By: Imtiyaz Ahmed Shah
Srinagar: Agriculture Department, Kashmir and Ziraat Times have joined hands to launch a campaign “Aayein sabzi ugayein” to promote cultivation of vegetables and other edibles by public in their gardens for improved food security and physical activity.
While significant progress has been achieved in promoting kitchen garden culture in both rural and urban areas in Kashmir in recent years, this campaign is aimed at ensuring that those households who don’t have kitchen gardens could use their spaces and enjoy healthy supply of vegetables and other edibles in these extraordinary circumstances.
Ziraat Times has lately been engaging in multiple awareness and promotion activities in encouraging greater productivity and food security in Jammu & Kashmir.
“This is an endeavour to promote kitchen gardening all across valley, which besides fulfilling our domestic requirements could create surpluses which could be transported to neighbouring markets for resource generation”, Director Agriculture Department, Kashmir, Aijaz Andrabi said.
“The idea behind our proposal to the Agriculture Department is to be futuristic. The Department has already been doing this activity at a big scale. By joining hands we want to make sure that people have access to quality seeds, saplings and have the technical support from the vast pool of technical expertise of the Agriculture Department”, Arjimand Hussain Talib, Founding Editor of Ziraat Times said.
One of the other benefits of this campaign could be that people would engage in some additional physical activity in the lockdown conditions. Such activities are worldover known to promote psychosocial wellbeing, Arjimand Hussain added.
“We are also considering a web-based tool where general public could get information on where to get seeds, seedlings, fertilisers etc for this”, Agri Department and Ziraat Times representatives have informed.
This news has been received with jubilation among public in Kashmir.
Detailed guidelines to aspiring kitchen garden developers about how to start and where to seek technical support and seeds will be made available by the Agriculture Department soon.
While Ziraat Times will be acting as an information and awareness dissemination platform, the Agriculture Department shall take a lead in providing technical guidance and necessary information to public in this campaign.