Zonal Workshop on Farmer FIRST Programme

31st October 2023, Kolkata

A One-day Zonal Review Workshop of the Farmer FIRST Programme (FFP) was organised at ICAR- Agricultural Technology Application Research Institute, Kolkata today through hybrid mode under the Chairmanship of Dr. Pradip Dey, Director-cum-Chairman, Zonal Programme Management Committee (ZPMC), FFP, for four centres of this zone.

Dr. S.S. Dana, Vice Chancellor, WBUAFS Kolkata, was the Chief Guest of the workshop. He pointed out the importance of impact study of technology dissemination, sustainability after discontinuation of the project and avoiding duplication of similar programmes by various agencies. Dr. Dana also stressed the evaluation of different technologies demonstrated through FFP.

Dr. P.J. Mishra, Guest of Honour and Dean, Extension Education, OUAT Bhubaneswar, expressed his concern over the successful running of FFP and advocated the missing out on innovative farmer’s technology by the institutes. He also talked about climate-smart agriculture, and sustainable agripreneurship and emphasised research publication based on the findings of the programme.

Dr. R. Roy Burman, Assistant Director General (AE), ICAR, briefed about the objectives of the programme and suggested more participation by farmers, scientists and a balanced module approach to saturate entire households of the village clusters. He also emphasised establishing a seed hub, raising sustainability funds and partnership with district/state administration for content mobilisation, up-scaling and out-scaling of technologies demonstrated through FFP.

Dr. Pradip Dey, in his address called for an approach centred on the co-creation of technology. He stressed that fund mobilisation from other sources through convergence, promotion of FPO/FPCs to achieve economies of scale and documentation of institutional learnings are important. Dr. Dey said that the workshop will help in the identification and assemblage of doable technologies for conservation of soil health and efficient use of natural resources which will further improve the agricultural production and uplift the livelihood of the farming community as a whole.

Principal Investigators (PIs)/ Co-PI of four FFP centres presented the physical and financial achievements of respective centres during the period from April to October 2023 which were critically reviewed by the distinguished dignitaries during the technical session.

A total of 40 delegates attended the workshop.

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