KVK holds training course on pig farming in Amritsar
Once a taboo, pig farming is now getting popular among farmers. To empower youth from border districts, Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) held a seven-day vocational training course on “Pig Farming” in collaboration with Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) and the Indian Council of Agriculture Research- Agricultural Technology Application Research Institute (ICAR-ATARI) Zone -1 Thirty farmers and rural youth from the districts of Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur and Jalandhar participated in the training.
The training course was organised under the guidance of Dr Bikramjit Singh, Associate Director (Training), KVK, Amritsar. He highlighted the importance and scope of pig farming as a subsidiary occupation in agriculture and inspired the trainees to adopt pig farming for income and employment generation.
He also urged the farmers to get maximum benefit of the services provided by the KVK.
Dr Kanwarpal Singh Dhillon, Assistant Professor, Animal Science, KVK, Amritsar, acted as course coordinator and imparted detailed knowledge on various topics, including pig breeds, feeding, housing, marketing, importance of vaccination and deworming, common diseases of pigs and its prevention to run a successful scientific pig farm both at local or commercial level.
The trainees were also made aware about the economics of pig farming. Addition to this, method demonstrations on “Ear notching in pigs for identification” was conducted during the training course.
Dr Narinderpal Singh, District Extension Specialist, FASC, Amritsar, provided useful information regarding method of record keeping.
Dr Puneet Singh, Veterinary Officer, Amritsar, shared information regarding facilities provided by animal husbandry department and available schemes like Kisan Credit Card and National Livestock Mission (NLM) for pig farmers.