More than 10 farmers, entrepreneurs from Odisha participated in this festival.
Bhubaneswar: A two-day Pushp Krishi Mela & Bougainvillea Festival started at Central Lawn of CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI), Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.
Dr. Devesh Chaturvedi, Additional Chief Secretary, Agriculture, Agriculture Education & Research Department, UP Government was the Chief Guest whereas Dr. Anand Prakash, Vice Chancellor, Mahatma Gandhi Central University, Bihar &Dr. Bijendra Singh, Vice Chancellor, Acharya Narendra Dev university of Agricultural & Technology, Ayodhya, graced the occasion as Guests of Honor.
The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is sponsoring the ambitious floriculture mission project and operational in 21 different states of the country. NBRI being the nodal institute is carrying out the floricultural activity at eight different states at present. Out of these states, the activity of area expansion under floricultural crops by including high-value crops and providing quality planting materials of marigold and tuberose to the farmers of Cuttack, Koraput, Nabrangpur, Jagatsinghpur and Khurdha districts of Odisha had significantly increased the income of the farmers. In terms of expanding the area and integrating apiculture with this floriculture- activity the farmers are setting up an example to the rest parts of the country as told by Dr Chandra Sekhar Mohanty, State Coordinator and co-nodal scientist of the mission floriculture programme. Some of the selected eight farmers from Odisha were felicitated in this programme.
On the occasion, Dr. T Damodaran, Director, CISH, Lucknow, Dr. Bhaskar Narayan, Director, CSIR-IITR and Dr. R. Viswanathan, Director, IISR, Lucknow were present as Special Guests of the inaugural function.
Dr. KJ Singh, Senior Scientist and Convener of Pushp Krishi Mela informed that the festival is being organized under the CSIR Floriculture Mission. A total of 300 individuals including farmers, entrepreneurs etc., are participating from different farmer clusters developed across the country under the floriculture Mission. The main objective of this programme is to disseminate among the farmers the technology & information on floricultural crops available with the institute so that they can scaleup their income through floriculture besides traditional farming.
Dr. Devesh Chaturvedi, the chief guest of the function said that whether it is the cultivation of improved crops in place of the traditional crops, or alternate cropping of pulses and oilseeds, or the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, cereals and flowers, the diversification of crops is essential to increase the income of the farmers. He however, suggested the farmers to practice such agriculture with group of farmers and to diversify their crops to reduce any risk and increase the profit.
Dr. Anand Prakash, Guest of Honor of the function said that by collective measures of research institutes and agricultural universities, we can improve the livelihood of farmers. Whereas, Dr. Bijendra Singh, another guest of honor of the function, said that floriculture is always relaxing and sight of beautiful flowers always provide mental peace.
On the occasion, the Special Guests of the function; Dr. T Damodaran, Dr. Bhaskar Narayan &Dr. R. Viswanthan addressed the farmers and others & wished programme a grand success.
Earlier, while welcoming, Dr. Ajit Kumar Shasany said that being a National Institute, this is our moral responsibility to take our agricultural technologies from lab to farmers so that their income and livelihood can be made better. With this vision, CSIR-Floriculture Mission is being implemented across the country and CSIR-NBRI will continue its efforts to help farmers for better income generation.
On the occasion, a MoU was also exchanged between Mahatma Gandhi Central University and CSIR-NBRI for working together in the field of Floricultural research developments.
