SRINAGAR : The Ten day online international training programme organized by Dryland Agriculture Research Station (KD Farm), Rangreth SKUAST-Kashmir on “Climate Risk Assessment and its Management through Agro-meteorological Approaches” concluded here today.
Deputy Director General (Education) ICAR and National Director (NAHEP) Prof. R.C Aggarwal was the Chief Guest on the valedictory function. He congratulated SKUAST-K for organizing the training of international standard, which was well timed and much needed under the changing scenario and increased frequency of climate risks. He also impressed upon large-scale climate awareness as climate change has become a reality. The greatest threat to the future of human kind is not a nuclear holocaust, a conflict or terrorism, but rather the global climate change, he observed.
Director ICAR-CRIDA, Prof. M. Maheswari laid thrust on the need of contingency crop planning and initiation of micro-level agro-advisories to the farming community. PI NAHEP SKUAST-K congratulated the organizers and emphasized on climate smart farming to maximize the farming income.
The guests and participants were formally welcomed by Dr. M.Anwar Bhat, Professor & Head, Division of Agronomy. Dr. Latief Ahmad, Course Director of the international training programme presented the training report and policy recommendations before the dignitaries. Dr. S. Sheraz Mahdi, Co-Course Director of training programme anchored the proceedings of the training programme.
During the event, besides the distribution of e-certificates, training manual comprising of twelve chapters from invited eminent speakers was also released.
The training programme was inaugurated on 20th October, 2020 by Prof (Dr.) Rattan Lal, World Food Prize Winner 2020 and Distinguished Professor of Soil Science, Ohio State University USA.
The other invited guests to the programme include Dr. Ch.Srinivasa, Director NAARM Hyderabad; Dr. Mushtaq Ahmad, Director Research SKUAST-K and Dr. N.A Ganai, Director Planning and PI NAHEP SKUAST-K.
The training programme was attended by more than 330 participants from twenty four states of India and seven countries representing 65 universities including students and faculties besides local participation from SKUAST-Kashmir.
Guest speakers from Ohio State University USA, CIMMYT Mexico, NoAA Centre USA, ICARDA Egypt, Canada, ICRISAT Hyderabad, IMD, IIT Bhubneshwar, ICAR-CRIDA, NRSC-ISRO Hyderabad, TNAU-Coimbatore and UAS Dharwad delivered their talks on various thematic aspects of the training programme to address the issues of climate risks and find out ways and means for its management through agro meteorological approaches to minimize climate related disasters.
