Joykumar urges scientists and farmers to work together to fight pest

By A Staff Reporter

IMPHAL | Oct 10

A two-day symposium on “Emerging and Re-emerging plant diseases in North East India: Challenges and Strategies” of Indian Phytopathological Society (NEZ) was held today at ICAR, NER, Lamphelpat.

Organised by India Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) North Eastern Region, scientists, researchers, farmers and students even from outside NE Region from over the state took part in the seminar.

Deputy chief minister Y. Joykumar Singh, attended the function as chief guest. Addressing the gathering he said that plants are also prone to diseases like any human beings but best agricultural technique is to use organic method. He said use of chemically treated means to enhance agricultural products is not healthy and create lots of health hazards.

He said scientists and farmers need to come together and search for a long term solution to control pests and other plant diseases hampering the productivity in NER. “As most of the NE states are still dependant in agricultural and allied activities, such issue should be addressed properly”, he added.

He pointed out that many farmers of the state are looking for high yielding variety (HYV) crops ignoring the indigenous varieties of plants. The deputy CM urged that experts should try to produce more hybrids of indigenous kind that have high yielding properties and also considering health hazards.

Vice chancellor of Central Agricultural University (CAU), M. Premjit Singh who presided over the function said that climate change affects plants of North eastern region in many ways. So he suggested that crop rotation in large scale should be introduced to control pests and other plant diseases.

During the function, deputy chief minister distributed certificates to the trainees who have successfully concluded one month training on Gardeners Training Programme conducted at Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) Churachandpur from 11th September -10th October this year. Agricultural inputs were also distributed in the inaugural session.