Krishi mela from today to create awareness about organic farming

The state Agriculture department will be organising a three-day-long Jaibo Krishi Mela at Bidhan Sishu Udyan in Ultadanga from Saturday.

Purnendu Basu, the state Agriculture minister said that the department had received a proposal from the authorities of Bidhan Sishu Udyan to take up some projects in the vacant place of their organisation.

The state Agriculture department has extended all necessary support by providing expertise to initiate organic farming on around three bighas of the vacant land. There are around 300 coconut trees and waterbodies where the project has been taken up. Every Sunday, the produce gets sold in a weekly market. Farmers from many villages visit the weekly market to sell the organic vegetables.

Now, the initiative has been taken to organise a fair at Bidhan Sishu Udyan where there will be around 50 stalls to exhibit organic vegetables and machineries used for farming.

The basic idea to organise the fair is to create awareness among the urban populace about the good effects of having organic vegetables. Since it is taking place in a "sishu udyan", the theme of the fair is "Save the children, save the mankind with organic practice".

Pradip Majumdar, advisor to the Chief Minister on agriculture, said: "The initiative has been taken to encourage farmers into organic farming."

There will also be quiz competitions, debates and cultural activities in the fair to create awareness on organic farming.

Newly-developed tools that could be used for better farming will be displayed in the fair too. Kalyani University students have invented a tool using which one can easily climb up a coconut tree. Many such machineries will be displayed in the fair. One cannot buy the machineries or tools from the fair but they can get to know as to where can they buy the tools and machineries from.