Dharamshala: Department of Home, Central Tibetan Administration, organised a four-day intensive workshop, “Introducing ICT (Information & Communication Technology) & Modern technologies to Tibetan Agriculture” at Bylakuppe from 10 to 13 July at Bylakuppe Tibetan Settlement.
The workshop was for the Agriculture Extension Officers (AEO’s) from across the country in ORTC, and it was conducted as a part of Tibetan Self Reliance and Resilience (TSSR) program funded by USAID. Some farmers and officials from the Bylakuppe settlement attended the workshop. The program was designed, aided and coordinated with the help of Kishore Rao, Agriculture Strategy Consultant to CTA. Dhondup Tsering, Deputy Secretary of Department of Home in the opening ceremony attended by local dignitaries and farmers emphasised the need for agriculture extension’s paradigm shift to implement modern front-line techniques and get a market orientation to the Tibetan farming system, thereby making farm extension effective.
The first sessions were on introducing the app based ICT technology (Information & Communication Technology) into the Tibetan agriculture extension system. ICT technology is basically using a software which will monitor, renders agricultural extension service and a digital interaction platform for the farmers. The sessions involved practical sessions on usage and orientation of the young AEO’s to get used to the internet culture of Whatsapp, email and social media. The participants took an active part in a discussion and greatly appreciated the contents of the workshop.
Kishore Rao gave a presentation on the Tibetan Agriculture Transformation Project – (TATP) and explained on the Lotus methodology of transforming the Tibetan Agriculture from a low margin farm production model into a market-driven profitable agribusiness.
Dr Satish Kulkarni, former head of National Dairy Research Institute, Bangalore, and an expert in dairy processing introduced the idea of how milk processing can be initiated in the Tibetan situation. He pointed out that returns from milk can be increased from the current Rs. 25 to Rs. 45 per litre by processing it with simple products. Dr Prasad, former Vice Chancellor of Veterinary University and Asst. Director General, ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research) conducted a session on “Cattle management and nutrition”, which was well received by the participants.
In one of the sessions, Syngenta (a global agribusiness company) crop specialists Kiran Babu, Reddy and Ravi Kumar took the AEO’s through latest opportunities available and how they can make farmers move to a high-profit market driven crops and hybrids. Package of practices including seed rates, sowing techniques, crop protection, harvesting and returns on investments were imparted for sweet corn, tomato, peppers, cucumber and plus corn hybrids. Syngenta agreed to demonstrate the feasibility of some of these opportunities in the Tibetan settlements with technical support and seeds free of cost.
The programs highlight culminated with a visit to Namdhari group headquarters in Bangalore. The Namdhari groups is a successful agribusiness company from farming to retailing-export of vegetables and dairy products. The AEO’s met Sri Uday Singh Ji, the Namdhari Spiritual head, who as a young entrepreneur scripted and steered the company to success. The AEO’s saw the state of art dairy with 3000 cows and the plant handling premium milk & dairy products, high tech greenhouses growing quality produce- peppers, tomatoes, greens, cucumbers etc for EU as well as Bangalore-
-Report filed by Department of Home-
