Himachal Pradesh: 50,000 farmers to be trained in natural farming

SHIMLA: Governor Acharya Devvrat said that Himachal Pradesh government had fixed the target to train and cover about 50,000 farmers under natural farming in this financial year. Expressing satisfaction over the progress made by state in the direction of natural farming, he hoped that by 2022, Himachal would emerge as a fully natural farming state.
Devvrat was presiding over the closing session of workshop on Subhash Palekar Natural Farming under ' Prakritik Krishi Khushal Kisan Yojana’ organized by agriculture department at Dr YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni in Solan on Saturday.
He said that he had about 25 years of practical experience on chemical and organic farming but ultimately he had to switch-over to natural farming as it was beneficial in many ways. He said that it helped in protecting our environment, improve the soil fertility, decrease the cost of production and also improve the economic condition of the farmers.
Appreciating the efforts and initiatives taken by the agriculture department in this direction, he said that farmers in the state were hardworking and well aware and hoped that they would follow the instructions given by the officials to save their future and make it successful.
Earlier principal secretary (agriculture) Onkar Sharma said that state government has taken various initiative to promote natural farming in the state. After adopting it, state government had been provided Rs 25 crore budgetary provision for this farming. He said that with the sincere efforts of the department, last year near about 3000 farmers have been covered against the target of 500 farmers under the scheme.
He hoped that this year target of 50,000 farmers would be covered for which more training camps and workshops would be organized in the state.