Agricultural Education is very important for a country like India whose 60% population depends on agriculture. Agriculture not only provides food and raw material but also offers employment opportunities to a considerable proportion of the country's population.
Agricultural Education is much more than just teaching students the basics of farming and rearing livestock.
On this day, an attempt is made to inspire and motivate everyone towards farming so that they could develop some interest in this field. To realize the importance of this day, Krishi Jagran organized a webinar on 3rd December. Many eminent personalities attended the webinar and shared their views on ‘Importance of Agriculture Education for All’.
Krishi Jagran's Sugandh Bhatnagar started the webinar and greeted all the dignitaries and participants. Thereby, MC Dominic, Founder & Editor in Chief, Krishi Jagran & Agriculture World greeted all the speakers and started his address by highlighting the importance of agricultural education in the present time. He also highlighted the importance of Agri Media in providing services to Agri students and the farming community.
Dr. R.C. Agrawal, Deputy Director General (Agriculture Education), Indian Council of Agriculture Research also participated in the webinar and shared his valuable points on the importance of agricultural education.
He said, "Agricultural Education Day is very important," he said during his speech, "and on this day, we try our best to inspire and motivate the youth to embrace agricultural education as per their choice."
Agriculture plays a critical role in realizing our Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dream, known as the 'Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan' or 'Self-Reliant India Campaign' (Vision of New India). As a result, the roles and contributions of agricultural education become even more important.
Arun Raste, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange Limited (NCDEX), started his speech with how he started his journey. He talks about Agriculture's share in GDP, which reaches 20% during the corona pandemic.
Highlighting the importance of education, he said that we have to change our education system & make it farmer-oriented. We have to focus on “Agriculture Export” with a special focus on “Food Security”.
Prashant Belgamwar of Advanta Seeds started his speech by recalling the days when he was still a student in one of the Agriculture University. He has a masters' degree in agronomy from Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth. He is also an IIM Ahmedabad Passout.
He highlighted that the amount of knowledge that one can gain by interacting with farmers cannot be matched by the education provided in any university or college. He also pointed out that Agriculture Universities must include Artificial Intelligence & Machine learning in their curriculum.
Dr. K. C. Siva Balan, Founder, Mitra Agro Foundation, Trichy, Tamil Nadu congratulated the chief editor and Krishi jagran team for organizing this wonderful event on Agriculture Education day today. He said, “It's time to salute and pay respects to our first president of India Dr. Rajendra Prasad, one of the architects of modern India and all academic fraternity whose timeless hardship has helped the nation to achieve self-sufficiency in food production”.
He said, “In reality, farmers are getting 25 percent of the final price of their raw product, and consumers are paying 25 percent more price for their products. Therefore, Agri education needs a paradigm shift today from production orientation to market orientation. The agriculture curriculum must be incorporated with information on forward linkages like post-harvest technologies, processing and value addition techniques, marketing, etc”.
Furthermore, he also highlighted that as of today, 65 State Agriculture Universities and 721 KVKs are serving the farm technology transfer domain. But there’s a larger gap in skill & expertise required for the job in the market. Hence more skill-based learning modules should be incorporated. More vocational courses like beekeeping, dairy, fisheries and Agri engineering aspects may be offered at diploma and degree levels. This may encourage more youth to start agribusiness ventures and start-ups in the coming days.
Concluding his speech he said, “Jai jawan- Jai Kisan & Jai Vigyan” should be the new Mantra”.
Dhananjay Edakhe, Senior Vice President- Sales & Marketing- Agro Zydex Industries Private Limited first thanked all the speakers for sharing their precious thoughts and then emphasized the importance of agricultural education. According to him, there is a need for revival in the curriculum of agricultural education.
He said that we need to focus on the use of bio-farming. He ended his speech by saying "Everything can wait but not agriculture."
The webinar was concluded by Shruti Nigam, Content Manager, Krishi Jagran with the vote of thanks.
