The ‘Vigorous Vegetable Promotion Project’, a State Government-sponsored project aimed at promoting vegetable cultivation in schools and households across the state was launched at the Santhigiri Ashram.
The project was inaugurated by Agriculture Department Additional Director N Vijayan.
Inaugurating the project, he said that through the project, the government aims at encouraging terrace-cultivation in households and cultivation of vegetables in schools on a massive scale.
The ultimate aim of the project is to help each household produce all the vegetables a family needs. 50 lakh school students are being given saplings of vegetables for growing them in one or two cents of land.
“The projected output is one lakh tonnes of vegetables. Even if only 60 per cent of the students take up farming, the project will be a huge success,” he said. Swami Gururathnam Jnana Thapaswi, organising secretary of the Santhigiri Ashram, presided. He promised to implement the project in various districts and branches of the ashram. He said that the ashram had been collaborating on various such government projects such as hi-tech farming and bio-farming.
Santhigiri Healthcare and Research Organisation head Swami Jyothiroopa Jnana Thapaswi, Principal Agriculture Officer M M Sunilkumar, Manickal Grama Panchayat member T Manikandan Nair, Vamanapuram Block Panchayat president Baby Sulekha, Agriculture Department assistant director Nazeera Beegum, Vamanapuram Agriculture Assistant Director Baby Girija and Manickal Grama Panchayat Agriculture Officer S Mallikadevi also spoke.