“Now agriculture is not simply an age old phenomenon of procuring rice, vegetables or other food items for us. There is a remarkable change in this sector with the application of new modern technologies. It has turned out to an industry,” observed Dr Jayanta Deka, dean of science, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat.
He was participating as the distinguished guest in the inaugural function of the ‘Agricultural Exhibition -2018’ organized by the Agri BSc final year students under the four months ‘Rural Work Experience Programme’ at Moholiapara village in Darrang district of Assam on Friday.
Emphasizing the need of practicing agriculture commercially by the youths of the state applying new modern technologies, Dr Deka highlighted various central government sponsored schemes for attracting educated youths to the agriculture sector including READY (Rural Entrepreneurship Awareness Development Yojana) and ARYA (Attracting and Retaining Youth in Agriculture ) among others.
“Government has observed that new generation or the wards of the farmers used to go away from agriculture and they have taken up such schemes to attract new generation towards agriculture,” he added.
He further said that the one should not bother about the methods of agriculture as the old fashioned, since there are machines for every step of it, from ploughing, planting of seedlings to harvesting.
He also explained how a number of highly educated youths of the State have given up their lucrative jobs in banks and multi-national companies to join farming and allied agriculture sector and later came up with high annual returns to the tune of Rs two crore.
Speaking on the occasion Gurujyoti Das, MLA, Mangaldai asked the people to improve their weak financial position through integrated farming or at least planting saplings of lemon, chilly and pappaya in their household taking progressive farmers of the State like Dhrubajyoti Saikia, Manav Chaliha, Nilam Dutta, Nabanita Bora etc as their role models.