A two-day krishi mela, with a focus on ‘cultivating fruits and vegetables in the coastal belt’, will be organised at Miyapadavu near here from March 7.
Organised by the Chowtara Chavadi of Miyapadavu, the in-charge director of the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute (CPCRI), Kasaragod, Kerala, Anitha Karun, will inaugurate it.
Later, there will also be a session on the cultivation of cabbage, cauliflower, and grafted tomato in the coastal belt.
C. Narayanan Kutty, Dean, Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur; Manikandan, senior technical officer, Krishi Vignana Kendra, CPCRI; Varanashi Krishnamurty, founder of Varanashi Research Foundation, Adyanadkka, and Ashwini Varanashi, co-founder of Varanashi Research Foundation, will speak.
It will be followed by lectures on growing homestead vegetables round the year by Shivaprasad Varmudi of Perla and Pradeep Soori of Mangaluru. Shree Padre, Executive Editor, Adike Pathrike will hold an interaction with local vegetable farmers later.
Sunday’s sessions will be on cultivating fruits in the coastal belt.
M.R. Dinesh, Director, Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR), Bengaluru, Jacob Francis and Anil Balanja, fruit farmers from Belthangady, will speak on the topic.
Later, G. Karunakaran, Head, IIHR sub-centre, Hirehally, Nithin Alex, Home Grown Nursery, Kottayam and Balakrishna, banana farmer, Periya will speak on promising fruit crops for coastal belt.
Vasanthi of Mudipu and Ganapathy Bhat of Swasthik Kokum, Honnavara, will speak on value addition of fruits and vegetables.
The last session will be on marketing fruits and vegetables. The speakers will be Nataraj Hegde of Khajane Farms, Hiriyadka, Chandramouli Shenoy of MVS Fruits, Mangaluru and Gopalakrishna Bhat of Adkathimar, a release added.