Governor Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday stressed on integrating animal husbandry, poultry, fishery, bee keeping and horticulture into the farming system for ensuring round the year sustainable income to the farmers.
Addressing the 6th Convocation of Birsa Agricultural University (BAU) on Tuesday Murmu said that farmers’ interest in agriculture is waning due to fragmentation of holdings, climate change related problems and diminishing return. Scientists will have to devise effective strategies to retain the existing farmers and attract new youths in agriculture as a profession.
The Governor also announced that she would talk to the State government for framing direct recruitment policy for forestry graduates on the lines of other technical graduates.
Delivering his address Deputy Director General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research Narendra Singh Rathore, said that future of Indian agriculture lies in the hands of girls because 57 per cent of the total students studying in the 75 agricultural universities and 368 colleges of public sector are girls. “At the time of independence, the percentage of girls in agriculture and allied courses was hardly five and it is heartening to note that parents are now promoting their daughters in agriculture also like engineering, medical and management. The national agricultural research system is now offering Under Graduate courses in 11 subjects, MSc/ MVSc courses in 95 subjects and PhD courses in over 80 subjects yet the enrolment in agricultural universities is only 1.6 per cent of the total enrolment of 3.9 crore students in country’s 821 universities and 42,000 colleges,” he said.
Rathore exhorted the students to become job providers rather than running after jobs because skill, entrepreneurship and industry development is part of their curriculum and they are different from the general university students. He said India’s food production in 1947 was just 49 million tones, which went up to over 280 million tonnes in 2017-18 due to advancement in agricultural research and investments in infrastructure and now the country ranks number one in food production in the world. BAU Vice Chancellor Parvinder Kaushal outlined the achievements of the institution and urged the Governor to sanction of a well-equipped auditorium with 2000 seating capacity in view of the many fold increase in the number of colleges, students and staff under BAU.
Sirasani Jimmi Prasanti, a student of Department of Entomology in Faculty of Agriculture bagged the Chancellor’s Gold Medal for Post Graduate (PG) programme for obtaining highest overall grade point average (OGPA) of 9.101 in all the PG programmes. A thrilled Prasanti said it was a golden moment for her life.
Altogether 501 students received their B Sc, M Sc and Ph D degrees today out of which 20 were given University Gold Medals (UGMs) for obtaining highest OGPA in their respective faculties.