The University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES) is gearing up to start “School of Smart Agriculture” soon at its campus in Dehradun, Uttarkhand

Deependra Kumar Jha, Vice-Chancellor, UPES told BusinessLine that futuristic education in agriculture would need undivided focus and commitment, both from teaching and learning perspective.

And UPES is uniquely positioned to focus on convergence of advanced technologies such as IoT, AI, Big Data, unmanned aerial vehicles and GPS with existing agricultural practices to create a new offering.

“Use of technology in agriculture has become an imperative to improve crop productivity in an environmentally sustainable manner. And this would be the focus at the proposed school as UPES already has expertise and runs courses in all these technologies via its School of Computer Studies and School of Engineering. This expertise and infrastructure would be suitably leveraged for application in agricultural studies, he said.

The school will initially offer BSc (Hons) in Agriculture, BTech (Food Technology) and MSc (Agri-Agronomy).

Jha said “the world food demand is expected to double by 2050 and it is estimated that with business as usual, in the face of declining resources, intensifying volatilities of climate change and markets, only 59 percent of India’s total demand for food and agricultural products would be met by 2030.

So, use of technology in agriculture, from production to processing to logistics, will become a norm in the near future. This will result in demand for skilled professionals in agriculture. Food Processing is one of the 25 focus sector of Government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, he said.

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