Setting the agenda for rural development through technological innovations, President APJ Abdul Kalam today used a satellite to speak with farmers from five states in the country listening to their problems and suggesting solutions while urging scientists to do more for the poor.
"Meenakshi Amma, the problem of water scarcity can be overcome," he told a farmer from a tsunami-hit village in Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu while
inaugurating the first National Virtual Congress of Farmers at the Indian Science Congress here.
Facilitated through an Indian Satellite Research Organisation (ISRO) satellite, the video conference with the President covered Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa
and Maharashtra besides Tamil Nadu.
In the company of agricultural experts including Chairman of the National Commission on Farmers, Prof. M S Swaminathan, Dr Kalam fielded questions of farmers
from Pokhran (Rajasthan), Pudukottai and Nagapattinam (Tamil Nadu), Koraput (Orissa), Addakal (Andhra Pradesh) and Waifad and Anandvan (Maharashtra),
regularly turning to the experts for comments.
Barely minutes after he inaugurated the focal theme, 'Integrated Rural Development: Science and Technology', of the 93rd Indian Science Congress in the presence of
Food and Agricultural organisation (FAO) Director General Jacques Diouf, the President got a feeling of the ground reality in the villages.
"Is there anything to reduce the distress of the farmers during droughts?" asked a farmer from Addakal in Mehboob Nagar, one of the worst drought-affected districts
of Andhra Pradesh. From a woman farmer in Pokhran, the question was where could she get seeds that suited the desert region.
Questions were also put to the President about storage of seeds and farm produce by farmers from Maharashtra and how to protect the traditional knowledge of
medicinal plants from farmers in Orissa at the Virtual Congress organised by the M S Swaminathan Foundation, ICRISAT and ISRO.
more...
|
