Skills for profitable Agriculture through Mechanisation

India ranks among the top countries in the world in production of a number of crops including rice, wheat, sugarcane, fruits and vegetables. However, despite this potential, two prime bottlenecks that have emerged and can become insurmountable problem in the foreseeable future are the stagnant productivity per hectare and shortage of agriculture labour. There is ample evidence which suggests that productivity improves dramatically with usage of more farm power. Indian farmer is fast adapting farm mechanisation than ever before. This is clearly evident as the Indian tractor industry has emerged as the largest in the world and accounts for 1/3 of total global production. Further the Government of India has been encouraging mechanisation through different policy interventions.

Keeping this in view, in order to make participants aware of various  new implements and machinery suitable for farmers of different economic strata a five day on campus training programme on ‘Skills in profitable Agriculture through Mechanisation’ was organized from 29^th May 2018 – 2nd June, 2018. Applications of Farm machinery in different sectors were essentially planned as a part of the training syllabi so that its relevance in field in understood by the trainees. The sessions were laced with several field visits in order to endow the participants with practical learnings on implements and machinery at CRIDA farm, Hayatnagar, Horticulture farm, Centre of Excellence, Jeedimetla and Best Engineering technologies, Kukatpally to break the monotony of academic environment and to give it a participatory approach.

            The participants were given hands on training on the use of small implements during their visit to Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture (CRIDA), Hyderabad.

            During the valedictory programme, Dr. K. Madhubabu, Director, EEI mentioned that there is urgent need for all Extension workers to popularise new learning’s of this training i.e. information on  new Farm Implements and Machinery in agriculture and allied sectors among rural people as there is acute shortage of labour in the rural areas. He thanked the participants for the positive feed back and assured that a relook shall be made into future trainings for incorporating the constructive suggestions given by the trainees.

            During their feedback most of the participants expressed that this programme exposed them to various new implements and farm machinery which would be of use in their back home work places.

FEED BACK OF THE PARTICIPANTS

The programme was Co-ordinated by Dr. S. Chandra Shekar and Dr. R. Vasantha, Professors, EEI in which participants belonging to 3 sectors of Agriculture, Horticulture and Animal Husbandry from 4 states participated.