Indian agricultural education is trapped in the Green Revolution period. ICAR reforms aim to overhaul curricula with experience in AI, climate technology, and global markets.
Satnam Singh was 28 when he joined the college for agricultural graduate degrees. Not willing to fall prey to unscientific farming practices and adhere to 'modern farming education', he had planned on carrying his family's farming legacy forward in Punjab's Ferozepur—and adding a 21st century spin to it.
But his BSc in agriculture and MSc in agronomy from Tiwari Agriculture Institute in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, had imbued in him something which was rooted in India's Green Revolution era days of scarcity-and-hunger.
And so when finally it was time to get his boots dirty, he realized how much farmers knew compared to what he had learned in his books.
"Whatever I have learned of today's agriculture, I have learned from working with farmers and not in classrooms," Singh supplemented.
His schooling had been confined to classrooms with outdated textbooks and no consideration of marketable skills—illustrating the need for Indian agriculture education reform.
Singh's experience is representative of the dismal state of India's agricultural education, in which the curriculum remains stuck in the dominant focus on increasing crop yields.
Though course reforms have been proposed previously, institutes ignore them as they are not mandatory.
Twenty-first-century farming is the big gaping hole in policy-making—and it starts with an antiquated educational system.
I have learned more about agriculture today than in schools
But over the last few years, it is these farmers who have been educating him—on the new machinery, artificial intelligence, new methods, export markets, new varieties of seeds, and adaptation to climate change.
Avinash Kishore, senior research fellow of the International Food Policy Research Institute, said Indian agricultural institutions are in an "incestuous trap" where professors merely teach what they learned years before.
These reforms, experts supplement, can help institutes gear up to address issues of the day like climate change, population explosion, erosion of the topsoil, technological upgradation, and the growing role of private players in the industry.
As it stands now, I would argue that an economics graduate from a quality university is learning more about social sciences, agriculture economics, and market systems than an agricultural sciences student," Kishore added.
He observed institutes have become better in terms of equipment but pedagogy remains to be desired.
"Agricultural institutes in India are largely educational and research institutions all in one, so they have huge potential for creating experiment-based systems. But that is not happening," he added.
The disparity is reflected in the latest National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings. Under the 'quality of publication' parameter (worth 40 marks), IARI had recorded 38.69. It also got 10.50 out of 15 for granted patents.
Smaller institutes fare worse. West Bengal's Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya averaged a meager 5.87 in publications and zero in patents issued.
Statistics indicate that students are seeking education abroad more and more. Foreign Admits notes that since 2020, there has been a 30 percent year-on-year growth in enquires for agricultural courses in universities abroad, with a 75 percent growth in 2023 alone.
These are Canada, New Zealand, and Australia as sites for agribusiness, food safety, and sustainability programs.
Textbooks are a different story.
One of Singh's first-year textbooks, the 2015 'Principles and Applications of Agricultural Meteorology,' makes no mention of contemporary forecasting technology and fails to cover climate change. It talks about employing 'altostratus clouds' to forecast monsoons—despite the fact that, says the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the clouds have not been seen in the tropics in more than ten years.
ICAR reforms: modernise Indian farming
In the floodplains of the Yamuna, Dhruv Singh, a third-year IARI student reading BSc Agriculture with specialization in agricultural chemistry, soil science and entomology, swishes a metal rod across the ground. It's connected to a pager-sized small gadget his class created to analyze moisture and nutrient content.
"This device has the potential to allow farmers to analyze soil quality before they plant crops," said Singh. It is still in the testing stage but exactly the type of innovation the curricular reforms at ICAR aim to encourage.
Agriculture universities: adopt new approaches to cultivation
India's top institutions are at the forefront.
IARI runs nearly 800 programs, ranging from microbiology and genetics to floriculture, bioinformatics, and agri-statistics.
"During course revision, we try to become a role model for small institutes and universities, which can take our models to improve their courses," stated AK Singh, director of IARI.
"It was like we were being asked to compete barefoot at the Olympics. But we have shoes now, and perhaps we can write a new chapter of history," he further added.
