Jorhat MP Kamakhya Prasad Tasa on Saturday stressed upon the need of trained agricultural extension functionaries in Northeastern States so that advanced technologies can reach farmers and they can adopt them efficiently and profitably.
Tasa, who addressed the 26th Management Committee meeting of Extension Education Institute for NE region at the Assam Agricultural University here, further said that unless research and technology reached the end users – that is the farmers – they were of no use. “In this regard, the EEI had to step up its training programmes on an urgent basis,” he said.
The Extension Education Institute is established by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India with the mandate of capacity building of extension functionaries of nine States including the seven sisters of the North East, Sikkim and West Bengal.
Vice Chancellor of the University and chairman of the meeting, KM Bujarbaruah, emphasised upon orienting the capacity building effort of the institute keeping in view the potentialities of organic agriculture in the region, opportunities of north-east policy, need of entrepreneurship development, climate smart agriculture, mega data analysis, and above all to march towards doubling farmers income efficiently.
PK Neog, Director, EEI highlighted the significant achievements of the institute, and professor A. Bhattacharyya appraised the gather of the Annual Progress Report, 2017-18 and academic calendar for this year. The house applauded the achieving of the targeted programmes by the institute last year.
An in-depth discussion was held in the meeting on several crucial issues relating to capacity building of agricultural extension functionaries so that the institute and its stakeholders contribute more towards all-round agricultural development in the Northeastern region.
The meeting was attended by selected dignitaries including Director (Human Resource Development) of MANAGE, Hyderabad, Directors of SAMETIs of Nagaland, Mizoram, West Bengal and Assam. Two progressive farmers also participated in the meeting. The Registrar, Comptroller, and Director of Extension Education represented the Assam Agricultural University.
The Extension Education Institute (EEI), Jorhat is a regional training institute for capacity building of extension functionaries engaged in agricultural development in the north eastern states and is under the administrative control of Assam Agricultural University.