Bangalore: Fifty per cent of positions in agricultural universities, including those of senior faculty, remain vacant. Mangala Rai, Secretary, Department of Agricultural Research and Education, and Director-General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), attributed this to the lack of attention paid to human resource development in the sector.

Speaking at the inauguration of a seed-processing unit at Gandhi Krishi Vignana Kendra (GKVK), Dr. Rai said he had recommended to the Planning Commission that Rs. 10,000 crore be allocated to agricultural universities alone. Within the next seven years, there would be 1,000 new positions created for young scientists in ICAR institutes, he said.

"The abysmal state of infrastructure is another factor in the poor performance of these universities," Dr. Rai said. "We should take a lesson from the importance given to agriculture and allied sciences in universities around the world. Cornell University, for instance, has a reserve of U.S. $650 million for its biological science unit."

Speaking of the need to look at the agricultural sector in totality, whether production and processing or marketing and trade, he said "we need to bring commerce into agriculture".

While cautioning against "cloning the models of the U.S.A. and Brazil", he said productivity in India was comparatively poor. "In the U.S.A., for instance, 81 quintals of maize is produced per hectare, whereas it is 19 quintals in India. When the Centre's investment in the agriculture sector has been declining with every Budget, agriculture cannot sustain an 18.5 per cent contribution to the GDP. Should we be surprised that India accounts for no more than 0.7 per cent of global trade in agriculture," he asked.

Better remuneration

"One can only enhance productivity by enhancing profitability, that is, by ensuring remuneration enhancements for farmers," Dr. Rai said. "At a time when we are talking about encouraging the private sector, we seem to forget that there is no bigger segment in this sector than agriculture. Agriculture employs 60 per cent of our population, but their voice is small because they are an unorganised sector."

Universities must get tuned in to some of these dilemmas, Dr. Rai said.

The foundation stone for a farmer's hostel was also laid at GKVK. Also present at the meet were P. Das, Deputy Director-General (Agriculture Extension) ICAR, and P.G. Chengappa, Vice-Chancellor, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore.

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