The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

AGRICULTURE

Bt cotton not harmful, farmers told
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, June 21
At a seminar on cotton at Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Bathinda, PAU Director, Extension Education, S.S.Gill said today that farmers should not fall prey to false propaganda that Bt cotton cultivation was harmful to humans. On the contrary in countries like the USA Bt cotton is being grown for the past two decades without any report of health hazards.

Dr Gill said the purpose of the seminar was to create awareness and educate cotton growers about practising the recommended routine for optimum yield. Bt cotton, he continued, definitely proved to be a bumper harvest yielder and its cultivation also meant reduced attack of insects and pests. This saved the farmers substantive amount of money, which they otherwise would spend on spray of plant-protection chemicals.

He impressed upon the farmers not to go in for ostentatious spending on social functions and also make judicious use of agricultural inputs. The farmers should also adopt organically produced vegetables and pulses and the kitchen garden concept being propagated by the university to meet their kitchen needs.

Cotton experts, including entomologists and soil scientists from the PAU briefed the cotton growers about precautions they should take while spraying, for effective management, and nutritional requirements of cotton.

The farmers shared their experiences with the university scientists, who informed them that fertiliser like DAP should be used at the time of sowing of cotton and not at this last stage.

Farm society office-bearers
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, June 21
The general body meeting of the Indian Society for Agricultural Development and Policy today elected new office-bearers and also decided to reduce their term of office from three years to two years. Newly elected office-bearers, thus, will be in position from today till June 20, 2008.

According to the new president, Dr A.S. Joshi, general body of the society will meet annually and there will be five patrons of the society against four earlier. To assist the Chief Editor of the society, it was also decided to create a post of Editor. Patrons of the society are Dr S.S. Johl; Dr D.S. Sidhu Dr S.S. Grewal Dr Karam Singh and Dr Joginder Singh.

The new office-bearers are: president — Dr A.S. Joshi, vice-presidents — Dr (Mrs.) P.K. Dhindsa, Dr K.K. Jain, Dr Harnek Singh, Dr Gurmail Singh; general secretary — Dr M.S. Sidhu; joint secretary — Dr A.S. Bhullar, Treasurer — Dr S.S. Chahal, counsellors — Dr B.R. Garg, Dr H.S. Dhaliwal, Dr D.K. Grover, Dr V.K. Sharma, Dr (Mrs) M.K. Sekhon, Dr (Mrs) Simran K. Sidhu, Dr Bhupinder Singh, Mr H.S. Kingra and Dr Jasdev Singh.

Farm graduates get training
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, June 21
A batch of 21 students of College of Agriculture completed their 10-day field training programme today. The training was organised by Syngenta India Ltd., private company, which exposed the students to real life problems, challenges and opportunities while working in the field in the private sector and dealing with agro-chemicals.

At the concluding day function, the final year students were given certificates by the Dean, Dr G.S.Chahal, who appreciated the company’s initiative in taking students to Raikot and Jagraon besides to villages around Ludhiana for this hand-on-training. The Dean reminded graduates that with the passage of time ‘Grow more food’ slogan needs to be replaced by ‘Conserve natural resources’, ‘Adopt production and protection technologies’ and ‘Save water Save Punjab’.

Project Manager, Punjab Dr N. S. Malhi gave a brief review of the training programme.

He said the students were trained on different aspects of agriculture and were taken to farms of Progressive Farmers.