FAO to implement green agriculture project in Uttarakhand

CORBETT: Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) plans to undertake green agriculture project in the Corbett region of Uttarakhand with a funding of about Rs 40 crore to encourage organic farming, livelihood and work on mountain agriculture.

The FAO representative in India, Shyam Khadka informed this during an interaction with media persons after his meeting with Uttarakhand chief secretary and other state government officials.

This seven-year programme will also focus on varied aspects including sustainable livelihood, traditional knowledge based practices, biodiversity conservation in mountains and agriculture along with the mitigation of human-wildlife conflict among other issues.

Considering the detrimental effects of ‘modern’ agriculture practices like monoculture and increased usage of chemical fertilizers, the green agriculture project will encourage the locals to undertake organic farming of traditional crops in a manner that will not only provide livelihood for locals but will also address other important issues of biodiversity conservation, food security, human-wildlife conflict, climate change and ground water conservation.

Apart from Uttarakhand, the green agriculture project is learnt to have been undertaken in Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha.

It has been decided that the project will be implemented along the northern boundary of Corbett national park where some patches have been abandoned by villagers,

The FAO representatives also met Chief Minister Harish Rawat at the Vidhan Sabha.

The agriculture department will be the nodal department for implementation of this programme which will also  involve selected institutions of academics, research and related spheres.