Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi has sanctioned a research project worth Rs. 91.39 lakhs to Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (GADVASU) under Farmer First as part of Krishi Vigyan Kendra scheme. The project entitled “Integrated Approaches for Livestock Development: Farmer’s Context” for implementation under 'Farmer FIRST' Programme is sanctioned for a period of 2 years. Dr HK Verma, Director Extension Education cum Nodal officer of the project told that five to six villages under cluster approach will be selected and after conducting Baseline/ Benchmark survey, the knowledge and adoption of different scientific livestock and farming management practices will be known. This will help in identification of actual problems faced by the farmers. He appraised that various interventions such as Trainings (On campus, off-campus and vocational), Front Line Demonstration, On Farm Testing, Demonstrations, Scientist-Farmer-interactions, field visits, survey and data collection, exposure visits, infertility camps will be conducted in operational area.
Dr Suresh Kumar Kansal , Principal Investigator informed that this project will be functional in Mehal Kalan block of Barnala district and under this project 800- 1000 farm families having total 4000-5000 large and small animals will be benefitted through integrated approaches . He further said that in this project, the scientists from other institutes like Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET) and Agricultural Technological Application Research Institute (ATARI) are also involved for executing this project. The Co-principal investigators for this project are: Dr Rajesh Kasrija , Dr Jaswinder Singh, Dr JS Hundal and Dr Balwinder Kumar from GADVASU, Ludhiana, Dr Anil Kumar Dixit (Scientist, CIPHET), Dr Pragya Bhadauria (Scientist, ATARI), Dr Kulbir Singh (Olericulturist, PAU, Ludhiana).
Dr. AS Nanda Vice-Chancellor, GADVASU congratulated the extension team and applauded their efforts. He revealed that this farmer oriented holistic approach for solving farmer problems at their door step is the best approach of the research team, as this is the need of hour, first to assess the problem and needs and later on concerted efforts to tackle them.
