Port Blair, Mar 01: ICAR-Central Island Agricultural Research Institute (CIARI) and Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), Port Blair have jointly organized three days training programme on “Spices as intercrops in plantation based cropping system for livelihood security of island farmers” from 26-28 February, 2019 at ICAR-KVK, Port Blair in collaboration with Directorate of Arecanut and Spices Development Board (DASD), Calicut under the NHM programme. The training programme was inaugurated by Dr. A. Kundu, Director, ICAR-CIARI as Chief Guest and Mr. Mohan Haldar, Pradhan, Chouldhari as guest of honour. During Inaugural address, Dr. A. Kundu spoke about the scope and opportunities of growing spices in the Island and urged the participants to move towards commercialization of organic spices in the Island. Mr. Mohan Haldar, remarked the importance of agriculture in the Island and mentioned that there are various opportunities in different fields of agriculture for the livelihood and economic security of the Island farmers. Followed by the inaugural session, Lectures and demonstrations of various aspects of spices production in the Island were delivered by the experts from ICAR-CIARI, KVK, Port Blair and Department of Agriculture, A & N Administration. 60 participants from different stake holder groups like farmers, Self help group members and students from JNRM College, Port Blair attended the three days training programme. The entire training programme was organized by Dr. K. Abirami, Scientist and Course Director, ICAR-CIARI and Course coordinators Dr. V. Baskaran, Principal Scientist, ICAR-CIARI, Dr. L. B. Singh, In-charge Head, KVK, Port Blair and Dr. V. Damodaran, ACTO, ICAR-CIARI. At the end of the training programme, planting material of different spice crops like black pepper, clove, cinnamon and nutmeg were distributed to the participants by Dr. A. Kundu, Director, ICAR-CIARI and Dr. B. A. Jerard, Head, Division of Horticulture and Forestry. In a communiqué received from S.K. Zamir Ahmed, ICAR-CIARI.