DDG (NRM) Dr. S K Chaudhari inaugurated International Training Program at ICAR-CCARI, Goa

 

    ICAR-Central Coastal Agricultural Research Institute, Old Goa, Goa in collaboration with Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and World Agroforestry (ICRAF) are  organizing International Training Program on “Diversification of Coastal Agroecosystems for Climate Resilience and Livelihood Security” during 07 to 11 November 2022. Dr Suresh Kumar Chaudhari, Deputy Director General (Natural Resource Management), ICAR, New Delhi was the Chief Guest of the inaugural function. In his address, Dr Suresh Kumar Chaudhari appreciated the efforts of CIFOR-ICRAF and ICAR-CCARI in organizing the training programme. He briefed about the importance of diversification, climate resilience and livelihood in coastal regions as different components of the training programme. He further highlighted the importance of coastal agricultural information system (CAIS) which will act as a knowledge platform and a way forward to sustainable coastal agriculture benefiting farmers, scientists and policy makers. He also emphasized that agro-ecotourism has opened up a new avenue to increase farm income in the rural areas besides motivating and attracting youth in agriculture. Dr Parveen Kumar, Director, ICAR- CCARI welcomed all the dignitaries and delegates of the training programme. In his welcome address, he briefed about the coastal agroecosystem and gave the gist about the achievements of ICAR-CCARI. Dr Javed Rizvi, Director, CIFOR-ICRAF, Asia, Dr Chandrashekhar Biradar, Country Director, CIFOR-ICRAF, India Dr Shiv Kumar Dhyani, Country Coordinator, CIFOR-ICRAF and Dr A. Arunachalam, Director, ICAR-Central Agroforestry Research Institute, Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh were the Guest of Honours.  Dr Javed Rizvi in his remark highlighted the importance of the training programme and urged to identify opportunities for mutual collaboration among participating countries. Dr Shiv Kumar Dhyani in his remarks briefed the house about CIFOR-ICRAF and its collaboration with ICAR. He has also mentioned that India is the first country to have national agroforestry policy. Dr A. Arunachalam in his address highlighted the importance of coastal ecosystems and coastal products. Dr Chandrashekhar Biradar stressed that climate change is a fact and rising sea level, and land degradation especially in coastal regions which is adversely impacting agriculture. On this occasion, Coastal Agricultural Information System (CAIS) developed by ICAR-CCARI was also launched by DDG (NRM). Dr Sujeet Desai, Scientist of ICAR-CCARI has briefed the house about the different components of CAIS. The inaugural function was attended by 8 foreign and 6 national participants physically from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Maldives and Vietnam. Dr Uthappa A. R., Scientist (Agroforestry) and Co-Course Director of the training programme proposed the vote of thanks and Dr Mathala J. Gupta, Senior Scientist, (AS&PE) compered the programme.