Workshop on Water Security, Organic Farming & Agro-Meteorological Advisory Services held at IIT Roorkee

ROORKEE, 2 March: The workshop on the topic “Water Security, Organic Farming and Agro-Meteorological Advisory Services”, jointly organized by the Regional Coordination Institute, Unnat Bharat Abhiyan and Rural Agricultural Weather Service Project, was organized in the OP Jain Auditorium of the institute. The program started with the lighting of the ceremonial lamp.

Addressing the inaugural session, the nodal officer of the project, Prof Ashish Pandey said that the objective of this program is to make the present farmers and students aware of water management, organic farming, mixed farming and agro-meteorological advisory services, so that improved farming and Proper water management can be done.

Padma Shri awardee Bharat Bhushan Tyagi,  chief guest of the program, while explaining about organic farming and mixed farming, said that there is no need to add nutrients from outside to the soil to nourish the crops because the soil in the field contains nutrients. It has so much capacity that it can provide nutrition to the crops through organic nutrients. Referring to mixed farming, he said that by doing mixed farming, we can control the crop cycle by growing many crops in one field and at the same time. And we can also improvise weed management and soil fertility.

Padma Shri awardee Umashankar Pandey said in his statement that water is the main source of life for all of us, without water no living creature or crop can grow. Therefore, today it is necessary that we all come forward in this direction and make efforts to stop the wastage of water. Describing the glory of water, he said that water is most important in every religion, all civilizations in history have developed on the banks of water sources. He further said that if we do not conserve and manage water, we will have to be prepared to face severe shortages in the future. Padma Shri awardee Kanwal Singh Chauhan said that management is very important in farming and by management he meant water management and crop management. He said that farming is easy but without proper management it becomes ineffective. It is difficult to get profit, hence we need to adopt modern methods of agriculture along with diversification in farming. He also mentioned crop rotation and co-cropping.

IIT Dean Prof Akshay Dwivedi, who came to the program, said that today in the modern era, the inclusion of technology in farming is very important. Because today’s era is the era of technology, with the help of technology we can make farming more advanced. He said that such projects run by IIT aim to make students and farmers aware of advanced technology so that they can progress in every sphere of life.

The program was conducted by weather observer Alok Shukla and the vote of thanks was delivered by Prof Vibhuti Ranjan Bhattacharya, co-coordinator of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan.