TNAU has benefitted immensely through Rural Infrastructural Development Fund (RIDF) for strengthening the infrastructure at four agricultural colleges, which enabled ICAR accreditation.
Coimbatore: The Chief General Manager, along with 28 District Development Officials of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) of Tamil Nadu visited Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) for a two-day exposure training on November 28 and 29.
The officials of NABARD were greeted by the Vice Chancellor of TNAU, Dr. V Geethalakshmi and briefed upon the projects on natural resource management, increasing agricultural productivity, sustainability, improving farmers’ standard of living and, agricultural and rural development that were implemented by TNAU in collaboration with NABARD. Besides, TNAU has benefitted immensely through Rural Infrastructural Development Fund (RIDF) for strengthening the infrastructure at four agricultural colleges, which enabled them to get ICAR accreditation.
During the training, the Chief General Manager of NABARD T Venkatakrishna stated that NABARD will be looking forward to join hands with TNAU in future to work on Watershed Management, Skill Building of Farmers, Research Projects on identified areas and ways to improve the socio-economic status of the farmers. He emphasized that NABARD had funded Rs. 20 lakhs for the state-level Farmer’s Mela held at the Agricultural College and Research Institute (AC & RI), Madurai which benefitted 27,000 farmers and 4,200 students.
The Vice-Chancellor of TNAU shared some of the collaborative activities in the past two years and highlighted the requirements for the future.
Nanotechnology
NABARD was the first institution to fund Professor Chair for Nanotechnology. It has also funded a scheme called 'Development of Nano-fibre based Nutrient Delivery to Achieve Balanced Nutrition for Groundnut' that was operated at the Centre for Agricultural Nanotechnology between 2017 and 2020.
During this period, Nano-fibre was successfully developed with the combination of multi-nutrient and biodegradable polymer PVA through electro spinning Monoaxial method to release balanced and sustained nutrients to the groundnut plants. It is through this project that seeds encapsualted with multinutrient loaded nano-fibre has more potential to deliver the nutrient to achieve balanced nutrient for groundnut.
Kavuni Rice
NABARD funded a project on characterization, purification and export avenue creation for the therapeutic native land rice Kavuni to Tamil Nadu farmers between 2018 and 2021. About 92 landraces were documented for various Morphological and Nutritional characters during the project tenure.
A book on Exploring the diversity of traditional rice landraces of Tamil Nadu was also published from this project. OFT on Karuppu Kavuni was conducted in 18 locations comprising Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam and Cuddalore districts. Six one-day training programs on the 'Kavuni Rice and its seed production' for farmers were conducted and 175 farmers were benefited.
Conferences
Over the years, NABARD has funded several conferences/workshops at TNAU. NABARD, Head Office extended financial support to organise the 80th Annual Conference of Indian Society of Agricultural Economics during February, 2021 at TNAU. NABARD also funded Plant Protection Conference held during 2021.
Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development Studies (CARDS)
Head Office of NABARD, Mumbai sponsored a major research project on 'Rainfall and Tank Storage: Relooking the Tank Performance with Time Tested Tank Storage Pattern using Tank Cascade Approach in Tamil Nadu' to CARDS with a budget of Rs. 28 lakhs. The data from 2000 irrigation tanks spread across 15 tank intensive districts in the state was analysed. The Project Launch Meeting was organized on April 27 at CARDS, TNAU. P V S Suryakumar, Deputy Managing Director, NABARD, Mumbai and Dr. K J Satyasai, Chief General Manager, NABARD, Mumbai
attended the meeting.
The NABARD, Regional Office, Chennai has also recently sanctioned a project on 'Impact Evaluation Studies for Watershed Projects being implemented under WDF of NABARD in Tamil Nadu' to CARDS, TNAU.
Farmers Producer Organization (FPO)
TNAU has framed a policy to strengthen its linkages with FPC for guidance in market-oriented business platform, good agricutlrual practices, post-harvest mange and market linkages. Accordingly, each unit of TNAU has been directed to establsih linkages with one FPC. So far, 114 units of TNAU (Colleges / Deptartments / KVKs / Research stations) have establshed conact with FPC for this purpose and are forging collaborative efforts.
Recenlty a MoU was signed for this purpsoe with five FPCs at the 86th Agricultural Scientists and Extension Officers Conference held at the Agricultural College and Research Institute, Killikulam on November 25. TNAU has been conducting capacity-builing programs across Tamil Nadu through DABD, KVKs and Incubation Centres during 2022-23 for Board of Directors of FPOs on the managerials aspects of a private limted FPO.
Innovation and Start-Ups and Incubation Centres
NABARD-funded Madurai Agribusinesss Incubation Forum (MABIF) at Madurai has been performing well and is a model centre for all developing units across the country. Its performance has also emphasised the role such incubation centres could play in innovation and start-ups in agriculture, especially linking innovators and agri-preneurs to farmers. TNAU has developed six more units with funding from different sources. It is high time to fund a study to assess the impact of TNAU incuabtion centres on innovations, start-ups, FPOs and agricultural growth.
During the last two decades, major funding from NABARD to TNAU has been received for Nantotechnology and the Incubation Centre and the University has performed as well. During this decade it is for Drone and Remote Sensing technology.
Besides, the Vice Chancellor requested the following unique activites may be considered in due course on availing partnership with NABARD.
NABARD CARDS Chair - The Centre for Agricultural and Rural Development Studies (CARDS), TNAU, Coimbatore is involved in conducting policy-oriented research on various issues covering agricultural and rural development. It is proposed to establish a 'NABARD Chair Professorship' at CARDS to conduct policy-oriented research on socio-economic aspects of agricultural development.
Finally, Dr. K Ingaresal, General Manager and N Neeraja, General Manager of NABARD were welcomed and enlightened about the purpose of the program with TNAU. The Director of Research, Director of Extension Education and Professor and Head (Training Division) arranged the exposure vists to various units of TNAU and FC and RI, Mettupalayam.