IIT Kharagpur researchers train farmers in micro-irrigation techniques

A bunch of researchers at IIT Kharagpur has imparted coaching to over 2,000 farmers from close by villages of the institute in micro-irrigation and guarded cultivation buildings.

The farmers, who adopted the techniques of farm machineries and gear, reported lower in labour price, decreased price of cultivation, timeliness of operations, and a rise in soil fertility and manufacturing, an announcement issued by IIT Kharagpur stated.

The outreach programmes have been organised by the division of Agriculture and Food Engineering and the Rural Development Centre to speak, train rural folks and assist their transition to mechanised farming and livelihoods.

Through its precision farming improvement centre mission, the institute has developed farm machineries starting from micro-irrigation, mixed harvester, crop and vegetable planters, photo voltaic power operated transplanters, nut diggers and ultrasonic sprayers.

The initiative additionally contains non-farming livelihood applied sciences for rural small scale and cottage trade – reminiscent of potters wheel, making of jute ropes, door mats and rice flakes moreover social affect applied sciences reminiscent of smokeless chullahs and rural consuming water facility.

IIT Kharagpur has extensively mobilised the funding accessible underneath nationwide mission tasks like National Initiative for Design Innovation and Unnat Bharat Abhiyan in direction of reaching this objective.

Director, IIT Kharagpur, Prof Virendra Tewari stated, “The government of India offers huge subsidies for mechanisation of the rural sector, but the farm machinery sector has not invested significantly in creating a market for indigenous technologies addressing the burning need of the rural sector.

“Experts at IIT Kharagpur are answering this challenge by designing technologies well suited for the livelihood of the rural class of our country.”