Srinagar: The Agriculture department today organised a seminar on Mushroom cultivation ‘A way forward to double the farmers income’ at Lalmandi, here.
The seminar was inaugurated by Director Agriculture Kashmir, Chowdhary Mohammad Iqbal and was organised with an aim to accomplish the mission of Prime Ministers vision of doubling farmers income by 2022.
During the inaugural address, the Director elaborated on the efforts of the department to further strengthen the mushroom cultivation and bring more and more farmers in its ambit.
He said, as land is shrinking and in the event of climate change, mushroom cultivation offers a viable option to increase farmers income and provide employment opportunities to educated youth with a meager investment.
Director said that the main objective of conducting such training camps is to give technical knowhow on commercial cultivation of Mushrooms on scientific lines with main thrust on sustainability so that the youth do not rely on government jobs only but engage themselves in self employment generation activities also.
He said mushroom cultivation has commercial dimensions which can uplift the socio-economic status of growers.
Chowdhary urged the mushroom experts and scientists of the department involved with the scheme to organize special training programs on scientific cultivation of mushrooms for the unemployed youth. He further said that the department has taken various initiatives to make mushroom cultivation round the year activity.
Director stressed upon the Mushroom Development officers to identify and register mushroom growers so that incentives under different CSSs are provided to these registered growers.
Joint Director Apiculture and Mushroom Farooq Ahmad Shah gave a powerpoint presentation deliberating on the issues faced by mushroom growers.
Among others, Joint Director Agriculture Extension Mohammad Muzaffar Hurra, Mushroom Specialist, Mushroom Research Officer and other senior officers of the department besides a large number of mushroom growers were present during the event.
