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Puri, 05/02/2021 ( Odisha Samachar )- A Brainstorming meet on Aquaculture Field School (AFS) – an innovative extension mechanism,was heldtoday atthe farm of Sri Kailash Chandra Sahoo, Subarnapur. The meet was held to elicit the opinions and suggestions of the operator farmer as well as the participant fish farmers who are receiving extension advisory services. The Institute is conducting a research study to understand how the new initiative in extension is helping farmers. This meet will also provide feedback on the information/technology requirement of the lead farmer. Stakeholders (Line department, KVK, AquaOne Center, NFDB, NGO, Farmers Association) present in the meeting evinced interest about AFS and shared ideas about its scaling up and replication. Constraints and challenges faced by operator farmer in running AFS was also discussed.
Dr. Saroj Kumar Swain, Director, ICAR-CIFA inaugurated the meet.He informed that CIFA has piloted the concept of AFS and has established 8 AFS in different parts of Odisha, West Bengal and Chattisgarh.This approach has become quite popular and during Covidpandemic, this has assumed greater significance. Dr. G. S. Saha, Head of Social Science Section gave a brief description about the functions of AFS. AFS is a school without walls for improving the decision-making capacity of the farmers and facilitate cross learning opportunities. It promotes farmer to farmer extension. AFS is composed of a group of like-minded farmers who regularly meet and discuss the technical aspects of fish farming. Here an operator farmer trains a group of 20-25 farmers. Dr. Manas Kumar Sinha, Senior Executive, NFDB spoke on Aqua one centre and its possible linkage with the AFS for serving farming community.
Among others present were Dr Sanjay K Mohanty, Sr Scientist & Head, KVK, Puri;Sri NakulMallick, Block Agriculture Officer, Mr. Sarat Moharana, AFO, Gop, Puri.Dr. H.K. De; Dr C K Mishra, Principal Scientist; Sri A S Mahapatra, Sr Scientist. A scientist-farmer interface was also organised as a part of this programme.Around 50farmers and farm women attended the programme. The programme was coordinated by Miss Simantini Shasani. Mr Chandra Kanta Mishra proposed the vote of thanks.
