The United Nations has christened 2016 as International Year of Pulses, which is conspicuous from planet health point of view. Pulses can be regarded as corner stone of nutrition particularly for vegetarians as a rich source of protein. They also have high densities of minerals like iron, zinc and bers. , they thwart, and promote health of

gut and heart. Pulses have also been evidenced to contain bio-active compounds that help to combat cancer, diabetes, heart and gut ailments. Further, consequent upon their habit of requiring lesser water and x atmospheric nitrogen, they may be designated as root engineers mobilizing many microbes and thereby obviating the over ridiculed downsides of chemical fertilizer. The implicit saving on large input subsidies with cultivation of pulses vis-a-vis other crops having high irrigation and fertilizer requirements cannot be over scored. Over and above, there are over a dozen of pulses, each having unique texture and avor and can be processed and cooked into variety of preparations satiating myriad consumers’ preferences. These crops are variants in duration from around 60 to over 300 days and can be squeezed in any set of growing conditions as solo, intercrop or mixed crop.

Pulses that are on about 25 million hectares of land, predominant (84%) of

which is rain-fed, can be regarded as health line of India. Over time,

production of pulses has failed to catch up with demand. Output has grown

less than 2% average in the last 20 years, while acreage has grown even lesser

January-February, 2016

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Major Events

pg 1

3pg SDAU Organizes Sui-Generis Workshop on Forward Thinking for Agricultural Development

4pg SDAU Facilitates a National Workshop on ICTs for Sustainable Agricultural Development

5pg th Celebration of the 70 Republican day5pg Agroforestry Day Celebration5pg Zonal Research and Extension Committee

Meeting5pg National Workshop on Export Procedure and

Promotional Schemes for Agricultural Commodities

6pg Wheat Research Station Celebrated Farmers' Day 7pg Save Bird Campaign7pg Equine Show and Exhibition7pg Expert Lecture by Dr Ramsay Chaudhary,

Small Animal Practitioner, USA

11pg FODDER FOR THOUGHT

at 0.8%. Not surprisingly, yield rose only 0.9%.

After independence, annual production of

pulses would hover around 12-14 million

metric tonnes. The spurred activities under

National Food Security Mission boosted the

production of pulses to 20 million metric

tonnes, though soon it dwindled to 18 million

metric tonnes. This simply shows that pulses

as a group is grown on marginal land; that it

has been neglected despite multi pronged

advantages, largely due to increased emphasis

on green revolution and that a little focus can

give impetus to production. Therefore,

declaring 2016 as “International Pulses Year”

cannot be timelier considering the intractable

cyclic nexus of pollution- climate change-

water-energy- agriculture- ecology-livelihood

security that the world is facing.

Dal complements amino acids prole of Roti

and offers a wonderful source of nutrition in

p o o r m a n ’ s d i e t . I n d i a s t a n d s o u t

conspicuously not only in production and

consumption of pulses, but is equally unique

in growing over a dozen of pulses over

d i f f e r e n t s e a s o n s a n d a g r o - c l i m a t i c

conditions. However, prices of pulses have

shown whopping trends of volatility. At one

point of time, prices of pulses like pigeonpea

had deed INR 200/kg. As such, despite an

indispensible source of nutrit ion for

vegetarians; the exorbitant prices aggravate

the accessibility and affordability over and

above insufcient availability of pulses. They

seem like slipping away from the hands of the

poor; and have become a snobbish and a

luxury item that only the better-off could

afford. All this has happened while India

imported 4.6 million metric tonnes of pulses in

2014-15, up by 27 per cent over the previous

year.

The agriculture comprised the nub of

development adopted by modern India.

However, pulses were nudged to marginal

lands due to increased policy emphasis on

crops that mattered under green revolution.

Pulses remained abysmally unattended in

agr i cu l tura l po l i c ies for product ion ,

procurement, marketing and developing post

harvest technologies. The obvious irony can be

gauged from the fact that where as famers’ price

for raw whole pulse like pigeonpea hovers

around INR 30/kg, it is sold in market

sometimes over INR 200/kg after processing.

This simply evinces that pulses remained bereft

of ve basic pillars of development viz,

technology, risk & nancing, institutions,

policy, and training & skill development. The

current technological pin up to pulses is

laudable; the schemes like Pradhan Mantri

Beema Yojna, Jan Dhan Yojna and Skill India are

likely to provide scale, security and stability to

production of pulses. A holistic plan,

encompassing the so called ve pillars should

be used to impact a change in present scenario

of pulses production to change the future of

pulses production. It would not be out of place

to mention that when there was shortage of

technical persons in industries, India started

ITIs; can such institutions be mooted to build

capacity for ve pillars of development and

promote skills in production and processing of

pulses?

A stful of pulses comprise a healthy and

sustainable food; and is good enough to meet

the daily protein requirements, could it be

beseeched that production of pulses be

declared as social responsibility owing to

advantages of pulses in countering hunger,

malnutrition, soil health, environmental health

and human health. Sirf Ek Muthi Dal can prove a

game changer in promoting consummate

health of the planet Earth. “Mast” in Gujarati

means awesome and “Mast” mode entailing

Management of resources, Awareness among

consumers like polio drop advertisement “Sirf

Ek Muthi Dal”, Seed and its quality and Time of

seeding, harvesting and other operations can

do the trick.

(Ashok A. Patel)

SDAU Organizes Sui-Generis Workshop on Forward Thinking for Agricultural Development

SDAU organized a sui-generis workshop of its

type on, “Forward Thinking for Agricultural th thDevelopment in Western India”, from 8 -10

February, 2016 in collaboration with NAARM,

APAARI, GFAR and IAITA under the

mentorship of Dr Ajit Maru and Dr Robin

Bourgeois from GFAR, FAO, Rome. Eighty-

s e v e n r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s o f d i f f e r e n t

stakeholders were actively involved in the

process of developing systematic foresight

based on forward thinking for agricultural

development by 2030. Introducing the nub of

the workshop, Dr Ajit Maru narrated that

agriculture is passing through a critical phase

of technological t ransformat ion and

agriculture of today will not remain

agriculture fteen years hence. The farmer will

become more like a computer operator

controlling all the eld operations remotely

with computers. The scenario certainly

fascinates, but it would take around 15 years to

train a PhD student with a changed mindset.

He reiterated that in a country like India

agriculture is the mainstay, and hence

innovations and capacity development are

cardinal for the overall development. Giving

his presidential address, Prof (Dr) Ashok A

Patel, Hon Vice chancellor narrated the

downsides of wrong crop husbandry and

related issues despite incredible upsides of

ensuring food and nutritional security over

the major swathes of the world. He saw

technologies as the major reprieve and desired

that right types of technologies need to be

promoted in consonance to the precise needs

of local farmers without losing sight of global

issues. Dr Robin Bourgeois introduced the need

for looking at future through multiple lenses

involving all the stakeholders. The forward

thinking entails wanted and unwanted factors

that work linearly and plausibly converge

somewhere due to discontinuities that leads to

d i f fe rent scenar ios . Af ter s t ruc tured

presentations of experts to orient delegates on

forward thinking process and methodologies;

the delegates were divided into ve and four

smaller groups for agriculture and education,

respectively. Each group identied and dened

the forces of change along with their states for

agricultural development in Western India by

2030 us ing STEEP Approach (Soc ia l ,

Technological, Economical, Ecological and

Policy) and came up with different scenarios

like “Business as Usual, Sailing with Broken Sail

and Cart to Car”. Using output of the groups, the

experts guided the delegates to capture

strategic elements for transformation of

agricultural development in Western India

using backcasting approach. The workshop

was also graced by Dr Rama Rao, Director,

NAARM, Hyderabad and Dr Raghunath

Ghodake, Executive secretary, APAARI. A

compendium of the workshop written by Dr S

Acharya , Dr J M Patel and Sh Dhaval J Joshi;

and a policy paper entitled “Water : A Cardinal

Input for Enhancing Agricultural Production”

authored by Prof (Dr) Ashok A Patel and Dr S

Acharya, was also released on the occasion. Dr

S Acharya, Associate Director of Research was

the Organizing Secretary of the workshop.

SDAU Facilitates a National Workshop on ICTs for Sustainable Agricultural Development

The Indian Association for Information

Technology in Agriculture (IAITA) conducted

a National Workshop on Application of

Information and Communication Technologies

( I C T s ) f o r S u s t a i n a b l e A g r i c u l t u r a l thDevelopment at Sardarkrushinagar on 11

February, 2016 in collaboration with SDAU.

One hundred and twenty-four participants

attended the workshop. Prof (Dr) Ashok A

Patel, Hon Vice Chancellor, SDAU elicited that

ICTs are going to be the major plank for

accessing knowledge and technologies in near

future; and that precision agriculture is likely to

play an important role in demand driven

market. Delivering his key note address, Dr Ajit

Maru, Senior Knowledge Ofcer, GFAR, FAO

delved in to the status of value addition and

strengthening the current agri-food chain F2F

mode, besides emphasis on recycling of

biomass, energy and environment. Four lead

presentations were made on “Applying GIS

Based Farm Models" by Dr Walter Meyers,

CEO, ProGIS; "Sensing technologies and Data

Analytics in Agriculture” by Dr Sanjay

Chaudhary and Dr Mehul Raval, Ahmedabad

University, “ICTs for Enabling Learning and

Rapid Innovations in Agriculture" by Prof (Dr)

Ashok A Patel; and “An Approach for Forward

Thinking ICT Application in Agriculture” by

Mr Robin Bourgeois, Senior Foresight Advisor,

GFAR, FAO, Rome. The current scenario and

potentials of available ICTs in agriculture was

discussed that could provide single window

sys tem for a l l s takeholders for c rop

distribution, nutrition, irrigation, food safety,

marketing and value chains. In the end,

delineating a l ineage between ethical

revolutions and relationship between human

and tools, it was emphasized that though eld

operations might be replaced with sensors for

data collections, human with articial

intelligence and the farmers of future are

something like scientists/technicians without

any physical presences in the farm, yet the

important considerations would be what are to

be changed, and for that how the technologies

are to be used; and of course, what are the

anticipated problems related to societal choices

and values that could emerge should be very

clear. After structured presentations of experts

to orient delegates on application of ICTs in

agriculture; the delegates were divided in to

three groups to deliberate, identify and dene

the forces of change including skill and capacity

development for application of ICTs in

agriculture using STEEP Approach (Social,

Technological, Economic, ecological and

Policy). Using output of the groups, the experts

guided the delegates to capture strategic

elements for transformation of agricultural

development through application of ICTs using

backcasting approach.

th thThe 70 Republican day was celebrated on 26

January, 2016 in SDAU. The school children

conducted street rally with decorative ags

and patriotic slogans on banners from School

ground to statue of Shri Sardar Vallabhbhai

Patel, where Hon Vice Chancellor, Prof (Dr)

Ashok A Patel garlanded the statue and pay

reverence to the great Iron man of India. The

ag hoisting ceremony was held at the school

ground. As a symbol of giving utmost respect

to girl child, the honour of ag hoisting was

Agroforestry Day Celebration

Agroforestry Research Station, celebrated the

Agroforestry day at village Salempura, Ta thPalanpur, Dist-Banaskanta on 28 January,

2016 under the chairmanship of Prof (Dr)

Ashok A Patel, Hon Vice-Chancellor, SDAU.

Salempura village is one among the thirty-two

villages adopted by the SDAU for holistic

development by intervention of new

technologies. During the celebration, expert

lectures were arranged on the different aspects

of agroforestry related systems besides

importance of MPTs trees in agroforestry and

use of medicinal plant in countering diseases

and pests problems. Special emphasis was laid

on boundary plantation of trees and two tier

intervention of horticulture entailing fruit

plants and vegetable crops. More than 150

farmers inc luding youth and women

participated in the event. The participants also

took part in plantation drive along the temple

boundary. The scientists-farmers interface; visit

to on site demonstrations and awards to

intensive tree growers of the village were the

other highlights of the event.

thCelebration of the 70 Republican day

given to Kumari Abhaben Joshi, a girl student of

C P College of Agriculture. In her address,

Kumari Abhaben cited contribution of freedom

ghters in freedom movement. With a proud

feeling of gratitude evident on her face, she

requested everyone to dedicate and devote

ones' services towards nation building to create

social harmony and national unity. The event

was graced by university ofcers, scientists and

employee led by Hon Vice Chancellor, Prof (Dr)

Ashok A Patel.

Zonal Research and Extension Committee Meeting

The Directorate of Extension Education

organized the Zonal Research and Extension

Advisory Committee meeting for kharif-2016 st

on 21 January, 2016. Ninety-ve participants

entailing scientists, ofcers from line

departments and progressive farmers actively

participated. It was specially emphasized to

undertake a versatile research programme on

organic fa rming bes ides overcoming

pernicious problem of pink ball worm in cotton

and suggesting ways to increase the organic

carbon content in soil.

National Workshop on Export Procedure and Promotional Schemes for Agricultural Commodities

SDAU organized a National Workshop on

Export Procedure and Promotional Schemes for th thAgricultural Commodities in India on 25 -26

February, 2016 in collaboration with NABARD,

DGFT and GAAS. Mr A K Singh, Joint Director,

DGFT in his introductory remark delved in

quality of the commodity and the pricing

mechanism to promote export of agriculture

products. Sh Ramanbhai N Patel, Chairman,

Gujarat Agricultural Marketing Board held, out

that there have been different decades for

different events and the current decade belongs

to Indian foods, textiles and culture. However,

there is dire need to add values to each of our

products besides communicating to the world

on the signicance and value of our products.

Our products are incredible, but there is a need

of packaging and processing expertise to cope

up with consumers' preferences and transitory

nature of global food industries. The Hon Vice

Chancellor, Prof (Dr) Ashok A Patel, in his

presidential speech touched the dwindling

availability of land for agriculture besides

dissipating productivity of the natural base

including soil. He wondered at the plight of the

farmer, who despite trying production

scenarios is abysmally handicapped to get

remunerative prices for his production. The

protability in farming could be initiated only

by good agricultural practices, quality

production, processing and consumers' centric

packaging that could add traceability, quality

and safety aspect to agriculture produce. A

workshop compendium and book on Simaruba

was also released on the occasion. The workshop

comprised three technical sessions that included

15 lectures on the subject related to export of

agriculture commodities, its regulations and

procedural protocols and promotional schemes.

The important speakers included Mr Mihir Shah,

Expert Faculty, Federation of Indian Export

Organization, Mumbai; Mr Alok Dwivedi, Dy

Director, DGFT,; Mr Parit Bhadoria, ICICI bank;

Mr Piyush Pankaj, Export Credit Guarantee

Corporation Limited (ECGC); Dr Vinod Kumar,

DGM, NABARD; and Mr Tanuj Bist, OSD,

Kandla Special Export Zone. The workshop was

attended by 330 farmers, 250 students and 200

faculty members and traders. The panel

discussion witnessed many question from

students, faculty, farmers and exporters to

experts. Dr K P Thakkar, Assistant Professor,

CPCA was the Organizing Secretary of the

workshop.

Wheat Research Station Celebrated Farmers' Day

Wheat Research Station, Vijapur organised a t h

farmers' day on 13 February, 2016 to

commemorate the newly released wheat

variety GW 451 to the services of the farmers.

GW 451 has higher productivity with good

grain quality with high density of Fe and zinc.

GW 496 is a two decade old variety but still

holds the grounds mainly due to grain

appearance. This is despite many good varieties

were released during this period and two of the

ten most indented varieties at the national level

are from Vijapur. GW 451 is a trailblazer and has

caught the imagination of the farmers due to

grain appearance and grain quality. The variety

is pitched to play a pivotal role to alleviate

malnutrition and hidden hunger. The event was

attended by one thousand odd farmers and

farm-women besides Dr M S Patel, renowned

Soil Scientist & Member, Board of Management,

University Ofcers, Scientists of various

Research Stations, Ofcers of line Departments,

District/Taluka Coordinators of ATMA etc. In

his scintillating presidential address Prof (Dr)

Ashok A Patel, Hon Vice-Chancellor gave account

of the farmers' centric activities of the SDAU and

exhorted them to adopt good agricultural

practices and rear Kankrej, a versatile native breed

of cattle.

Save Bird Campaign

College of Veterinary Science and AH

organized, “Save Bird Campaign” entailing th thBird treatment and rehabilitation on 13 -14

January, 2016 during Kite festival. The

c a m p a i g n w a s j o i n t l y o r g a n i z e d i n

collaboration of NGO's viz., Jiv Seva Sansthan,

Arihant Group and Smt M J Jaganiya Charitable

Trust, Vishwas Welfare Foundation, Jai Jaliyan

Trust and Shiv Ganga Charitable Trust. Kite

festival is an important celebration in Gujarat

where in people of all walks and ages y kites

passionately. However, birds become the

victims of this celebration as the thread of the

kite injures them invariably. The Veterinary

Professionals, PG Scholars and Students of nal

year BVSc & AH, SDAU thwarted the poignant

situation by treating 150 odd injured birds. Dr H

N Kher, Registrar, SDAU and Dr D V Joshi,

Dean, Veterinary College led the noble cause

arranged by Faculties of Gynaecology, Surgery

and Clinical Complex, Deesa.

Equine Show and Exhibition

SDAU participated in Equine Show and

Exhibition jointly organized by Seema Suraksha

and Jan Lok Kalyan Samiti and Department of rd Animal Husbandry, Gujarat State on 23

January, 2016 at Nadabat, Dist Banaskantha. The

event was attended by 2500 odd farmers, who

were exulted at the exhibition and fervently

interacted with the experts including Dr P M

Chauhan and Dr T V Sutariya. A video lm on

a i l m e n t s o f l i v e s t o c k a n d t h e i r

treatment/prevention was also displayed on the

occasion besides treatment of injured horses.

STUDENT'S ACTIVITIES

Sixth semester students of RE & EE College

namely Mr Jitendra Gehlot and Mr Akash

K o t h a d i a , r o m p e d h o m e i n d i s t r i c t

championship of table tennis organized under

the aegis of Khel Mahakumbh, Ministry of Sports,

Govt of Gujarat at Vidya Mandir Sports th

Complex, Palanpur on 4 February, 2016. Sixty

players enthusiastically participated in the

competition. Mr Jitendra Gehlot and Mr Akash

Kothadia each were awarded a certicate and a

cash prize of ̀ 5000.

Expert Lecture by Dr Ramsay Chaudhary, Small Animal Practitioner, USA

Dr Ramsay Chaudhary, the leading small

animal veterinary practitioner at USA visited th

SDAU on 16 February, 2016 and demonstrated

the clinical examination of dogs especially for

spraying, otoscopy, ophthalmoscopy,

ultrasonography and dental care.

Table Tennis Championship

Inter Agricultural Universities Tournament

SDAU hosted Gujarat State Inter Agricultural

Universities Kho-Kho, Kabbadi and Badminton nd rd

tournament on 22 and 23 January, 2016 that

was contested by 130 players from all the four

State Agriculture Universities. SDAU notched

the table by winning Championship of Kabbadi

and Badminton (Boys). Navsari Agricultural

University won Kho-Kho championship, while

Junagadh Agricultural University wrested the

Badminton (Girls) championship.

A versatile team of SDAU comprising 22

students from different faculties participated in

the All India Agriculture University Cultural

and Literacy Competition “Agriunifest – 2016 st th

held at Bhuwneshwar on 1 -4 February, 2016.

The SDAU team won the rst prize in Mime

representing message of humanity and kindness

to the current society abysmally down with

unrest. Forty-ve national teams from different

agricultural universities across the country

participated in Agriunifest-2016. Hon Vice

Chancellor Prof (Dr) Ashok A Patel praised and

congratulated the students for their performance.

Educational Tour

Collegiate and Inter-polytechnics Athletics Meet

College of Veterinary Science & Animal

Husbandry, SDAU hosted the Inter-collegiate thand Inter-polytechnics Athletics Meet on 18 -

th19 February, 2016. One hundred and seven

contestants from 8 different colleges and 6

polytechnics of the SDAU participated with

élan in the event. Mr Ashish K Chaudhary

(CPCA) and Ms Vaibhaviben Nayi (Home Science)

were declared as best Athlete in men and women

categories of colleges, respectively. In Polytechnic

segment, Mr Piyush J Solanki (Agri. Polytechnic,

Deesa) and Ms Vandnaben Parmar (Agri.

Polytechnic, Amirgadh) were the Best Athlete in

men and women categories, respectively.

Agriunifest-2016

The Department of Genetics and Plant

Breeding, CPCA organized a day Practical th

Educational Tour for 4 Semester students to

different research stations of SDAU. They

were conducted to Wheat Research Station,

Vijapur; Tobacco Research Station, Ladol and

Seed Spices Research Station, Jagudan to

abreast the students of pragmatic execution of

breeding activities in those crop.

Thalessemia Camp

College of Horticulture in association with

Indian Red Cross Society, Gujarat State,

Ahmedabad and Seth B R Polytechnic in

H o r t i c u l t u r e , J a g u d a n , o r g a n i z e d a th

Thalessemia diagnosis camp on 29 February,

2016. Ninety students, ofcials and staff

membrs were examined and were abreasted

with the causes and consequences of the

disease.

EXTENSION ACTIVITIES

District level farmer Seminar

The district level farmers' seminar on

“Bijmasala pako : Utpadan, Mushkelio ane

Nirakaran” was organized by the Seed Spices

thResearch Station, Jagudan on 29 January, 2016.

Six hundred odd progressive farmers of the

Mehsana, Patan and Banaskantha districts

Scientic trainings on burning issues that

fraught agriculture like pink boll worm in

cotton, cultivation of mustard and wheat were

organized by the Agricultural Research

Station, Adiya at Adiya and APMC, Harij on th th th

18 – 20 and 30 January, 2016, respectively.

Use of sulphur fertilizers to harvest better

economic returns in mustard crop was delved

in details. Ginners were given hands on

training to stop spreading of pink boll worm

from gin to farmers' eld by adopting sanitary

measures like burning cotton waste and to clean

9

Brain storming session on “Pollination in Date palm”

A brain storming session on scientic

pollination of Date palm was organized by the

Date palm Research Station, SDAU, Mundra

in collaboration with Indian Date palm

Society, Adani Foundation and KVK, Mundra thon 26 February, 2016. The event was attended

by progressive farmers, representatives from

NGOs, ofcia ls f rom Department of

H o r t i c u l t u r e , R e p r e s e n t a t i v e s f r o m

biotechnological rms engaged in tissue

cul ture of Date palm. A sc int i l la t ing

PowerPoint presentation was done by Dr C M

Muralidharan, I/c Station that invited

interesting discussion from progressive

farmers on indigenous techniques adopted

tradit ional ly by farmers for ef fect ive

pollination.

Scientic Trainings on Burning Issues that Fraught Agriculture

equipments and machineries and spray

chemicals after ginning of cotton. They were also

advised to use pheromone traps in gins to trap

males and thereby break mating cycle. The

farmers were advised not to sow cotton very

early, adopt early varieties to terminate the life

cycle early, and the ginners to complete ginning

well before the seeding of next crop for checking

the suicidal generations of pink boll worm. The

major part of the training emphasized on

selection of appropriate varieties as per sowing

time, use of nutrition as per soil health card in

general and basal application of zinc sulphate

and ferrous sulphate fertilizers in wheat for

realizing higher production and better grain

quality. Soil and water being the cardinal natural

base, farmers were exhorted to adopt micro

irrigation system for judicious use of Narmada

canal water so as to avoid deterioration of soil

health due to over use of water.

participated in the event. The seminar was

inaugurated by Prof (Dr) Ashok Patel, Hon

Vice Chancellor, SDAU in presence of Dr M S

Patel and Sh Sonaji Chauhan, Members of

BOM, SDAU, Dr R R Shah, Director of

Research, Dr K A Thakkar, DEE and Dr M R

Prajapati, Dean (Agri), SDAU. Hon Vice

Chancellor led the team of scientists in guiding

the farmers for enhanced production and quality

of seed spices. Technical session comprised latest

technologies on varietal development, crop

production and crop protection. The farmers

took keen interest in organic production of seed

spices, bio-control of pest and diseases and post

harvest management. A Booklet on “Calendar of

Operations for Seed Spices Crops “was also

released on the occasion.

Training on production of pulses and seed spices

Dry Farming Research Station, Radhanpur,

SDAU organized trainings on, “Improved

Crop Production Technologies in Pulses”,

“Production Technologies of Spices”, “

Protable Arid Fruit-Ber” and “Scientic

Cultivation of Castor and Mustard” at

Kamalpur, Satun village, Nani Pimpli and thGotarka village of Radhanpur Taluka on 6 ,

th th rd8 , 12 and 23 January, 2016, respectively. Two

hundred farmers including rural farm women

actively interacted to use no/low cost

agricultural technologies to get better prot in

pulses crops, integrated nutrient management in

seed spices as well as low cost agricultural

technologies to get more prot in Castor-

Mustard and “Ber-A Protable Arid Fruit Crop”.

10

DISTINGUISHED VISITORS

Director, ICAR-CIAH, Bikaner Applauds Date palm Research

· Dr S K Sharma PC, AICRP on Arid Zone

Fruits visited Date palm Research Station, th th

Mundra during 11 -13 January, 2016 to

review the research on Date palm being

conducted at Mundra. Dr Sharma

appreciated the work being carried out at

Mundra and complimented the incredible

efforts of the center to establish date palm

eld gene repository; one of the richest

collections in India.

· Dr Neeta Singh, Principal Scientist,

Division of Germplasm Conservation,

NBPGR, New Delhi, visited Pulse Research

thStation on 29 January, 2016 for monitoring

of NBPGR project.

· Zonal monitoring team of All India

C o o r d i n a t e d W h e a t a n d B a r l e y

Improvement Project comprising Dr P C

Mishra, JNKVV, Powerkheda; A P

Agraval, IIWBR, Karnal; Pramod Prasad,

IIWBR, Shimla and C N Mishra, IIWBR,

Karnal visited Wheat Research Station, t hVijapur on 14 February, 2016 for

monitoring of wheat coordinated trials and

nurseries.

· National monitoring team of Directorate

o f R a p e s e e d - M u s t a r d R e s e a r c h

comprising Dr K H Singh, Principal

Scientist, Dr O P Premi, Principal

Scientist from ICAR-DRMR, Bharatpur

and Dr Navin Singh, Senior Scientist from

IARI, New Delhi, visited Castor-Mustard th

Research Station on 10 February, 2016.

They were impressed to see well executed

breeding, agronomical and screening trials

against wilt. They also conducted to

breeder seed plots and FLD's.

SEMINAR/CONFERENCE/SYMPOSIUM/GROUP MEETS/TRAINING

· Dr B S Deora, Professor, Centre for Natural th

Resources Management attended the 50

Annual Convention of the Indian Society

of Agricultural Engineers' Symposium on

“Agricultural Engineering in Nation

Building: Contribution and Challenges' th

followed by 29 Annual Convention of

Agricultural Engineers of the Institution of

Engineers (India) on 'Agro-Tech Industries:

Status, Scope and Strategies for Food

Security' held at OUAT, Bhubaneswar and th stAAU, Anand on 19 - 21 January, 2016 and

th st20 - 21 February, 2016, respectively. Dr

Deora was conferred the prestigious Fellow

award of the Indian Society of Agricultural

Engineers (ISAE).

· Dr A U Amin, Prof S P Patel, Dr S M Patel

and Dr N R Patel participated in National

s e m i n a r o n “ N e w D i m e n s i o n a l

Approaches for Enhancement of Seed

Spices Productivity and Protability under

nd rdera of Climate Change” at NRCSS, on 2 -3

February, 2016. The poster entitled

“Assurance against failure: Cumin + Ajwain

intercropping” was awarded as best poster

in the event.

· Dr S I Patel, Associate Research Scientist (Pl

Patho) participated as a member in the

zonal monitoring team constituted by

ICAR-Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley

Research, Karnal to monitor the eld trials,

nurseries and special trials conducted at

Powerkheda, Indore, Banswara, Udaipur th thand Kota during 16 -19 February, 2016.

· Dr P J Patel, Assistant Research Scientist

(Plant Breeding), SDAU, presented QRT

Report of AICRP on Mustard from 2010-11

to 2014-15 at ICAR-Directorate of

Rapeseed-Mustard Research (DRMR), thSEWAR, Bharatpur on 29 February, 2016,

under the chairmanship of Dr B L Jalali, Ex

Director of Research, CCSHAU, Hisar, with

Dr M C Lodha (Biochemist), Dr G S Saharan

(Plant Pathologist) and Dr R C Bakhetia

(Agril. Entomology) as members of QRT

and Dr Dhiraj Singh, Director DRMR and Dr

V V Singh, as member secretary.

11

FODDER FOR THOUGHT

The world is talking about development and technological transformation for making human life economically and ergonomically more comfortable and safe. Good agricultural pract ices are the fountainheads of a l l development and if otherwise are the root causes of all devastations. With so much information easily available, does it make technology savvy generation smarter than the generations before who are not so adept to ICTs? The research indicates that though the technology savvy generation have lost the ability for oral memorization possessed by our ancestors when writing was invented, but they have gained additional skills of accessing, analyzing and using information better in lesser time. In this backdrop, would it not be appropriate to foresee how the development of technologies and farm management would be impacted by so called perceptions of Google Generation?

Whatever agriculture we practice today is the manifestation of cumulative experience of thousands of farmers over thousands of years acquired under trying conditions. Think of the excitement when the farmer has come across and selected wheat or rice plants among the rafter of grass species that had been growing wildly under natural condit ions. Imagine the exhilaration of the farmer when he had dug the soil for the rst time and had sown some seeds or for the matter the thrill he had got when the sown seed had borne owers and had set seeds. The best products and practice were selected by him to arrive at present agricultural practices. Everything he acquired was by observing, learning, practicing, gaining experience and retaining the best of his experiences for posterity. Now, imagine the imminent changes in agriculture where plants, soil, aquifer, and consummated inputs requirements will be communicated to the farmer through computer and sensors. There will be drones, there will robots and there will Aadhar based cadastral maps imbedded with different models for technology driven agriculture. Wow! Doesn't it sound like that the farmer will be totally transformed; and transformed more than the state of agriculture? He will acquire more skill in controlling and managing the technologies rather than learning how to till the land with bullocks. As such, eld operations might be replaced with sensors for data collections, human with articial intelligence and the f a r m e r s o f f u t u r e a r e s o m e t h i n g l i k e

scientists/technicians without any physical presences in the farm. And this will happen without even an iota of doubt that the availability, access and affordability to safe, nutritious and healthy food, equitable distribution of agri-food system, sustainable use of natural base, adoption and mitigation of climatic change; particularly for major weather aberrations, pollution, trans-boundary diseases that of late are defying boundaries of nations and species, loss of biodiversity, resilience of farming systems etc are going to aggravate.

Under the circumstances, it assumes pertinence as to what are the impending changes; and how precisely the anticipated technologies are going to impact/erode the societal values. The palpable impact would largely hinge on whether the farmer is driven by technologies or he drives the technologies; and above all taking the over-riding precaution of nonsense use of technologies that might create pernicious cyclic problems of employment and livelihoods at rural level.

It is heartening to note that Digital India is contemplating to link 535 agricultural markets for facilitating better marketing avenues to farmers with further scopes of fusion of technology, insurance and mechanization. The Aadhaar-linked cadastral records imbedded on sensing based technologies for eld operations, crop modeling and ascertain crop damage in real-time weather parameters can turn out to be a game changer. The Government of Gujarat has launched a web based "GateWay" i Khedut portal to doll out and monitor the subsidies besides disseminating technologies and information to enable the farmers to take data based decisions for practicing agriculture. These technologies will nd augmented uses for steering and supervision of both sustainable and regenerative agriculture system for what, where, when and how much resources need to be deployed as per the precise need of the soil and crops. The uses can be customized for consolidation of land holdings, precision farming, logistics mapping, farm management, geo-info map i.e. ortho images for different tasks, tools preparation, setting milestones and even for settlements of claims, traceability, sustainability, and affectivity vs efciency of decisions. However, the utility of traditional knowledge should not be forgotten in the wild race of adoption of state of art technologies. The mobile phone is the example that has made the family members under a single roof as strangers due to over indulgence with mobile gadgets.

Published by : Directorate of Research, S.D. Agricultural University, Sardarkrushinagar-385 506 Ph. : 02748-278233, 278444, Website : sdau.edu.in E-mail : news@sdau.edu.in

Dr. H. B. PatelAsstt. Prof. (Pharmacology)

Dr. Piyush VermaAssoc. Prof. (Horticulture)

Dr. B. S. RathodAsstt. Research Scientist

Sh. Dhaval J. JoshiAgriculture Officer

Prof. (Dr.) Ashok A. Patel

Vice-chancellor

Dr. S. Acharya

Assoc. Director of Research

CHIEF PATRON

PATRON & CHIEF EDITOR

EDITORIAL TEAM

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