By Avijit Biswas
Bhagalpur: The Bihar Agricultural University (BAU), Sabour project “Agri-Innovations for Farmers Livelihood Upliftment (AIFLU) has bagged prestigious SKOCH award. Instituted in 2003, SKOCH award is given to individuals, projects, and institutions in recognition of endeavors proving useful for the nation.
The BAU project was selected for the award following acknowledgement by experts that AIFLU has proved useful in attaining objective of livelihood upliftment of farmers.
Dr D R Singh, VC, BAU received the award in function held today at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi. Dr Singh said the award for AIFLU project is recognition of achievements made by university in sustainable agriculture. The award is also token of appreciation in regards to commitment of university towards increasing rural livelihood opportunities and promotion of inclusive growth.
Under AIFLU project efforts had been initiated by university for livelihood upliftment of farmers by popularizing proper crop varieties, technologies like tissue culture, use of bio-fertilizers besides use of innovative extension tools such as Kissan Help Line and community radio.
The AIFLU project of university it has been found has proved to be successful in increasing income of farmers through crop diversification and ensuring empowerment of women in field of agriculture besides increasing community engagement.
With implementation of the project has been found useful in attaining objective of livelihood upliftment of farmers, BAU looks forward to further increasing ambit and scope of the project.
The university has planned to introduce more resilient high yielding crop varieties, further technological innovations and improvement of extension services for reaching out to farmers in remote areas under AIFLU project.
As part of plan for increasing ambit and scope of AIFLU project, the university aims to focus on integrating advanced digital tools to provide real time localized agricultural advice and for promoting sustainable farming through eco-friendly practices.
The university also plans to intensify efforts towards empowerment of women and community engagement for inclusive growth and development under AIFLU project. As per BAU authorities the ultimate objective of university is to popularize best global agricultural practices in Bihar. For the purpose the university is likely to collaborate with reputed national and international agricultural research institutes.
- Writer Avijit Biswas, former principal correspondent of Hindustan Times Bhagalpur bureau, can be contacted at biswasavijit@yahoo.comContact number (mobile): +919431095516
