Education for agriculture in India: time for a change

Abstract

The agriculture sector is important for food security, employment generation and economic growth. However, concern has now been expressed on the decline in agricultural growth. Modern agriculture is knowledge-based, in which education at all levels, particularly higher education has an important role. This paper traces the circumstances and history of developments of higher education in agricultural sciences which resulted in the creation of agricultural universities on the pattern of Land-grant System in the US, while there are no exclusive agricultural universities in USA. This has resulted in isolation of agriculture sciences from other multifaculty universities of science, arts and humanities. The present structure, function and objective of agricultural universities are not in conformity with the concept of rural universities of the Radhakrishnan University Education Commission. Consequently, the agricultural universities have not been able to make any significant impact on rural development. An excessive emphasis on variety in the early stages of 'green revolution' did help in improvement of food grain production, but also became the cause of unsustainable agriculture in the absence of adequate science and knowledge base. Since agriculture is a vital sector in India, the end of isolation of agriculture and agriculture universities is the need of the time to make it interactive with multifaculty universities. The process for this change is discussed.