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Agriculture & Allied Courses

Farming Community and education

COVID-19 has taken to the brink of starving

The farmers in many countries are uneducated and depend upon traditional myths and methods for predicting the season and cultivation. They are deprived of the benefits of the modern researches and technology. Failure of institutions, especially political and economic, poor governance, failing states, corruption and dysfunctional markets, profit making behavior of middle men, lack of finances with the farmers are other key factors. Agriculture extension services have been undertaken for a long time to impart the knowledge and skill. Traditional extension services uses face to face interactions and delivery of information using SMS services and mass media (Radio and TV).

Several studies reveal a direct relation between the level of farmer’s education and his productivity. Farming practices used from generation to generation cannot be used any more, as the Chinese adage from Sandong says, “Plant millet after millet and you will end by weeping”. Agriculture productivity per worker in India is two percent as compared to a farmer in USA, primarily due to lack of education, skill, knowledge and capacity embodied in farmers of the country.

Subject of courses

  1. Agriculture (कृषि)
  2. Animal Husbandry (पशुपालन)
  3. Horticulture (बागवानी)
  4. Sericulture (रेशम के कीड़ों का पालन)
  5. Hydroponics (बिना मिट्टी के बागवानी)
  6. Floriculture (फूलों की खेती)
  7. Forestry (वानिकी)
  8. Aquaculture (मत्स्य पालन)
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Agriculture and SDG2030

Background

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seek to address issues relating to hunger, poverty alleviation, democratic governance and peace building, climate change and disaster risk, and economic inequality. The global population is growing at a fast rate. The population has grown from 1.8 billion in 1915 to 7.5 billion in 2017, a fourfold population increase during a century. The world population will increase by 31 percent from estimated present of 7.5 billion to 9.8 billion in 2050. 1.45 billion people living in 103 countries are poor; 706 million (689 mn-48% children) live in extreme poverty and suffer from severe malnutrition and stenting. Global child poverty is strikingly high. 11 per cent of the global population which converts to 815 mn population was hungry and suffered from malnutrition. This is the first time in over a decade that the number of hungry people was found rising. Out of this number, “20 million people are at immediate risk of dying of hunger; Yemen 10 million, Nigeria (North East) 4-6 million, South Sudan 4-6 million, and Somalia 2-4 million”. In addition, 18 countries are facing acute food shortages.

Agriculture is a profession that involves growing food and raising livestock (animal husbandry) on soil, soil-less medium (hydroponics), or in water (aquaculture). The food production involves growing crops, plants, flowers (floriculture) or maintaining forest (forestry). This raising of livestock includes rearing of pet animals such as cows, buffaloes, goats or farming of fish, aquatic plants and organisms (aquaculture). Asia is home to 4.5 billion population. Out of this 50 to 90 per cent population depends upon agriculture. This includes 70-95% small farmers. The farming community depends on agriculture income for their livelihood. Further, out of a billion farmers in the world, about 95 million live in Asia and Africa as per 2011 data, which is also home to 805 million hungry people (Asia-520 million, Africa-243 million and Latin America (42 million); the total hungry people in the world are 825. The food and livestock production is not able to sustain even the present population. The estimated food requirement by 2050 is likely to increase by “59% to 98%”. As such, a phenomenal increase in agriculture production will be the most important factor in achieving the SDGs that aim to ensure food for all, good health facilities, gender equality and an environment to sustain the future generations. A knowledge agriculture in Asian and African countries with skilled farmers capable of using the modern technological tools is crucial to achieve the desired goals aimed in SDGs.

A recording of live e-lecture on “Empowering Farmers through Extension & Knowledge Dissemination Role of Mass Media” by Prof. Dr. Sir Hari Om Srivastava, President & CEO of World Development Foundation in cooperation of Prof. Moni of Shobhit Deemed University on 4th March 2021 is shown below. This discusses the technological intervention for removing the hunger from the planet.

Empowering Farmers through Extension & Knowledge Dissemination Role of Mass Media

A sample video lesson

From Chancellor

Prof. Dr. H. O. Srivastava

Our focus will be to provide food to growing world population and remove hunger from the planet especially in Asia and African regions. This will be done by providing knowledge and skill to farmers in starting small scale profession such as chicken, goat, cattle farming, honeybee keeping, vegetable farming near their dwelling to earn their livelihood. For other farming community we shall also introduce scientific methods of cultivation. We foresee the future of farming; a field having different type of sensors mounted on tractors, poles, drones etc., placed at strategic locations capturing data on various parameters and sending the data to the cloud, cloud system accessing the data and computing complex field maps, farmer receiving the information on his smart device, irrespective of his location vis-à-vis the farm. Farmer uses DSS software available on cloud or his digital device that makes extremely precise calculation of nutrient or pesticide needs for specific plant or specific area of the field. The farmer remotely controls the UAVs, Robots or auto navigated tractors to spray the seed or nutrients, as required. This results lower input costs, lesser use of fertilizers or pesticides, reduces fatigue and provides greater health and environment benefits. However, this type of farming needs a massive change in R&D, development of new curriculum for agriculture colleges and stress on education of farming community. Our R &D team has developed resources and make it accessible in multiple languages apart from field training.

 

 

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