INDIAN GOVERNMENT TO HELP FARMERS REDUCE FERTILIZER USE.

TAIPEI, June 2 Asia Pulse - Amid rampant complaints among farmers about inadequate fertilizer supplies, the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture (COA) has set up an ad hoc unit to help farmers reduce their heavy use of fertilizers.

The ad hoc group is slated to sponsor 183 seminars on the subject led by experts from the COA by the end of this year, and 18,110 farmers across the country are expected to participate, the council said in a statement.

The COA's goal is to reduce fertilizer use by 20-30 per cent of the annual total of 1.2 million metric tons, the COA said.

The goal is in line with an instruction issued by COA Minister Chen Wu-hsiung in a recent meeting in which Chen asked the ad hoc group members to teach farmers how to correctly apply fertilizers and to promote the use of organic and green fertilizers.

Chen Jung-wu, manager of the COA's Taichung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, will be in charge of the task force -- composed of personnel from COA-affiliated research institutes and seed improvement and propagation stations across the country.

According to Chen Jung-wu, the task force held 17 seminars in May on reducing fertilizer usage. Green fertilizers have been applied on some 9,000 hectares of farmland, and organic fertilizers on ...