARS ) Shillongoni, Nagaon. The training programme was sponsored by State Department of Agriculture Govt. of Assam. PHYTO SOLUTION, a Guwahati based NGO, organzied the programme in collaboration with Assam Agricultural University through RARS and KVK, Nagaon. 

    The inaugural session held on the 7^th July was chaired by Dr. P.K. Das, Chief scientist of RARS, Shillongani, Nagaon. Dr.B. Barman, former chief Scientist and OSD of AAU and consultant, Phyto Solution welcomed the dignitaries and participants. In his speech, he elloborated the importance of soil testing and soil health card for sustainable crop production in the state. K. Talukdar, Joint Director of Agriculture, Central Zone, formally inaugurated the two days programme. D. Pangging, District Agricultural officer of Nagaon and Dr.N.Deka, Head of KVK of Nagaon also spoke on the occasion    

   The programme was implemented as hands on orientation tranning as part of the central sector scheme on ‘Soil Health card’ under National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture’. Altogather thirty two participants from Nagaon, Morigaon, Hojai, Sonitpur, Biswanath, Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao districts of Assam comprising SDAOs, senior ADOs, ADOs, Soil Chemists, BTM, AAIs and AEAs attended the training. The classes were taken by scientist  from the Regional Agricultural Research Station (RARS) Shillongoni and KVK Nagaon namely Drs.T.P.Saikia, ASN Zaman and S. Bhagawati. The course content included theory sessions on basic analytical principles, instrumentation tools, and cutting edge techniques in physic-chemical analysis of soil as well as hands on practical sessions on various soil health parameters.    

   In the feedback session, trainees were overwhelmed by the knowledge gained in various analytical procedures in nutrient estimation in soil, exposure on handling equipment especially Atomic absorption Spectrophotometer and Mrida Parikshak, a portable digital soil test kit-cum-mini lab as well as the underlying priciples in all soil analysis. Dr. T.P.Saikia , principal scientist of RARS served as the coordinator of the programme.    

   It might be mentioned that 'Soil Health Card Scheme' is a scheme launched by the Government of India in February 2015. Under this scheme , the government plans to issue soil cards to farmers which will carry crop-wise recommendations of nutrients and fertilizers required for the individual farms to help farmers to improve productivity through judicious use of inputs. The government plans to issue the cards to 14 crore farmers and till now 8 crores farmers of the country received such cards.