Thursday, February 3, 2011

Farmers get a lesson in communication skills

Be polite, better your communication skills and become the best in extending services. These were the few tips given by experts during the one-day personality development and communication skills workshop organised for small and marginal farmers in Fazilka on Tuesday. As many as 38 farmers from Ferozepur, Muktsar, Ganganagar and Hanumangarh were trained at this workshop who will be further training other farmers in their villages.

The workshop was organised by NGO Cereal System Initiative South Asia (CSISA), supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development. Fazilka-based Zamindara Farmsolutions helped in organising the workshop.

Vikram Ahuja from Zamindara Farmsolutions said: "This was the training of the trainers. We provided all information to them free of cost. But they can later charge a marginal fee to provide the expertise in personality development, climate change pattern etc to other farmers. It is not easy to convince the farmers against what they have been doing for the last 50 years." The details discussed in the workshop were drop in production of citrus fruit due to climate change, change in tea flavour, sowing season change et al. "Climate change has made lots of changes in farming and this was taught to the trainers who are basically literate family members of farmers in the region," said Dr Neelam Chaudhary, one of the keynote speakers.

he trainers will also start an SMS facility for the farmers to alert them about the changes in climate and the possible remedies. Apart from this, special focus is on how to present yourself before the masses and how to make your point clear. Ahuja said: "We are really focusing a lot on personal grooming so that farmers can fully utilise these skills when they address their problems or approach clients for marketing purposes."

As many as five experts from agriculture universities and institutes trained the farmers.

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