Need to up farmers` income, says Montek

For increasing productivity there should be a shift to best practices and scientific methods. He said farm level intervention by agriculture scientists, apart from upgrading farm equipment and implementing watershed programmes, was required.

Singh said Indian econ-omy was growing at the rate of 7.5 per cent and there were many structural changes happening.

"With the good economic growth, the per capita income of individuals has also gone up. As a result there have been structural changes in production pattern, which are happening five times faster than earlier days" he asserted.

"With India becoming a globally-integrated economy, we have to absorb some changes and react to some. Some changes would be thrust upon us. One of them is the issue of global warming which would affect the agriculture sector also. We should be ready to face large structural changes," he explained.

Stating that agriculture contributed 20 per cent to the GDP at present, he said growth of agriculture was the key to food security in the country. Agriculture was still a source of livelihood for 52 per cent of the population and there was need to initiate steps towards higher agricultural productivity and higher per capita agricultural income.

Ahluwalia said the 11th Five Year Plan had envisaged a growth rate of 9 per cent in the country which would be hiked to 10 per cent by the end of the Plan period. Stressing on the tremendous opportunities the agricultural graduates had at present, Singh asked the fresh graduates to gear up for the situation and grab the opportunities.

Forty one candidates shared 97 gold medals with J U Chandrakala (BSc agriculture) emerging as golden girl securing eight medals. Degrees were conferred on 620 candidates at the convocation. While 21 were conferred PhDs, 227 got master's and 372 bachelor's degrees.