Balasore, June 18: The district level technical committee (DLTC) of the agriculture department has urged farmers in Balasore district to focus on organic farming during this kharif season.
The DLTC meeting was held Tuesday at the conference hall of the District Collectorate through video conferencing. District Collector K Sudarshan Chakravarthy chaired the meeting. Agriculture department officials of different blocks participated in the meeting.
DLTC reviewed targets achieved in the district for rabi crops and also decided to fix targets for the kharif season as well. It focused on minimising expenditures of agricultural production, distribution of soil health cards to farmers. The committee also gave suggestions on the use of hybrid seeds. It insisted on implementation of row plantation of crops. It said timely and adequate supply of pesticides and manures should be provided to the crops.
Significant issues like providing fiscal assistance and subsidy to local farmers, ample availability of fertilisers and successful implementation of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikash Yojana were also discussed.
The district agriculture department has set kharif crop targets to carry out paddy farming on 1,97,871 hectares of farmlands and non-paddy farming on 19,368 hectare of farmlands during FY 2020-21.
Among the non-paddy crops are cultivation of pulses, maize, ground nuts, jute, vegetables, ginger, turmeric, chilly and sugarcane. Similarly, DLTC also suggested hybrid farming of horticultural produce like mango, banana, papaya and guava including flowers.
Balasore deputy director of agriculture Prasanna Kumar Mohapatra, deputy director of horticulture Gobinda Chandra Lenka, deputy registrar of cooperative societies Prashant Kumar Mohanty, watershed project director Rashmi Ranjan Patra and several other district level officials were present at the meeting.
PNN