Farmers’ Training on ‘Crop Health, Quality Assurance and Precision Agriculture’

12^th November 2022, Wai, Satara

KVK, Baramati and Amazon Kisan in collaboration conducted farmers training on ‘Crop Health, Quality Assurance and Precision Agriculture’ here today. 

 The program was specifically organized for strawberry and exotic vegetables being grown in surrounding areas of Wai, Satara.

Dr. Lakhan Singh, Director, ICAR-ATARI, Pune and Dr. Kausadikar, Director, MCAER, Pune were the chief guests.

Dr. Lakhan Singh said the technical collaboration will help farmers bring better technologies and farming methods. He exhorted that the Amazon should work with KVKs pan India to ensure good and residue free crops to the farmers. Emphasizing need to of FPOs, he said the FPO will be future of farming and along with self-help groups, the model of group farming will help marketing of agriculture produce.

Dr. Kausadikar, Director, MCAER, Pune emphasized the need for soil testing-based fertilizer management. He said that we need to go back to “re-use”, “re-cycle” and “re-store” approach. 5% organic carbon, 25% mineral and 25% each of air and water in soil, not only will give good quality higher yield but also will improve soil health substantially, he added..

Dr. Milind Joshi, Expert, KVK, Baramati spoke on pesticide residue management and stressed on the changing customer demand of residue free harvest will fetch better prices for farmers. Integrated pest management with bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides will reduce the cost of inputs, giving farmers better incomes.

Shri Siddharth Tata, Amazon Fresh leader spoke about Amazons’ contribution in agriculture including Kisan store and agronomy advisory.

Dr. Shashin Shobhane, Food Safety Manager, Amazon spoke about technical collaborationz with KVKs and it will dessiinate ICAR technologies directly to the  farmers with the help of KVKs. Rising safe food demand especially residue free and certified organic will be a component of this technical collaboration, he added.

Amazon has state-of-art collection center for strawberries and exotic vegetables with cold store facility in Wai, wherein 1000+farmers are registered for selling their agriculture produce with Amazon. Amazon also runs agronomy advisory program for registered farmers wherein Amazon agronomists visit farmers every week and guide them on IPM and INM practices. In this program, 217 farmers were participated.

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