49th Management Committee Meeting of EEI (Southern Region) PJTSAU, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad was organized on 8th September, 2021

The 49th Management Committee Meeting (online) of Extension Education Institute (EEI) was conducted under the chairmanship of Hon’ble Vice-Chancellor, PJTSAU, Dr.V.Paveen Rao garu on 8th September, 2021 with 27 (twenty seven) Management Committee Members of EEI comprising 3 members from PJTSAU, Hyderabad, Telangana, 3 from Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, GoI, New Delhi, 4 from National Institutes viz., MANAGE, NIRD, NAARM & TSIRD, Hyderabad, 4 from client states viz., Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, 9 Directors from SAMETIs of South India and 3 Farmer representatives participated (full presence of the members) in the meeting. Dr.M.Jagan Mohan Reddy, Director, EEI & Member Secretary, EEI MC, presented the review of work done during 2020-21 and future plans of 2021-22 to the committee members. The members expressed their views and suggestions on how to improve the quality of the trainings at EEI. One of the farmer representative, Smt.Padala Bhudevi from Srikakulam district, Andhra Pradesh suggested to provide skill based training programmes to the rural youth, so that they can start their own FPO and help their farming community. Meanwhile, Dr.Prashant Armorikar, Additional Commissioner (Extn.) DoE, MoA&FW, GoI in his remarks expressed that EEI should additionally focus more in the areas like one district one product, sustainable agriculture for development, digital technology in agriculture to improve the capacity of the extension officers and also in his remarks he informed that GoI in its flagship schemes announced Rs.1.00 lakh crore for agriculture infrastructure fund for strengthening agriculture infrastructure across the country targeting 10,000 FPOs by 2023. Annual Report 2020-21 & Training Calendar 2021-22 of EEI are released by the Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, PJTSAU, during the meeting. Lastly, Dr.V.Praveen Rao, Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, PJTSAU in the closing remarks put forward that we are in cross roads, globally in future the farming community is moving in 2 groups, one is regenerative agriculture and the other is highly specialized agriculture. In Telangana, a survey on dietary pattern is conducted before & during COVID period and is observed that there is paradigm shift in the dietary patterns followed by the people. Hence, EEIs in their trainings should incorporate the content on how the changes in dietary system affect the agriculture and application of Digital technology and block chain technology to address the contemporary issues in agriculture and allied sectors. Meanwhile, he informed that, PJTSAU is the only University in the country doing research on drone technology for the past 3 years in the major crops in Telangana state. He emphasized the august gathering that, revolution in agriculture should also be carried out like as happened in mobiles and IT sector. He also stated that, the farmers are perceiving the entry point to the technology in agriculture is the reach of output goods to the consumer and we should take care of this. The meeting was closed with vote of thanks applauding to the august gathering for the support rendered in making the meeting a grand success.