Garhwal Post Bureau
Pantnagar, 27 Jun: A three-day international conference on ‘Challenges and Opportunities in Agriculture and Allied Sciences: Towards a Sustainable Future’ (COAAS-2025) was inaugurated today in the Dr Ratan Singh Auditorium under the joint aegis of GB Pant University of Agriculture & Technology and Society for Advancement in Agriculture and Allied Sciences (SAAAS), Lucknow. In this conference, as the Chief Guest, Vice Chancellor of the University Dr Manmohan Singh Chauhan, Dean, Agriculture, Dr Subhash Chandra, Director, Uttarakhand Biotechnology Council, Haldi, Dr Sanjay Kumar, President of SAAAS, Lucknow, and Organising Secretary of COAAS-2025 Dr Balvir Singh, Co-Organiser and Dean, Student Welfare, Dr AS Jeena were present on the stage.
Addressing the conference, Vice Chancellor Dr Manmohan Singh Chauhan said that the future of agriculture should be sustainable and innovation based. For this, all three areas of education, research and extension would have to work in an integrated manner. He said that, today, agriculture cannot be limited only to food production – it is also the basis of quality of human life, nutritional security, employment generation and environmental balance. He emphasised that, if we have to move towards sustainable agriculture, then along with traditional knowledge, new technologies would also have to be adopted. These challenges can be faced only by coordinating teaching, research and extension work. He also stressed the need to focus on the three P’s (product/Technology, patent and publication).
On this occasion, Dr Sanjay Kumar highlighted the growing challenges in the agriculture sector such as water crisis, soil erosion, imbalance in farmers’ income and the need for crop diversification. He also described modern technologies such as smart farming, drone-based monitoring, organic farming and agri startups as important opportunities for the progress of agriculture. Dr Subhash Chandra said that agriculture should be made a profitable business. For this, science and technology will have to be taken to the farmers. Amidst the changes taking place in the environment and various challenges being felt at the global level, innovation will have to be used to properly utilise the resources used in agriculture and to increase production. He said that Pantnagar University is constantly making efforts in this direction and is working on many innovations.
At the beginning of the conference, Dr Balvir Singh explained the outline of the conference. The vote of thanks was proposed by Dr AS Jeena. On this occasion, the Registrar of the University, Dr Deepa Vinay, Deans of all the colleges, Directors, Faculty members and students were also present. Also, more than 200 students and scientists are participating in the conference online and offline.
