It is learnt that the Governor, who has been promoting organic farming, will focus on Subhash Palekar’s natural farming methods as one of the main topics of discussion during the webinar. (Express Photo by Lalit Kumar)
Roping in state government teachers to propagate the concept of natural farming among farmers in the state, Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat will be chairing a webinar on Monday which will be attended by government primary, secondary and higher secondary teachers from all districts.
A letter issued by the state education department to the presidents of various teachers’ associations on July 10 stresses on the ongoing campaign promoting natural farming and how government teachers may contribute towards it.
“To increase the prevalence of agriculture in the state, work is ongoing in a campaign mode since the last nine months, in which the Governor has shown keen interest. As per the recent meeting held at Raj Bhawan, it was learnt that government teachers in the state are themselves farmers. Thus, they can adopt natural farming and make other villagers aware about the same, so that others, too, can adopt this approach of natural farming,” states the letter issued by the director of primary education office.
For this, under the chairmanship of the Governor, a webinar has been planned for representatives of state primary, secondary and higher secondary teachers’ associations with the Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA) and the agriculture department, it further read. Nearly 120-150 office bearers of these associations and officials of related departments will attend this webinar, it added. “This will be telecast on Facebook live, so that all teachers can benefit from this,” the letter said.
“The ATMA contacted us, requesting that they want to organise a webinar which will be addressed by the Governor. It is on agriculture, but we do not know the topics to be covered. This is a first-of-a-kind webinar,” said MI Joshi, Director of Primary Education.
It is learnt that the Governor, who has been promoting organic farming, will focus on Subhash Palekar’s natural farming methods as one of the main topics of discussion during the webinar.
Confirming to have received the letter, president of Gujarat Primary Teachers’ Association, Digvijaysinh Jadeja said, “Besides state office bearers, we have informed our district heads to attend the webinar along with Rashtriya Shaishanik Mahasangh Gujarat.”
The webinar is being organised by the Gujarat education department in association with ATMA Directorate and the State Agriculture Management and Extension Training Institute (SAMETI) under the state agriculture, co-operation and farmer welfare department.