Make students’ stay with farmers mandatory: Venkaiah

Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu suggested that agriculture students’ stay with farmers be made mandatory.

In an interaction with the researchers of Indian Institute of Rice Research here on Saturday, he asked students as well as scientists to spend considerable time with farmers to come up with practical solutions to their problems.

He said the most critical need was to establish a dialogue with farmers and provide them with knowledge and material resources to increase their income. There was a need to educate farmers not just on various possibilities of diversifying the crop, but give them facilities for taking up allied activities like dairy, fisheries and poultry. Awareness on various cropping patterns based on soil profile and water availability in different agro-climatic zones was an important aspect in improving agriculture productivity.

“It would be beneficial if there is a two-way dialogue between agriculture scientists and farmers so that it helps the former in studying their innovative practices apart from understanding their problems,” he said.

A release said Mr. Naidu posed several questions to scientists and elicited their responses on how their research translated to empowering farmers.

He stressed on the need for increasing both productivity and production as the country could not depend on “imported food security” for long.

“Today, we have a situation where despite phenomenal increase in food production, farmers are not able to get adequate returns from their investment. Agriculture remains an unattractive vocation for many families. We must change this situation,” the Vice-President said.