ACADEMIC_EXTENSION ACTIVITY

RAWE/RHWE Programme at KVK Cuttack 

KVK Cuttack hosted thirty three 4th year B.Sc. (Ag.)/ B.Sc. (Hort.) students from four colleges of Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology. In this rural agricultural/ horticultural work experience programme spanning eight weeks duration, the students were exposed to recent advances in crop production sector that are applicable in field conditions along with other practical information. Dr H Pathak, Director, ICAR-National Rice Research Institute, Cuttack interacted with the students about technologies developed from NRRI for the use of rice cultivators and different aspects of climate change. Experts from KVK Cuttack regularly interacted with the students and answered the queries raised by the farmers through phone or at interaction time. They also taught the students how to interact with farmers and do the participatory rural appraisal along with involving them in crop yield and production practices survey linking with CSISA ODK survey using learning by doing method.

Data Collection using ODK

Crop yield and production practices survey was conducted in 30 villages of Cuttack district. The villages along with seven farm families from each village were selected randomly. The open data kit based survey linked the production practices with GPS reading of the largest cultivated field. It included variety, fertilizer, pesticide, chemicals and weedicide used, cultivation methodology, production and yield achieved economics etc to get a clear picture of rice.

Farmer’s Awareness Programme on Gramin Krishi Mausam Seva

Awareness programme on ‘Gramin Krishi Mausam Seva’ was organized by KVK Cuttack at Purkutia and Bahali village of Narsighpur block and Kankali village of Tangi-Choudwar block on 23 and 25 March 2019, respectively. Total no. of two hundred farmers and farmwomen participated in the programme. Dr. DR Sarangi, OIC, KVK Cuttack, spoke on importance of weather based agro-advice in the changing scenario of climate change. Dr TR Sahoo, SMS, Horticulture, delivered on importance of weather element on growth and development of horticultural crops. Dr RK Mohanta, SMS, Animal Science, emphasized on different climate adaptation strategy for livestock and poultry to overcome the different extreme events. Sri Debasish Jena, SMS, Agro-meteorology highlighted the importance of block level agro-advisory service, which was implemented by IMD–ICAR joint effort and explained the significance of weather forecasting on agriculture and way of activity of project “Gramin Krishi Mausam Seva”.