Month-long soil health day ends in Manipur

[caption id="attachment_225615" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Dr DS Yadav speaks during the concluding session of ‘soil health day,’ in Manipur on Dec. 31, 2018.[/caption] Our Correspondent Imphal, Jan. 2 (EMN): The month-long World Soil Health Day observation held to felicitate the farmers to be the solution to the soil pollution by educating the farmers, introducing the necessary resources and distributing necessary resources, under the aegis of Green Foundation comes to an end by holding an awareness programme at the Awangkhunou Maning Leikai community hall, 10 km west of state capital in Imphal West district on Dec. 31, 2018. The concluding programme was organised by Awangkhunou Organic Farmers Club and the Green Foundation (GF), an Imphal based social enterprise on sustainable development through peaceful co-existence in cooperation with Manipur Organic Mission Agency (MOMA) under Mission Organic value Chain Development for North Eastern Region of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers welfare. GF being an official partner of global soil partnership under the land and water division of food and agriculture organisation of the United Nations, has so far distributed more than 2 metric tonnes of organic fertiliser to the needy farmers since the beginning of the soil health observation on Dec. 5, according to foundation sources. Officer in charge Dr DS Yadav of Regional centre of organic farming, Imphal, Zilla Parishad member N Pramo Devi of AwangKhunou village,Ex-Pradhan Kh Ibobi Singh of Awangkhunou gram panchayat, Chief Executive Officer U Himmat of the GF and village elders attended the concluding session wherein Dr Yadav delivered a lecture on soil microbiology while Dr N Surbala of Central agricultural university shared issues relating to soil health management. N Gunleibi also presented a talk on organic farming is solution to soil pollution during the awareness function cum closing session of soil health day. Many male and female members of Awangkhunou locality who attended the day’s programme also raised many questions relating to the organic farming and its prospects in their village. Some of village elder mostly males also sought necessary scientific inputs from the subject experts and service providers if in case they wanted to convert their fields into completely organic.Later a demonstration on how to make horticultural waste into organic manure was also held. It may be mentioned that MOMA has registered 5000 organic farmers covering 5000 hectares of agricultural land as beneficiaries of the initial phase of organic scheme in the state and started production of 6 horticultural crops-Pineapple, Orange of Tamenglong, Lemon of Kachai in Ukhrul, King Chilli, Ginger, Turmeric and Chahao (Black Aromatic Rice).