ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR) organized field exposure visit cum training on ICAR-IIHR technologies for the farmers of Dharmapuri District, Tamil Nadu. This programme was sponsored by Department of Horticulture and Plantation Crops, Government of Tamil Nadu under Mission on Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH). Seventy five farmers along with one Assistant Director of Horticulture, Horticulture officer and two Assistant Horticultural Officers of Tamil State (Dharmapuri District – Harur, Pennagaram and Pappireddipatty blocks) attended the field exposure visit cum on-campus training programme in three batches from August 9 -21, 2021 (I batch August 9-11, Second Batch 18-20 and III batch 19-21) at ICAR-IIHR, Bengaluru. Dr. R. Venkattakumar, Principal Scientist and In-charge Head, Division of Social Science and Training, ICAR-IIHR, Bengaluru welcomed the farmers explained about ICAR-IIHR technologies for doubling the farmers income and laid emphasis on developing entrepreneurs through various ICAR-IIHR technologies. Dr. V. Sankar, Principal Scientist, Division of Social Sciences and Training ICAR-IIHR, delivered lecture on "Varieties and hybrids of vegetable crops and latest vegetable technologies of ICAR-IIHR” suitable for Dharmapuri District of Tamil Nadu. Dr. R. Senthil Kumar, Principal Scientist, Division of Social Sciences and Training delivered a lecture on "Fruit crop technologies of ICAR-IIHR". The lectures were interspersed with field visits to demonstration blocks, nursery, visit to ATIC, vegetable seed unit, post-harvest technology lab, mushroom lab and various units of the institute. Further they also visited to KVK Hirehalli, Tumkuru. Dr. N. Loganandhan, Programme Coordinator and Head, KVK explained about KVK activities. The farmers expressed very much satisfaction on exposure visit and opined that they have learned about many new IIHR varieties/hybrids of fruits, vegetables, flowers and other horticultural technologies which will be very useful to implement at their farm. This programme was coordinated by Dr. V. Sankar, Principal Scientist and Dr R. Senthil Kumar, Principal Scientist, Division of Social Science and Training, ICAR-IIHR, Bangalore.
