National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA) Chief Executive Officer Ashok Dalwai asked students to break out of their ‘cocoons of comfort’ to explore the world of opportunities in the tech-aided world.
Dr. Dalwai is also the chairman of the empowered body on Doubling Farmers Income (DFI) in the Agriculture Ministry.
Delivering his address at the 51 st convocation of Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU) here on Friday, he looked back at his college days and said those who had not learnt to work on computers and networked systems had become the new illiterates.
Envisaging the situation thirty years later, when today’s graduates would have been over fifty years of age, Dr. Dalwai said the combination of artificial intelligence and bioengineering might cascade into a totally new world where human beings are challenged by robots. Turning to the university teachers, he appealed to them to focus on the formula 4C+M, viz., critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, plus morality, to develop a new breed of graduates.
Predicting ‘disruptive technologies’ in agriculture, he saw the emergence of controlled atmospheric production systems such as vertical gardening, aeroponics, hydroponics, polyhouses, apart from bio-economy based on agri-produce as feedstock and driven by secondary agriculture.
He saw the subsidy regime as being ‘lopsided’ favouring those in the irrigation areas and especially those growing rice and wheat. A rough calculation of per hectare subsidy by NRAA and comparison between irrigated and non-irrigated systems of cultivation for the year 2017-18 showed an inequality of ₹15,400 and ₹4,900 respectively.
“This is certainly not an egalitarian or equitable support system to the farmers spread across two distinct systems of production in the country”, he opined, adding that the PM-KISAN rolled out in December 2018 to provide ₹6,000 per annum to every farmer was the first step towards this egalitarian approach.
After Governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan delivered his address virtually, Vice-Chancellor A. Vishnuvardhan Reddy listed the varsity’s academic and administrative achievements, students placements, research collaborations and extension activities.
A total of 635 students, including those who have completed Ph.D., PG and graduation courses in agricultural colleges across the State received their doctorates at the convocation and 29 graduates received gold medals from Dr. Dalwai.
