The valedictory function of the five days “Capacity Building Programme for Chief Executive Officers and Chairman/Board of Directors of Farmers Producer Organizations (FPO’s) across J&K” was organized on 11-07-2025 at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences & Technology of Jammu. The programme is jointly organized by SKUAST, Jammu and Department of Agriculture Production & Farmers Welfare, Jammu in collaboration with MANAGE-Hyderabad in the Division of Agricultural Extension Education, Faculty of Agriculture,Chatha. The capacity building programme has been organized under HADP-20 project entitled “Innovative Extension Approaches for Revitalizing Agriculture in Jammu & Kashmir”.
Prof. B. N. Tripathi, Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, SKUAST, Jammu was chief guest during the valedictory function and Prof. Sudhakar Dwivedi, Dean Students Welfare, SKUAST, Jammu was guest of honour.
While addressing the participants, Prof. B. N. Tripathi, Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, SKUAST, Jammu emphasized the importance of knowledge-sharing and capacity building among FPO leaders. He encouraged all CEOs and BODs to not only learn from the training but to also disseminate the knowledge among fellow members, thereby making FPOs self sustainable. The basic purpose of such programmes is to enhance the capacity of the functionaries of the FPOs. Till date SKUAST, Jammu has organized seven such capacity building programmes for field functionaries of Agriculture and Allied Departments and for the functionaries of the FPOs. He also shared with the participants about the information of 300 FPOs in J&K.
Adding to the deliberations, Prof. Sudhakar Dwivedi, Dean Students Welfare, SKUAST, Jammu, enlightened the participants about the core objective behind the formation of FPOs and shared insights that FPOs are formed with the objective to collectively procure inputs and enhancing bargaining power, facilitating value addition and processing through collective infrastructure. He further elaborated about the benefits of FPOs in creating rural employment through agri-based enterprise and processing units.
Prof. Vinod Gupta, Professor & Head Division of Agricultural Extension Education and PI of the project formally welcome all the dignitaries and participants at the valedictory function of five days capacity building programme and highlighted the importance of this training programme with reforms to farming community.
During the training programme, Sh. Sanjeev Rathore, Company Secretary and Mr. Vighneesh Kumar, MANAGE Fellow expressed their gratitude to the university for inviting them as a resource persons for the training programme of CEO’s and BOD’s of FPO’s across J&K.
The valedictory function was attended by Prof. Rakesh Sharma, Prof. PoonamParihar, Dr. Breejesh Arjrawat, Chief Scientist, KVK, Kathua, staff members and project staff. The vote of thanks was presented by Prof. J. S. Manhas.
Sd/-
Professor & Head
Division of Agricultural Extension Education
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