HT Correspondent 

TEZPUR, Aug 7: A post-harvest demonstration of Maize value chain machinery at Barchala in Sonitpur district was recently inaugurated by Prakash Chandra Bora, district agriculture officer, Sonitpur. Among others the event was attended by farmer leader Bharat Subedi and officials of agriculture department, Sonitpur district and Saurabh Srivastava, district agriculture marketing coordinator, APART. Saurabh Srivastava briefed about the benefits and future course of the programme.

Speaking on the occasion, Prakash Chandra Bora said, “Barchala possesses a lot of potential for maize cultivation although farmers were having a lot of issues related to post harvest of the crop. In this regard a primary meeting with key farmers and feed millers had been conducted to analyse the gap of supply chain and a detailed project report was prepared under the project APART which emphasised on seed to market linkage. Initially, it was a plan to cover 1,000 bighas, with support of farmers and now it has increased upto 5,000 bighas. APART project has given the importance to support at group level purchase of key agriculture inputs like seed, fertiliser and pesticides which helps them to get at a lesser price than the market rate.” 

Assistant director agriculture, Sonitpur apprised about correct strategies and proper planning of farmer groups for team building as well as achievement of common goals while the nodal officer APART spoke on the scope of farmer producer companies in future. He also said that the government is currently emphasising more on farmer producer companies for availing benefits from agriculture related government schemes.