Director Agriculture Chowdhary Mohammad Iqbal inaugurates two-day Awareness/Training programme at Budgam

Srinagar : The Director Agriculture Kashmir, Chowdhury Mohammad Iqbal today inaugurated two days awareness cum training programme on “promotion of bee keeping on scientific lines’’ under National Beekeeping and Honey Mission (NBHM) at Sheikh–ul- Alam Hall Budgam.

The programme was attended by scientists, beekeepers, farmers, officers, officials of the department and other stakeholders.Director Agriculture in his inaugural address underlined the importance of beekeeping and said that in rural areas bee keeping is an important source of income and livelihood for many landless farmers, small and marginal farming families.

He said that under the holistic Agriculture development programme a multi-crore project has been approved by the UT administration for the development of this sector over the period of five years.

Director Agriculture said the honey bees play a crucial role towards food security by pollinating thousands of flowering plants, therefore a special approach is adopted by the department for the development of this sector.

Iqbal said that the ‘promotion of Bee-Keeping in UT of J&K’ project is one of 29 projects approved by the J&K administration and recommended by the apex committee for holistic development of agriculture and allied sectors.

He said the project aims at addressing various issues by increasing the number of colonies through cluster formation, encouraging bee- preneurship and bee- start-ups beside value addition and marketing.

ADDC Budgam, Akramullah tak who was the guest of honour on the event released a Souvenir regarding the projects, programmes and initiatives by the department for the development of beekeeping sector in the district.

Earlier, Chief Agriculture Officer Budgam, Syed Tafazal Hussain Madni gave an overview of the bee-keeping scenario in the district. He appraised the chief guest regarding various interventions by the department for the promotion of beekeeping in the district.

Organiser of the awareness programme, Adina Altaf through a powerpoint presentation briefed the participants about the aims and objectives of the two days awareness cum training programme.

Joint Director extension G.M Dhobi, Chief Agriculture Budgam, District Agriculture Officer Extension Budgam, Chief Horticulture Officer Budgam, District coordinator, KVK Budgam, District Officer KVIB Budgam, Manager Lead Bank, Divisional Forest officer Budgam were present on the occasion.