Kisan Sampark Abhiyan receives overwhelming response from farmers in Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir [India], April 27 : Receiving an overwhelming response from the farming community across all districts of Jammu and Kashmir, more than 24,000 farmers attended the orientation programme under Kisan Sampark Abhiyan during the first three-day session held across 264 venues of the union territory.
The orientation programme, which is being organised simultaneously across all districts of the union territory, has been designed to be conducted on the first three days of every week. An exhaustive district-specific calendar has been issued by the government in this regard, according to an official statement.
A first-of-its-kind, massive farmer's orientation exercise is being undertaken by Agriculture Production Department in Jammu and Kashmir with an ambitious target of reaching out to farmers in each and every Panchayat of the union territory in the next 4 months. The exercise commenced on April 24th and will conclude on August 31st, the statement said.
This ambitious farmer's outreach program has been planned under the recently launched Holistic Agriculture Development Programme (HADP).
The Resource persons for the orientations would be the officers and officials drawn from Agriculture, Animal/Sheep Husbandry, Horticulture, Sericulture and Fisheries Departments, who have been trained beforehand during the 641 training sessions which were held across all districts during the months of January to April.
An innovative tool for describing the different schemes and programmes using short films has been put in place. A total of 49 videos of methods under HADP and other Centrally Sponsored Schemes will be shown to the farmers across the venues in Jammu and Kashmir, the statement said.
Using audio-visual aids in describing the schemes had a lasting and much more engaging, engrossing effect on the farmers. Besides, a question-answer session after each screening session of videos was held to clear the doubts of farmers. The farmers were also provided with pamphlets on all the schemes in three languages (Hindi, Urdu and English) which also contained information about the contact details of all the departments under the agriculture production department of the Jammu And Kashmir.
The farmers were also informed about the mode of application under these schemes using the Kisan Sathi - the IT Dashboard of the schemes developed by APD. A simple scan of the QR codes on the pamphlets takes the farmer to the Kisan Sathi Portal where he can register easily and there is no need for visiting any office for applying under any of the schemes, it said.
The farmers were also apprised of Daksh Kisan - a Learning Management System (LMS) for skill development of the farmers. A first of its kind in the country, Daksh Kisan, has been developed by the Agriculture Production Department, where 118 skilling courses as per the agro-climatic zones of Jammu and Kashmir are available for free to the farmers. Again, a simple scan of the QR code at the back of the pamphlet takes the farmer to the Daksh Kisan Portal where he can register for free and undertake any skilling course of their liking.
The video lectures under the Learning Management System (LMS) are available in Kashmiri, Urdu, Dogri and Hindi and Textual material is also available in Hindi, Urdu and English. Besides, specialised modules on business development and financial management have also been included to ensure that the farmers are not merely trained but become skilful entrepreneurs.
The successful farmers who clear the course shall be provided certificates from Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Jammu, the statement added.