Thodupuzha, Karshikamela, 18-Jan-2010,
Kerala must strive hard to become a healthy state and going Organic will be a significant step towards it, stated Sri Mullakkara Retnakaran, Hon Minister for Agriculture, Kerala. He was inaugurating the Karshikamela organised by Gandhiji study centre in Thodupuzha. Kerala has 3% of the total population in India but consumes 20% of the total medicines that are sold in the country. This is an alarming picture he said. He also said that protecting traditional knowledge for future generations is the need of today, especially in the farming sector. India must stop depending on world market and should focus on achieving self-sufficiency in food production, he commented. He said that if India and China approaches the world market for food items, that would lead to black marketing and price rice, thus creating artificial scarcity.
In his presidential note, Sri P J Joseph, Hon. Minister for PWD, said that the current economic crisis is partly due to the neglect shown by countries towards agriculture sector. Kerala must focus on value added product placement of it’s agricultural products, he said.
The Karshikamela will be held from 18-26 Jan 2010. The exhibition stalls will be open to public from 10:00 AM on 19-Jan-2010. One of the major topics for the seminars is Precision framing, which will be presented by a team of professors from Tamilnadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, headed by Dr. E Vadivel.
