The Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) meeting of the Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Darrang for the year 2010 was held in the Conference hall of DRDA, Darrang on 9th September, 2010. The meeting was chaired by Dr. B.C.Bhowmick, Director of Extension Education, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat. In his inaugural speech, Dr. Bhowmick emphasized on dissemination of improved agricultural technologies by the KVKs to the ultimate user, the farmers. Mentioning about the 2nd green revolution, he pointed out that N E India is the hot spot for this revolution as the productivity is still low in NE India. The population of India in 2050 will be 175 crore and to feed this burgeoning population agricultural growth rate must be increased from the present 2% to 4-5%. The present technology adoption rate is only 20% which must be increased to 80% to ensure a 4 folds production and productivity jump.
Dr. N.N.Sarmah, Director of Research (Agri), AAU in his address informed the house that AAU has already developed 45 varieties of rice and several varieties in other crops, however, the performance of these varieties in the farmer’s field is not up to the expectation. HYVs, like Ranjit, has the yield potential of about 5-6 t/ha. But in farmers field only 1.7 to 1.9 t/ha is realized, he added. So the productivity can be doubled with the existing varieties if proper production practices are adopted by farmers. Dr. A.K.Chakraborty, Director of Research (Vety.), AAU stressed on adopting scientific methods for higher production in animal and fishery sector along with the major crop, rice. He also emphasized on collaboration with the line department to implement various developmental programmes on enhancing productivity in animal and fish sector.
In the interactive session, the heads of different line departments or their representatives from Agriculture, veterinary, soil conservation, fishery, social welfare, sericulture, DICC gave their feedback on their collaborative activities with KVK. Four progressive farmers viz., Debajani Nath(Sipajhar), Omar Ali(Dalgaon), Hafiza Begum(Dhula) and Gunendra Saharia(Namkhola) also interacted and narrated their experiences in agriculture and allied aspects while participating in KVK activities.
The annual progress reports of previous years and action plan for 2010-11 were presented by Dr. T.P.Saikia, Programme Coordinator, KVK, Darang before the house and were approved with minor modifications. Dr K.K.Sharma, Chief Scientist, RARS, N. Lakhimpur also attended the meeting and offered his valuable suggestion in finalization of the action plan.
In his concluding remark, Dr. K.M.Bujarbaruah, Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, AAU, highlighted the role of KVKs in developing a production plan to increase production and productivity of the district. He added: “since the weakest sector of Assam’s agriculture is the animal husbandry sector, extra effort must be put to bring a noticeable change in this sector too. Agro-processing, particularly in the Darrang District is an important aspect and cooperation with the NGO and the concerned line departments is needed. Self sufficiency in the certified seed requirement is urgently required and KVKs must play the active role in this regards too”. The meeting ended with offering of vote of thanks by Dr Devajit Borthakur, SMS of KVK, Darrang to all the participating members.
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