Sopore| SERB sponsored High-end Workshops begins at Faculty of Agriculture Wadura
Shakir Bhat
Sopore, 26 July : Ten Days High-End Workshops on “Climate smart agriculture: sustainable crop production strategy” and “Climate resilient production system through field level weather modification technologies” were inaugurated today at Conference hall of Faculty of Agriculture Wadura SKUAST-Kashmir.
The workshops are being organized by Division of Agronomy and sponsored by Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB), Govt. of India under its Accelerate Vigyan (AV) Scheme.
The aim of Accelerate Vigyan is to expand the research base in the country, with three broad goals-consolidation/aggregation of all scientific training programs, initiating High-end Orientation Workshops and creating opportunities for Training and Skill Internships. The workshops are being held from July 26 to August 04, 2022, wherein about 50 Post-graduate scholars from various faculties of SKUAST-Kashmir & other State Agricultural Universities will actively be participating and deliberating on the themes with the experts of repute from regional as well as national level. Prof. Arshad Mughal, Associate Director Research, SKUAST-K, was the Guest of Honour in the inaugural session of the Workshops while Prof. Raihana H. Kanth, Dean Faculty of Agriculture was the Chief Guest.
In addition to participants, the inaugural session was attended by various HoD’s & faculty members of FoA.
At the outset, Prof. Raihana H. Kanth, Dean Faculty of Agriculture, enlightened the participants with the importance of climate smart agriculture. She emphasized that response farming is an integrative approach; it could be called farming with advisories taken from the technocrats depending on local weather information. The success of response farming, viz., decreased danger and enhanced productivity has already been taken in many other states. response farming can be a viable choice for climate change adoption strategies, for the variations of climate is not a sudden one. The main cause for the success of response farming is because of both location and time-specific technologies. It is time to take forward the success of response farming to the entire farming community. Prof. Arshad Mughal in his address stated that, in the present scenario to overcome the effect of climate change farmers have already begun to make adaptations to deal with the effects of climate change. The most common form of adaptation made by the farmers is the use of new varieties that can withstand the effect of climate change. Other forms of adaptation include the use of water pumps, adjusting planting times, using natural pesticides, using organic fertilizers, and altering cropping patterns. Further, mitigating and adaptation strategies such as intercropping, alternate wetting and drying, precise farming, improved tillage, and integrated farming system, are needed to mitigate the negative effects of climate change. Similarly, the development of high-yielding and climate-smart rice cultivars by using different new breeding, genomic tools, and genetic engineering need to be prioritized. He also stated that land use & climate change are interrelated to each other.
This change influences one another at various temporal & spatial scales, however, improper land uses are the primary causal factor on climate change. Dr. Amal Saxena, HoD Agronomy stated that intensive research efforts are needed to make the crops nutritive and resilient to climate change. He further highlighted the need for the region-specific climate models for climate prediction and modeling. Earlier, Dr. Lal Singh formally welcomed the guests & participants and gave the brief account about the workshops and stressed on the need for protecting the soil health & quality, water resources conservation & management, evidence-based decision making based on local & regional level interventions for the climate smart agriculture. The inaugural function ended with the vote of thanks proposed by Dr. A.A. Saad, Division of Agronomy.
