‘Harithadhara’, an exclusive agriculture promotion programme that focusses on large-scale production and sale of value-added products, is on the anvil for farmers in the Thiruvambady Assembly constituency. Seven local self-government institutions, including the Mukkom municipality, will team up to implement the programme under the guidelines of experts from various fields.
The Harithadhara coordination committee will host its first workshop in Thiruvambady on Saturday for people’s representatives and around 500 farmers from the constituency to finalise the road map. T.K. Jose, Principal Secretary of the Local Self-Government Department, will open the workshop.
Committee members say the new initiative will primarily focus on the promotion of new food-based small-scale industries, dairy projects, fish farming ventures and organic farming initiatives in the limits of all the seven local bodies. Each grama panchayat and the municipality will earmark a special fund during this fiscal to meet ‘Harithadhara’ goals and encourage farmers to use the opportunity.
P.T. Augustine, president of Thiruvambady grama panchayat and one of the coordinators of the project, says it is the first time that all the seven local bodies in the constituency are coming together to discuss the development opportunities in the agriculture sector and working together for achieving goals. “Since agriculture is the backbone of all these rural panchayats, including Karassery, Kodencheri, Kodiyathur, Koodaranhi and Puthuppadi, the united efforts will definitely make a change,” he adds.
In the first phase, ‘Harithadhara’ aims at sensitising rural farmers on the scope of marketing agriculture-based value-added products in the open market and the possibilities of exploring untapped areas. It also targets empowerment of various neighbourhood groups and farming clusters with unprofitable ventures.
Coordination committee members say the biggest reward for farmers who sign up for the initiative is the scientific mentoring of experts who have set the benchmark in various popular industries engaged in the production of value-added products.
