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Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa

In the imperial Gazetteer of India 1878, Pusa was recorded as a government estate of about 1350 acres in Darbhanba. It was acquired by East India Company for running a stud farm to supply better breed of horses mainly for the army. Frequent incidence of glanders disease (swelling of glands), mostly affecting the valuable imported bloodstock made the civil veterinary department to shift the entire stock out of Pusa. A British tobacco concern Beg Sutherland & co. got the estate on lease but it also left in 1897 abandoning the government estate of Pusa. Lord Mayo, The Viceroy and Governor General, had been repeatedly trying to get through his proposal for setting up a directorate general of Agriculture that would take care of the soil and its productivity, formulate newer techniques of cultivation, improve the quality of seeds and livestock and also arrange for imparting agricultural education. The government of India had invited a British expert. Dr. J. A. Voelcker who had submitted as report on the development of Indian agriculture. As a follow-up action, three experts in different fields were appointed for the first time during 1885 to 1895 namely, agricultural chemist (Dr. J. W. Leafer), cryptogamic botanist (Dr. R. A. Butler) and entomologist (Dr. H. Maxwell Lefroy) with headquarters at Dehradun (U.P.) in the forest Research Institute complex. Surprisingly, until now Pusa, which was destined to become the centre of agricultural revolution in the country, was lying as before an abandoned government estate. In 1898. Lord Curzon took over as the viceroy. A widely traveled person and an administrator, he salvaged out the earlier proposal and got London’s approval for the appointment of the inspector General of Agriculture to which the first incumbent Mr. J. Mollison (Dy. Director of Agriculture, Bombay) joined in 1901 with headquarters at Nagpur The then government of Bengal had mooted in 1902 a proposal to the centre for setting up a model cattle farm for improving the dilapidated condition of the livestock at Pusa estate where plenty of land, water and feed would be available, and with Mr. Mollison’s support this was accepted in principle. Around Pusa, there were many British planters and also an indigo research centre Dalsing Sarai (near Pusa). Mr. Mollison’s visits to this mini British kingdom and his strong recommendations. In favour of Pusa as the most ideal place for the Bengal government project obviously caught the attention for the viceroy.

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20221
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Subject: Agricultural Extension Education × Author: KUMAR, NIRALA ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF INDIGENOUS TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE AND IMPROVED GRAIN STORAGE SYSTEM IN BIHAR
    (Dr.RPCAU, Pusa, 2022) KUMAR, NIRALA; Singh, A.K.
    The country has diverse agro climatic conditions with different agro-ecosystem across the regions or states. In the state of Bihar, the main source of livelihood is agriculture and farmers need to store their farm produce for next season sowing as well as to meet their round the year requirements. Hence, a range of storage structures (from traditional to improved storage) are being used by the farm community as per their convenience and utility of these structures. However, till date there is no systematic study ever been made by researchers with respect to the different storage system used by rural people in Bihar. Only a few fragmentary information is available and a gap of comprehensive detail on storage structures has been identified since a long time. Keeping this fact in mind, the present investigation was conceptualized with the following specific objectives; 1. To know the socio-economic and personal characteristics of selected respondents. 2. To examine the Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) used by the respondents for storage of their food grain. 3. To study the extent of adoption of improved storage system of food grain. 4. To examine the comparative perception of respondents about ITK system and improved system of storage in Bihar. 5. To suggest the suitable extension strategies for popularization of the improved storage system in the study area in order to safeguard the losses of food grain. This study was carried out in the state of Bihar in the districts viz. Samastipur, Begusarai, Bhagalpur and Banka where University of Illinois Urban-Champaign (USA) is working to popularize the scientific method of storage system. Out of these four selected districts two blocks were covered from each of district such as, Tajpur and Shivajee Nagar in Samastipur, Chhorahi and Mansurchak in Begusarai, Kharik and Goradih in Bhagalpur, Chanan and Rajaun in Banka district. Further, from the selected 8 blocks, equal number of villages was identified for the purpose of study based on the largest number of household of different farming groups. While selecting the beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries care will be the taken to draw the sample from different categories of farmers based on their land holding. The beneficiaries farmers were those who received the training along with hermetic bag through the U.S. project while, non-beneficiaries farmers were those farmers who were residing in the same village but they did not receive neither the training nor hermetic bag for storage. Thus, total sample of the study were 320 in which (160) beneficiaries respondents and (160) non- beneficiaries respondents. Personal interview schedule was carefully constructed and developed for data collection in order to obtain the appropriate response from respondents in a face-to-face environment. To arrive at a relevant result and conclusion, the data was subjected to statistical analysis using frequency, standard deviation, mean, z-test, and percentage. The results of the study reveals that maximum of the respondents were from middle age group, backward caste, marginal land holder, agriculture as main occupation, joint family system, having secondary and higher secondary education, low income, low cropped area, medium level of contact with extension agencies, medium level of risk orientation, medium level of value orientation and high level of progressiveness. The study further reveals that 86.25 percent of rice and 71.90 per cent of pulses produced were stored and kept under the metal storage system through the process of ITK respectively. It was found that 28.75% of beneficiary‟s respondents were having most favourable perception toward ITK storage system. In z-test analysis it was seen that the mean difference value of ITK storage system was found much more higher (25.64%) as compared to the Improved storage system i.e. (12.58%). It was observed that enhancing the durability and maintaining the quality of grain was perceived as problems by about at 89.37% selected beneficiaries and in the case of non-beneficiaries farmers high cost of storage system 62.50 % was found as the main problem followed by non- availability of Hermetic bag. The result further suggested that training on rodent control and management was one of the important issues indicating 64.37% in beneficiaries group followed by 61.25% of non-beneficiaries farmers. During the study one of the most important suggestion obtained from the selected farmers that there should be adequate availability of improved storage system at low and subsidized cost. The findings of the study holds a great scope for the Government, policy makers, administrators to consider the constraints as faced by the farmers regarding the availability and use of improved grain storage systems and also to make a concerted efforts in an integrated manner to resource the constraints as indicated through the process of investigation.