Prem Kumar Dhumal, chief minister, Himachal Pradesh, has been awarded the Agriculture Leadership Award-2012 in recognition of his major policy initiatives and programmes in agriculture, horticulture and animal husbandry in the state.
Union minister of state for agriculture Harish Rawat presented the award to him at New Delhi recently. The decision to confer the award on him was taken at the Organising Committee of Agriculture Leadership Awards-2012, which met at New Delhi, under the chairmanship of Prof. M S Swaminathan, eminent scientist.
According to a release by the Himachal Pradesh government, the award has been conferred on the chief minister taking into consideration the strong performance on policy initiatives leading to better management of farm resources, crop diversification under Horticulture Technology Mission (HTM), revival of apple economy through policy interventions, marketing support programmes for F&V, promotion of organic agriculture, launch of soil health card scheme and substantial enhanced budget allocations resulting in the state achieving sustainable enhanced growth in diversified agriculture production which has enhanced returns from farming and impacted the rural economy of the state positively.
