SRINAGAR: The Director of Agriculture Kashmir, Chowdhury Mohammad Iqbal, today chaired an interactive meeting with the FPO members of Both Kashmir and Jammu Divisions “for improving the working of FPOs” at the agriculture complex Lalmandi Srinagar.
Addressing the meeting Director highlighted the importance of FPOs for small farmers. He said that small landholders constitute a vast majority of farmers in the UT of J&K, in addition, small holders are especially vulnerable to climate change, aggregated weather events, like untimely rain, severe drought and floods, hailstorm and pest infestation any of which could wipe out their crops, therefore the (FPOs) farmers producer organizations play an important role and enable farmers to get the benefits of economics of scale.
FPOs help farmers to benefit from shared resources, and get better access to the markets and latest technologies, he said and added. He impressed upon the concerned officers from both divisions to work in close coordination with the FPOs and address their issues on a priority basis.
He asked the participants & officers of the departments to play their role for the successful implementation of the projects under the holistic agriculture development programme.
He underlined the importance of a collaborative approach to achieving the set targets under different projects.
Earlier, the Director of Agriculture visited the Seed Multiplication farm Gangbug and took stock of the agriculture activities there.
The meeting was attended by FPO members from both the divisions of J&K and concerned officers in person and through virtual mode.
