Dynamics of design thinking on climate smart agriculture by under-graduate students in Agriculture under Central Agricultural University, Imphal
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Date
2020-07
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College of Post Graduate Studies in Agricultural Sciences, CAU-Imphal, Umiam
Abstract
The advances in the advent on impact of climate change in agriculture has brought multi-dimensional challenges to agricultural students. The increased mobility, the world-wide web and the instant information spread place agricultural students in previously unknown contexts and situations which require an approach of Design Thinking (DT) in mending the benefits of Climate Smart Agricultural Practices (CSAPs). A scientific attempt to understand the dynamics of DT on CSAPs by under- graduate students in agriculture under Central Agricultural University, Imphal (CAU, I) has been made with following three research objectives viz.,(1) To identify CSA practices in adopted villages of Colleges of Agriculture (CoAs) under CAU, I; (2) To examine the application of Design Thinking by Under-Graduate students under CAU for improvising the identified CSAPs; and (3) To find out limitations faced by students while undergoing DT. The study followed descriptive research design and mixed- method sampling technique. Simple random sampling without replacement was undergone while selecting 13, 8 and 7 respondents (50% of total strength of the class) who were final year under-graduate students from the three CoAs under CAU, I viz., (1) CoA, Imphal, Manipur; (2) CoA, Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh; & (3) CoA, Kyrdemkulai, Meghalaya, respectively. The study identified the (1) Integrated Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Based Farming Systems; (2) Agro-Horti-Animal Husbandry IFS; and (3) Cultivation of Stress Tolerant Varieties were the most important CSAPs that had been practiced by farmers of adopted villages namely, (1) Leimaram Village, Bishnupur District, Manipur under CoA, Imphal; (2) Ayeng Village, East Siang District, Arunachal Pradesh under CoA, Pasighat; and (3) Kyrdemkulai Village, Ri-bhoi District, Meghalaya under CoA, Kyrdemkulai. Subsequently, the study revealed that maximum percentage of thirty nine percent of the students were in their age of 22 years; majority of about seventy one percent of respondents, were in 1st divisions category and had high ‘Competency on ICT Applications’. Similarly, majority of seventy five percent, about sixty one percent and about fifty seven percent of respondents had high ‘Ability to Visualize Abstract Ideas’, ‘Aptitude’, and ‘Memory Retention’ respectively. However, fifty percent of respondents had been observed to have high ‘Creative Problem Solving’ and ‘Reading Behavior’. Performance on social network analysis of students in the above three colleges revealed that, the social network for respondents of CoA, Imphal had the highest ‘Average Degree’, ‘Eigen Vector Centrality’ and ‘Modularity’ with respective values of 5.69, 6.27 and 0.149. However, the ‘Average Clustering Coefficient’ was highest in the social network for respondents of CoA, Kyrdemkulai. Further, the scientific inquiry uncovered that fifty four percent of the entire respondents had high ‘Operationalization of DT’. On explicating the binary logistic regression model of DT by Under-Graduate students of CoAs on improvising the identified CSAPs, it could be established that the model was significant at p=0.037 with AIC & BIC values of 40.86 & 54.18, respectively indicating moderate acceptable explanations of independent variables on outcome of dependent variable. With the subsequent Cox & Snell R2 and Nagelkerke R2 values of 0.471 and 0.629, revealed that the independent variables interacted and explained in the significant outcome of the dependent variable in the range of 47.10 to 62.90 percent. The study revealed that ‘Inability to transform theoretical knowhow of CSAPs into actual practice’ was the foremost limitation faced by students while undergoing DT. Based on the above scientific findings, the research strongly recommends on two notions namely, (1) concept on Integrated Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Farming Systems based CSAPs should be subject to DT for students. Further, and (2) Theoretical based teaching and learnings systems should be oriented towards practical based which have a composite systems on enhancing Competency on ICT Application, Ability to Visualize Abstract Ideas, Memory Retention, Reading Behavior and Aptitude of students.