FPOs-FPCs-Farmers’ Meet at KVK, Jalpaiguri

7^th April 2023, Jalpaiguri

To mark the ‘Golden Jubilee Year of KVKs’, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Jalpaiguri organized a program involving 155 farm men and women including the members of different FPOs, FPCs, SHGs under the patronage of ICAR- Agricultural Technology Application Research Institute (ATARI), Kolkata and West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Sciences (WBUAFS), Kolkata today at KVK Campus, Jalpaiguri, North Bengal.

Dr. Jayanta Kumar Roy, Member of Parliament, Jalpaiguri District, urged for quality seed production and the need of infrastructure facilities like multipurpose cold storage facilities for the region to mitigate the problems of surplus production and forced selling of vegetables and other agriculture products.

Dr. Himanshu Pathak, Secretary (DARE) & Director General (ICAR) shared his vision for sustainable agriculture development and better adoption of area specific modern technologies by the farmers through KVK extension network. He mentioned that such assembly of Policy makers-Scientists-FPOs-FPCs-farmers could be very important for agricultural development. He exhorted that low-cost environment-friendly zero energy cool chamber in the region to avoid distress selling of commodities by the farmers.

Dr. Pradip Dey, Director, ICAR-ATARI, Kolkata, outlined the importance of KVK activities for socio-economic development of the small and marginal farmers through undertaking various collaborative activities with the line departments in the convergent mode. He emphasised about the importance of FPOs/FPCs to achieve the scale of production as per market demand and thereby attracting the market towards farmers doorstep.

The dignitaries visited the KVK farm and different demonstration units.

(Source: ICAR- Agricultural Technology Application Research Institute, Kolkata)