Haryana agriculture experts to study farm practices in Israel

Chandigarh, Jul 10 (UNI) The Haryana Government will send a delegation of agricultural experts and farmers to Israel shortly to study the farm practices there and explore the scope of adopting them in the state.

This was revealed during a meeting between Haryana Agriculture Minister Harmohinder Singh Chatha and Israeli Ambassador David Danieli who called on the former here today.

Mr Danieli said that Haryana was a progressive state with a bright future and his country was looking forward to mutual cooperation with it in various fields. Israel was keen on sending a team of experts to conduct ''on the site'' short duration courses.

He said that Israel had been running a programme of agricultural courses for the past 15 years, in which training is imparted to nearly one lakh farmers. Haryana farmers can also send their applications for such courses, he added.

Mr Chatha said that Israel's irrigation technology was the best among such technologies in the world and experts from the state would study the irrigational techniques being used in that country and also consider their feasibility in Haryana. He said that he was very impressed with the agricultural patterns being practised in Israel during his recent three-day visit to the country.

He said that nearly 50 per cent of the ground water table in Haryana was saline like Israel, which could neither be used for irrigation purposes nor for drinking.

The Minister said that canal water was the only resort left for drinking and irrigational purposes. This was a matter of grave concern as the population was ever increasing whereas the level of sweet ground water table was falling. He stressed upon the need for developing techniques for converting the saline water into sweet water or developing hybrid varieties of seeds which could be cultivated by using saline water.

Mrs Asha Sharma, Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Agriculture said that nearly 26 per cent of the land in Haryana was rainfed while the remaining was under irrigation.

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