Education is always very important for all human activities, agriculture as well. The problem however is through education to develop a culture that support the findings of education. This culture takes a lot of time, and needs the powerful media. 

Tropical India’s growing self-sufficiency in food production and stocks since independence has been possible because of favourable endowment of soils that have capacity of sequestering C and thus remained highly responsive towards management interventions made mainly by farming communities with the support of national and international institutions. Realizing the inherent capacity of tropical soils, Kellogg (1967), an eminent soils expert, envisaged four decades ago that ‘some day’ the most productive agriculture of the world would be mostly in the tropics and this will depend on how rapidly institution for education, research, and the other public and private sectors of agriculture will develop.I think Indian higher agricultural education  and research institutions  have proved this point very well.

Respected Dr Pal Sir,

Very true, In Indian condition higher education played his role significantly. Thanks for valuable comments. Regards

Dear Prof. Costa;  Yes, developing a culture that support the findings of education is very very difficult but here in India we are trying to transform the higher agricultural education in real terms of food production. Thanks.

You ask a question about the current knowledge in the field of agriculture. This question is important not only for India. India as the Fertile Crescent is the father of agriculture and culture. Thus, knowledge of agriculture in India has accumulated considerable. But walked century. An increasing number of population. Emerging new technologies. For various reasons modern farming technologies were not always available in all countries. Hence, the need to develop a critical new technology of agriculture. To do this, you must develop vocational education and exchange of experience.

India, at the time of Independence faced food grain shortage but achieved spectacular growth in agriculture sector since 1966. Today the country is self sufficient in most of the food grain despite population increase. The food grain production in India increased from 51 million tons in 1950 to about 245 million tons in 2011-12. This growth in itself represents a remarkable achievement in the history of world agriculture. The new breed of skilled human resources were instrumental in generating new technologies, and in its assessment, refinement and finally its dissemination to the farming community through extension methods. In order to sustain, diversify and realize the potential of agriculture sectors, it is necessary to develop skilled human resources. Agricultural human resource development is a continuous process undertaken by agricultural universities. Indian agricultural education system has achieved excellence and helped the country to see the first green revolution and will definitely achieve success in second green revolution.

ICAR(the Indian Council for Agricultural Research) and its network of Agricultural universities allover the country established on the land grant universities model of United States played vital role in making the country self-sufficient in food grain production. My article "Education for Agriculture and Allied Subjects in India". Journal of Agricultural & Food Information, 10: (2009).319–333  briefly describes the Agricultural education system in India. Of course this paper has to be updated. Much has not changed in past six years.

Our Government motivating the farmers and guiding in all aspects. But it is not enough. Government should directly involve in this agriculture sector for self sufficient in food requirement. All dry lands should be converted into agri farm and integrated farming can also provide good results.

The technological transformation of traditional agriculture will be difficult without a matching effort to develop human resources. This means educational reforms to produce researchers more attuned to the needs of rural peoples and agriculture.

http://www.un-documents.net/ocf-05

I admire the discussions made by @Vladimir A. Kulchitsky and Prof. Yogesh Chandra Tripathi,yes India has made tremendous progress towards self sufficiency in food front. But still its sustainability require continuous efforts on R&D in this area that is my worry. Thanks

Dear Dr. Eswara Reddy Deva ji; Thanks for your valuable comment andif possible than please send a copy of the paper if it is not loaded on your RG account. Things are changing very fast and I believe  that during last six year much more has been canged in Heigher agricultural education in India. Thanks again.

It is really a matter of pride for all Indians. Higher Agricultural Education has surely gained India a self sufficient position rather as an exporter of food grains. However, research still needs to take pace in order to sort out efficient technologies to enhance deficient trace mineral constituents on Indian lands. Adoption of maximum organic farming must be encouraged.  Moreover, there is a need to bridge the gap between Industry-Academia. These all will facilitate and maintain self food sufficiency in India.

Hi Dear Rajaguru Sri, Government of India along wit State governments  doing all possible efforts for the extension of all developed technologies to the farmers. KVKs are playing a vital role in it. Thanks

Hi Dr Krishnan Umachandran ji; Thanks for your link and valuable comment. As I discussed earlier Transferring technology is being done on priority through KVKs and we are heading towards second green revolution from eastern India this time. Thanks

Thanks my dear young friend Soham Trivedi ji, You have very rightly pointed out the need of hour to bridge the gap between Industry-Academia. This sector definitely require immediate attention of policy makers and educational planners of India.

Agricultural education has played vital role in make the Malthusian theory to hold back. The economic condition of farming community has improved drastically. Economic gap between rural and urban has narrowed.

The new education system in this area is disastrous for te subject itself. Liberalising the number of institutions (Colleges and universities), admissions in each instittion, lack of good teachers, laboratories, other infrastructure and merit based educatio are rapidly vanishing. There should be voice against such happenings so that we generate really good teachers and reseaechers to serve the cause.  

Dear Dr Joginder Singh; You very rightly pointed out the problem of mushrooming of private agriculture colleges  and the process of admission which is really point of worry.  But we have to produce a big force of good teachers and trained the present teachers to meet the requirement of trained human resource in the field of agriculture. It require a new policy for that we have to think seriously.

India has achieved significant growth in agriculture, milk, fish, oilseeds, fruits and vegetables production owing to green, white, blue and yellow revolutions. All these revolutions have brought prosperity for the farmers. Many factors are responsible for these achievement viz conducive government policies, receptivity of the farmers and also establishment of higher agricultural education institutions. With changing time, all disciplines of education have witnessed dramatic changes and so is the case of agricultural education also. Agricultural education is now required to evolve in tune with rapidly changing national and international scenario.

I agree with Mr Yogesh Tripathi that the number has to increase to cater to te increasing requirements in the light of value addition, market requirements, export- import etc but the emerging colleges in agri. displine should be brought under the fold of SAUs rather than any university which does not have background of agriculture. It would and is creating shops to sell degrees which lower the standards to any extent.

Institutions in the country  involved for spearheading farming systems research, human resource development and diversification with special reference to small and marginal farmers, which constitute 86% of the holdings and is anticipated to be more than 95% by 2050.The comprehensive initiatives taken during last two decades in cropping systems research and adhoc studies on Farming Systems have clearly revealed that increase of productivity up to 4 times in equivalent food grain terms is achievable with logical use of available technologies in system mode. Still a need for integration of other enterprises is felt to make use of available resources and convert them into a possible means of profitability. To bridge the widening gap between the ‘desired’ and ‘achieved’ and to bring quantitative as well as qualitative improvement in national nutritional and food security, and to provide livelihood security to millions of rural masses; sound and climate smart integrated farming systems for meeting the nutrition, income and livelihood are important. 

One ca answer this by charting pathway through which higher education contributes to agricultural development. It should be assumed that higher education includes research as well. There are two main doors through which higher educated contributed to agri development, specially food production. The first is the production of skilled personnel for extension of knowledge and technology, research, to generate new knowledge and technology, better marketing and trade development etc. The second is the production new technology for production, processing and marketing. Now further elaborate these pathways over time to see what happened when at what rate with what outcome. Quantitative estimation of contribution of investmeent in education and research on growth a  also can be made. 

Eswara Reddy Deva has to update himself that after land grant model, drammatic changes in agricultural education have taken place. It has become an open market with a mushroom  growth in institutions (lacking human material quality and infrastructure) and students. I fear such number of passouts will glut the market in coming 3-4 years. 

The first round of impact of education on achieving food self sufficiency has been adequately documented. See the Book by P.Tamboli and L.Nene on Higher Education Reforms. Also NASS XI congress proceedings has several chapters on this subject. What is important now is to get the agricultural education system to rise upto the challenge of second green revolution which includes not only food self sufficiency but also environmental sustainability, climate resilience, and high value agriculture. The newly proposed National Agricultural Education Program of the World Bank intends to achieve this goal by effective reforms of the SAUs and the ICAR education investments. This is something to keep track of in the next few years.

@ Dr Joginder Singh ji, It is true few universities have made the business and giving degrees without maintaining quality which is a real problem. We have to think of it.

Dear Dr Mohammad Shamim janab, you have very rightly pointed out the position of marginal and small farmers and raising the burning issues to be tackled by higher education. Thanks

Dear Dr Dubey, our agricultural exports are about 15% of total national exports but agricultural imports form about 4-5% of total imports. Moreover, foodgrain surpluses in stocks are about three times the minimum requirements and lot of stoare losses and wastage is there. On the other a vast majority is lacking purchasing power and thus does not add to demand.

So we are surplus in this way.

Dear Jogendrr Singh ji, you are right. Words one fourth poors are living in our country but even than surplus is surplus. Only we have to do on storage losses and good  public distribution system. Thanks

@ Mohammad A Jabbar Janab, Thanks for your valuable comments and sharing very important two paths og importance of Higher Education helps in development. Rrgarfs

@ Suresh Chandra Babu thanks for your valuable comment. I appreciate your participation in this valuable and important discussion

 Regards