Updated on: Friday, June 11, 2010
Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) has in recent days bagged two prestigious United States projects, including one funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) on international research and education collaboration with India and China in information and communication technologies in agriculture and precision agriculture with a budget layout of US $ 1,50,000 for three years.
PAU vice-chancellor Manjit S Kang; Dr VC Patil, dean, College of Agricultural Sciences, University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur, Karnataka; Dr Liping Chen, director of the Precision Agriculture Division of the National Engineering Research Centre for Information Technology in Agriculture (NERCITA), Beijing, China; Dr Yuxin Miao, professor of Precision Agriculture at China Agricultural University are the partners in this international project, while the overall coordinator and PI of the project is Dr Raj Khosla of Colorado State University (CSU), Fort Collins, US. “I am so happy to hear the news about the funding of our research proposal,” said Dr Kang while congratulating Dr Raj Khosla, the Monfort Professor, in the department of soil and crop sciences at CSU.
Kang added, “We are pleased to be partners for this esteemed project. According to Khosla, the project will emphasise two vital aspects of agriculture: (i) The Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and (ii) Precision Agricultural Practices and Technologies that are receiving a major attention and investment within India and China.” Khosla said that under the project, faculty members and students from CSU, who will visit PAU and other parts of India will be able to learn about agricultural practices in India and China.
Khosla, a renowned expert in precision agriculture (PA), who also occupies PA research chair visiting professorship at King Saud University, Riyadh, has visited PAU several times during the past three years and given lectures on precision agriculture.