Ranchi: Jharkhand government would send five farmers from each of the 24 districts to Israel for training, Chief Minister Raghubar Das said Monday.

Those farmers would be trained on how to utilise barren land, Das said after inaugurating a ‘Kisan Mela’ here. “Jharkhand has barren/unused land in many parts and we must think about how to utilise this barren land for the betterment of our farmers,” an official release quoted Das as saying.

The chief minister said that ‘soil health card’ for the entire state would be completed within three years to help farmers decide about their crops.

Das said that his government was committed to double the income of the farmers by the year 2022.
He said that his government was working on small irrigation projects and farmers were being encouraged to use bio-fertilizers instead of chemical ones.

To sustain this effort, the government was encouraging animal husbandry on a big scale and an initiative was taken to distribute 50,000 cows to poor women at a subsidised rate, said the chief minister.

This would not only make Jharkhand self-dependent in milk production but also would increase production of bio-fertilizer, he said.