PAMETI holds two trainings for farmers and extension officials

Ludhiana, December 2, 2014: The Punjab Agricultural Management and Extension Training Institute (PAMETI) conducted a four-day training programme on the “Impact of World Trade Organization (WTO) on Agriculture” at the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU). Around 30 extension officials from the state agriculture and allied departments participated. The major objective of the programme was to make the extension officials aware about the prospects of international trade to benefit farmers to venture into other international markets. Meanwhile, a five-day entrepreneurship development programme on “Mushroom Cultivation” was also organised by PAMETI, wherein 32 trainees participated. The programme was hosted after seeing the success of the training of the first batch of farmers belonging to the Watershed Development Team (WDT) from Pathankot district under Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP).

Dr H.S. Dhaliwal, Director, PAMETI motivated the extension officials to prepare the farmers for accepting the challenges of WTO by improving quality of produce, adopting value-addition and diversifying farming with high value enterprises. He also discussed the importance of direct marketing of the mushrooms and their value added products.

Experts from the Department of Microbiology, Dr Shammi Kapoor, Dr H.S. Sodhi and Dr Shashi Dhanda held practical sessions wherein the participants were told about the significance of mushroom growing and were taught composting, casing and other production techniques. In addition, the participants were also informed about various post-harvest and value- addition methods that can be adopted to gain profits from mushroom production. An official from NABARD told the participants about the various credit facilities and other schemes provided by the banks for the benefit of self-help groups and agri-entrepreneurs.

During the training on Impact of WTO on Agriculture, resource persons discussed various issues like domestic support, market access, subsidies and Intellectual Property Rights. An exposure visit to the office of Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) was organised to understand the role of DGFT in export. M.S. Dhillon, Joint Director, DGFT interacted with the participants and discussed the potential and procedure of export.

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