Innovative Agri-Solutions during COVID-19

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic challenged many assumption of the modern life throughout the world. The economy of major countries has by and large come to the grinding halt. However, the conditions in highly populous country like India, where about 1350 million people have to be supported with food, awareness and necessary equipments are more challenging than the developed nations. During this challenging time we can’t expect any outside support and we have to manage feeding of our people only at our own. The challenge became still tougher as the lockdown resulted in shortage of farm labour on one hand and disruption of marketing channels at the end of consumers. Perishables like poultry, dairy, fruit and vegetables started perishing and this resulted into destruction of a lot of food which otherwise could have been consumed by the people of India. Such trendcouldn’t be let continue as our national food reserves can feed 1350 million people only for few months. ICAR Agricultural Extension Network took this challengeseriously and became proactive in devising and suggesting practical solutions to the affected farmers. There were a very large number of such innovative examples throughout the country which needed to be documented for their subsequent emulation by the farmers and extension personnel. The urgency of delivering contents of this compilation to the ultimate beneficiaries at the earliest possible; necessitated keeping form of this publication as an electronic one. This e-book includes more than 100 selected experiences from every nook and corner of the country. Editors of this e-book put on record the significance of input from the concerned KVKs of India for compilation of these exemplary anecdotes. All ICAR-ATARIs worked really hard to supply necessary input for the culmination of this document in a short period of time