IMPHAL, August 29: The Central Agricultural University, Imphal organized a one day awareness programme on “Tuber crop based farming system for sustainable production and income generation” today at Chanung village, Imphal East district.
The inaugural function was attended by Dr M Premjit Singh, director of Extension Education, CAU, Imphal, K Kipgen, addl director of Horticulture & Soil Conservation, Govt of Manipur and Dr M Ruhinikumar Singh, director of Research, CAU, Imphal as the chief guest, guest of honour and president respectively.
Speaking at the function Dr M Premjit highlighted the aim of organizing the awareness programme. He said that farming of tuber crops like Uh-Mangra, Pan, Mangra and Ha was started from a very early period of time.
But if this old methods of farming is perfected in a more systematic and in a proper manner, it can increase the productivity and thus it can generate more income for the farmers. This is the reason of organizing this awareness programme, he said.
He further continued that most of the tuber crops can survived at times of drought for five-six months and any fertilizer make them grow easily.
He said that out of the state’s total agricultural land of above lou pari 2 lakh, 89 percent are grown paddy, wheat and maize, 2.5 percent are used for seed cultivation and 10 percent are used for growing fruits etc. So, it is very much needed to plant tuber crops which do not need fertilizer to fill up the insufficiency of food items. Tuber crops are also good option for feeding Pig as it is available with very low cost.
But proper channelizing of the products produced by the farmers is also needed to encourage the farmers in tuber crop farming, he added.
Dr M Ruhini Kumar speaking at the function said day by day the temperature is rising and according to experts, for every single Celsius degree increased in the temperature the productivity of fruits decreases by 10 percent. So, with this increasing temperature and shortage of rainfall most of the crops fail to grow but tuber crops can survive in this condition.
AK Bijaya Devi, associate Professor in Department of Horticulture, COA, said with the evolving climate change, the productivity of other crops will grow lesser. This shortage can be fill in up by this tuber crops.
During the technical session of the programme, Dr AK Bijaya Devi, associate Professor in Department of Horticulture, COA Dr Bireswar Sinha, Asst Prof in Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture, CAU, Imphal, Dr Kh Ibohal Singh, Asst Prof (Sr) in Department of Entomology, CAU, S Monibala Devi, SMS, KVK CAU, Dr Th Sushil Kumar, programme assistant, KVK CAU and MA Salam, SMS, KVK CAU spoke on “Tuber crop cultivation,” “Importance Disease of tuber crops and their management” and other related topic.