Dimapur, May 2 (EMN): A booklet “Documentation on Zabo Farming” has been released on May 2 at Jakhama village by the Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA) of Kohima district. The booklet was released by Helie Rupreo, director of Agriculture & SNO (ATMA) at the DAO’s conference hall.
The director congratulated the ATMA team for their work and exhorted the “farmers’ friend” present about the status of agriculture production in Nagaland, a press release from District Agriculture Officer Vizonyu Liezie stated on May 2. He said that 70% of the population was employed in farming “yet we are not able to produce self-sufficiency.”
“Farmers are in the biggest and most noble profession and therefore they need to work hard to compete with the mainland farmers especially in the field of organic production. Being a hilly terrain state, the jhuming cannot be stopped but it can be improved,” the press release stated.
Further, saying that integrated farming systems can be one solution to improving production, the speaker took the example of Pfustero. He encouraged the farmers to take up “Zabo farming” as “we depend only on seasonal rainfall.”
“At the present scenario, the farmers are in need of market linkage, storage unit and processing unit as the surplus production are not wisely utilized,” he said and encouraged the farmers to focus on maize, foxtail millet, jobs tears, brown rice, sticky rice etc., “which are not found in other regions.”
A demonstration about right measurement was taught to the farmers. As machineries will be required to fulfil higher production, the crop areas need to be increased more and relay cropping has to be adopted, the press release added.
