Modern farming

The introduction of nano urea developed by Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd (IFFCO) in J&K is a giant leap in agriculture sector and a welcome step in adopting environment-friendly farming practices across the union territory. On Tuesday, Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha virtually flagged off the maiden consignment of 15,000 bottles of Liquid Nano Urea from Kalol area in Gujarat. Both Kashmir and Jammu will get 7500 bottles each. The total consignment of liquid nano-urea will be equivalent to 675 metric tonnes of conventional urea. With the introduction of Liquid Nano Urea to the farmers of the UT, J&K’s agriculture sector can contribute to Prime Minister’s campaign for self-reliant India. In Jammu and Kashmir, along with the promotion of traditional agriculture, horticulture, emphasis is being laid on value addition farming, so that the farmers get a fair price for their crops. 70 percent population of the UT is dependent on agriculture. This liquid Nano Urea can bring about a new revolution in the farming sector of J&K. The use of Liquid Nano Urea will bring a reformative change in farming practices and benefit the farmers, especially those involved in traditional and high value crops. Now, only half a litre of liquid nano urea will replace one sack of manure. There are many such hill farms in many districts, where farmers have to travel several kilometres to reach their agriculture fields. Instead of carrying a bag of urea, now the farmers have to carry only half a litre bottle of urea. The excessive use of urea is resulting in making the soil barren. It has not only affected the nitrogen cycle but also harms the environment and people’s health. Initially, many farmers may get benefitted due to its excessive use, but later the same urea destroys the fertility of the fields. Liquid Nano Urea will subsequently bring down the cost of farming. Cost of one bottle of this urea is 10% less than that of a 45 kg of urea bag. Since, Nano Urea does not require subsidy, the government will save about Rs 27,000 crore, besides providing a benefit of Rs 28,000 crore to the farmers by reducing their cost on agriculture. To promote agriculture and horticulture in Jammu and Kashmir, this year’s budget has been increased to Rs 2008 crore, which is Rs 695 crore more than the previous year. Agricultural Universities of Jammu and Kashmir are being roped in for promoting food processing units and agriculture related start-ups. Despite the corona pandemic, scores of agricultural programmes have been organized in the past ten months. In order to take technology to the fields of farmers, it has been decided that this year, the government will provide machinery worth Rs 65 crore to the identified 30,000 farmers, besides providing modern irrigation facilities to 25,000 farmers at a cost of Rs 91 crore. Further, the state-of-the-art training will also be imparted to around 35,000 farmers to implement new experiments in agriculture with the changing environment for which provision of Rs 26 crore has been kept.