Shri. Narendra Singh Tomar interacts with Indian Forest Service (IFS) Probationers at ICAR-NAARM

The National Academy of Agricultural Research management (ICAR-NAARM), Hyderabad organized a tailor-made training program on “Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Communication Strategies including Integrated Watershed Management (IWM)” during 26-29 Sep 2019 at its premises for the IFS Probationers (2018-20 batch), from Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy (IGNFA), Dehradun. The participants included 60 IFS Probationers and two officers belonging to Royal Bhutan Forest Service. The training was organized as a part of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between ICAR-NAARM and IGNFA.

Shri. Narendra Singh Tomar, Hon’ble Minister for Agriculture, Farmers Welfare and Rural Development, Union Government of India visited NAARM on 26 Sep and interacted with the IFS probationers. He appealed to the probationers to be compassionate with the rural, tribal and farming communities while upholding the core principles of environmental governance and sustainable utilization of the resources. Hon’ble Minister opined that agriculture and rural development have very close linkages with the environment, and complemented NAARM for designing this module for the IFS officers, which would have great significance in their field service.

Earlier, Dr. Ch. Srinivasa Rao, Director, NAARM welcomed the Hon’ble Minister to the Academy and provided an overview of its activities and future perspectives in strengthening agricultural research and policy.

Shri. Dharmapuri Arvind, Hon’ble MP, Nizamabad, Telangana State also participated in the interaction meeting.

The probationers were introduced to various tools of PRA and were taken to a village to use them for understanding the issues, perspectives and aspirations of the villagers towards IWM interventions. As a part of the communication module, the participants simulated a panel discussion and played different roles during an environmental conflict situation, which was recorded and appraised by communication experts. The training included a hands-on exercise on using analytical hierarchy process (AHP) analyzer, an online application developed by NAARM, for prioritization of administrative decisions. The probationers were introduced to the emerging issues in natural resource management with respect to climate change and were sensitized on current trends in IWM. They were also sensitized on the need to work with researchers and citizens as partners, so as to harness the benefits of synergy, by presenting relevant case studies.

The training program was coordinated by Dr. SK. Soam, Dr. Bharat S. Sontakki and Dr. P. Krishnan from NAARM. The participants overwhelmingly complimented the faculty of NAARM for their technical inputs, which would help substantially in their professional career. Dr. SP. Anandh Kumar, IFS, Associate Professor, IGNFA, Dehradun thanked NAARM for the effective conduct of the module.