One day an on-campus Training-cum-Interaction Meeting on “Soil and Water Conservation Practices for Sustainable Productivity in Rainfed Agriculture” was organized at Hayathnagar Research Farm, ICAR-CRIDA on 06.10.2023 under Farmer FIRST Project. 40 farmers including Sarpanch of village, Sri B. Shivaiah and Upa Sarpanch Sri B. Chandra Shekar from village, Bakapur, mandal, Pudur, district, Vikarabad, Telangana State were participated and interacted with Scientists. The main objective of the training program was to create awareness on soil and water conservation practices for sustainable productivity in rainfed agriculture and to improve their livelihoods and income.

In this training Dr. Vinod Kumar Singh, Director, ICAR-CRIDA has emphasized on conservation of natural resources for next generation, Crop-Horticulture-Animal components with Integrated Farming System mode is essential to achieve self-sustainability in rainfed agriculture. Formation of farmers’ societies like SHGs and FPO’s for better marketing and profit. Farmers were visited the field demonstrations of soil water conservation, horticulture with micro irrigation system including fertigation, natural farming and IFS model. Field demonstrations and visit to small farm mechanization workshop including Drone applications in agriculture were coordinated by Drs Boini Narsimlu, G. Nirmala, R. Rejani, B. Barghavi, P. Pushpanjali, A. Gopal Reddy and B. Sanjeeva Reddy. The overall Training-cum-interaction meeting was Coordinated by Dr Boini Narsimlu, Co-PI Farmer FIRST Program under the guidance of Dr.G.Nirmala, PI, FFP.