From the next academic year, an agriculture engineering college will start functioning on the agriculture college premises at Hittanahalli, said D.P. Biradar, Vice-Chancellor, University of Agriculture Sciences, Dharwad.

He said, “The State has agriculture engineering colleges only in Raichur and Bangaluru now.” A proposal had been sent to the government.

He also claiming that the diploma course which are started by the university was becoming more popular among students. And after completing the course, most of them were going back to agriculture, so that the university was promoting the course more.

After completing the course while only 5% of agriculture graduates had taken up agriculture, instead of looking for a job, 35% of diploma student were going back to fields and now the quota for children of farmers had been increased from 25% to 40% in degree courses in agriculture colleges for attracting more students from rural areas to go for agriculture, Dr. Biradar said.

“With this, we are meeting the objective of encouraging the youth to take up agriculture. We have now reserved 5 per cent of seats in degree courses for diploma students,” Dr. Biradar said.

To supply quality seeds to farmers, the university had started a jowar seed processing unit at the agriculture college here.

Source:http://www.thehindu.com/