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The farmers in Jammu & Kashmir have been giving very positive responses to the decision of the agriculture department of implementing 29 projects aiming to achieve 'holistic development'.
Aiming to modernise the agriculture sector, the Jammu & Kashmir administration has planned to implement 29 projects costing more than Rs 500 crore from this year to increase agricultural production. Named 'Holistic Development', these projects aim at holistic development and promotion of agriculture and allied sectors so that the farmers of Jammu and Kashmir can get maximum profit and create employment opportunities from the agriculture sector. These projects were formed last year by a committee that included experts from the agriculture sector as members. The farmers of Kashmir Valley seem to be very happy with this initiative of the authorities. According to them, the implementation of these schemes will give them profitable benefits. They said that modernisation in the agriculture sector is very important because most of the people in the Kashmir valley belong to agriculture. "Holistic project is very necessary to increase our production and earn double profit. We welcome this initiative of the authorities" said a farmer. The Director of the Agriculture Department, Iqbal Chaudhry, while providing information about these holistic projects, said that the agriculture sector and other related sectors contribute more than 18 per cent to the GDP of Jammu and Kashmir and support more than 1.3 lakh families by providing employment. He said that during the last decades, farmers have become frustrated with low production, climate change and other challenges in farming and they are looking for alternatives to farming. Chaudhry further said that the projects will be implemented through a plan of action to increase the crops produced in the Kashmir valley and the youth will become entrepreneurs from the production that will earn them employment. He says that under this policy, a target has been set to develop nineteen thousand young entrepreneurs who will provide employment to more than three lakh people. The Director said that among the crops that have been given most attention are vegetables, mustard, saffron, millets, basmati rice and other such crops (cash crops) from which the farmers can get better profits. He said that the target of the farmers for the next two years is to double the yield of these crops and they have to use less labour, fertilizers and other inputs in the cultivation of these crops so that the profit is also due to the low cost. (ANI)
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