Minister for Public Works (R&B) Abdul Rehman Veeri today said that Government is committed to shift from conventional farming to high tech farming to increase the horticulture production in the State.Replying to a question by Zafar Iqbal Manhas, Mr. Veeri, on behalf of Minister for Agriculture, informed the House that during the current financial year 40 hectares of private land and 10 hectares of public land shall be covered under the scheme.The Minister informed that a pilot High Density Scheme has been formulated for which expenditure shall be born on 50:50 basis by the government and growers.
Mr. Veeri further informed that under traditional farming there are only 250 plants per hectare where as under High Density Plantation 2200 to 4000 plants per hectares can be planted. He said that 2.22 lakh clonal root stocks have been imported from Netherland costing Rs 1.73 crore and planted at three places at Departmental Farm Zainapora Shopian, SKUAST-Kashmir and Central Institute of Temperate Horticulture (CITH) Srinagar for propagation and multiplication purposes.The Minister further informed that the Government has placed order for import of 1.21 lakh Apple plants of various varieties from Italy and the material is expected to arrive in the first week of July this year and shall be distributed under the said pilot scheme.Saif-ud-Din Bhat, Yasir Reshi, Sajad Kichloo and Vinod Gupta raised supplementaries to the main question.