Bhubaneswar: Agriculture & Farmers Empowerment Minister Arun Sahoo Tuesday stressed the importance of sustainable use of natural resources and adopting a conservation approach of its abundant natural resources for better environmental benefits.
Addressing the inaugural session at the State Inception Workshop of the Green Ag project, the Minister expressed his pleasure being Odisha as one of the targeted state among 5 selected states of the country.
“Odisha is endowed with abundant natural resources with rich biodiversity,” he said while expressing confidence that the project will attain its objective of catalysing sustainable transformation of the agricultural sector whereby providing economic upliftment to the people of the targeted area with awareness on conservation of IUCN endangered species and critically vulnerable flora and fauna.
The Minister indicated that the project will be implemented in identified priority villages of Similipal Landscape of Mayurbhanj District of Odisha for global environmental benefits and livelihood enhancement of targeted communities.
The Green-Ag project funded by Global Environment Facility (GEF) aims to catalyze transformative changes to India’s agriculture sector for national and global environmental benefits without compromising the country’s food security and farmers’ income.
Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment and Director of Soil Conservation and Watershed Development also addressed the programme.
UN& Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) representatives Tomio Shichiri and Konda Reddy highlighted the overview of the project in the Odisha context and expressed their happiness for the cooperation received from the Government of Odisha.
Representatives of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation of Odisha (FAO) and the representative from National level attended the event and presented about the strategic objectives of the programme, different components and implementation structures of the project.
Member of the State Steering Committee (SSC), Representative from FAO, Officers from Soil Conservation and Watershed Development and IMAGE, various senior officials, Nodal Officers of different related line departments, members of SPMU and GLIU have attended the inaugural ceremony.