A three-day workshop was arranged in Peshawar by the Directorate On-Farm Water Management (OFWM), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Agriculture Department in collaboration with the World Bank on “Irrigation Agronomy.” The purpose of the workshop was to train and equip the field staff of the agriculture department with modern methods and techniques of water management and effective intervention. The field staff is required to transfer the skills acquired on to the farmers on the ground.

The training workshop was attended by KPK Secretary for Agriculture and Livestock Dr Mohammad Israr, and Director General OFWM Javed Iqbal Khattak. A total of 300 field staff were trained during the three-day session. During the course of the training, various experts threw light on sustainable agricultural development and different types of crops, latest agricultural practices, and irrigation technologies. They all said that farmers will increase their crop yields if they effectively adopt different features of modern agriculture technologies and implement them properly. 

All the experts laid stress on the need of conserving water. They said that it is important to embrace modern technologies to save water and to use spare water for the irrigation and cultivation of fallow land. If modern methods and technologies are adopted crop yields will be increased using less input resources. They highlighted the technology of drip irrigation system, which delivers water directly to a plant’s roots. It saves water from evaporation and wastage that happens with spray water-systems.

Dr Israr congratulated OFWM for holding a successful three-day training workshop. “It will help in the education of farmers in the adoption and use of modern technologies in irrigation. The objective of such an activity is to upgrade the skills of farmers in adopting modern irrigation intervention technologies,” he said. Javed Iqbal Khattak of OFWM told the audience that more workshops of the kind will be arranged in other cities of the province. The goal of OFVM is to reach farmers in far and beyond areas so that modern technologies are adopted at scale by farmers.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk