Adoption of organic pest management methods can produce more hygienic food and improve soil health to ensure sustainable crop productivity reducing use of chemical pesticides, experts said here Monday.
They asked the field level Sub-assistant Agriculture Officers (SAAOs) for popularising organic pest management methods and use of organic fertilisers among the farmers for producing chemical pesticide-free foodstuffs for the population.
The GME Agro Limited in association with Seba Limited and Catalyst organised the day-long training course on ‘Combating Pests attacks on Crops using Organic Methods’ at a local hotel auditorium in the city on Monday.
Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) Zulfiquer Haider attended the training course organised for SAAOs from all over Rangpur district as the chief guest.
With Senior Marketing Officer of GME Agro Limited Monwar Hossain in the chair, Rangpur Regional Coordinator of Seba Limited Enamul Haque attended the course as the special guest.
Scientific Officer SM Khairul Islam, Senior Marketing Officer Anwarul Haque, Assistant Marketing Officer Abdul Rahim and Filed Officer Russell Ahmmed also addressed.
Agriculturist SM Fakhrul Islam Pavel delivered the keynote presentation on ‘Adoption of Organic Pest Management Methods in Farming Vegetables’ in the training course.
The training course was organised for enhancing knowledge of SAAOs for disseminating the same among the farmers to popularise organic methods of pest management in crop fields to produce hygienic crops and improve soil health and fertility.
The speakers stressed for using organic pest management methods, compost fertilisers like cow dung, green manures, wastes or vermi- composts to maintain soil health and increase more hygienic crop output and attain sustainable productivity.
They put emphasis on educating the farmers and disseminating adequate knowledge among them to enhance use of organic pest management methods in combating pests’ attacks and crop diseases for better production.
The chief guest stressed for reducing use of chemical pesticides through adopting organic pest management methods to improve soil health, fertility and productivity for increasing hygienic crop output maintaining environment, ecology and bio-diversity
