: While advances in preservation and value addition have raised the demand for courses in food technology, the conventional four-year graduation course in agriculture in colleges in Andhra Pradesh is still holding on and continues to attract students from across the country.
“We will start the admission process in the last week of July and the last date for applying for graduate courses is July 27. We will complete the admissions in August as per schedule,’’ Dean, Acharya NG Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU) Tatineni Ramesh Babu, told The Hindu .
The four year course —B.Sc (Agriculture) — is offered in six colleges, including Bapatla Agricultural College and Agricultural College at Tirupati, and 560 seats are available. The two colleges have 160 seats each, while the other colleges at Mahanandi, Rajamahendravaram and Naira have 80 seats each.
“The conventional course still holds good as students after passing out are eligible for jobs in public and private sectors. Students can get posts as agricultural officers, appear for Civil Services examinations or take up research in IIRM, Bengaluru, ICAR, etc. Research scholarships are available for post-graduate courses,’’ said Dr. Ramesh Babu.
New diploma course
The university has also started a new course — Diploma in Organic Farming — at Chintapalli in the Visakhapatnam Agency area with an intake of 60 students.
With the recent advances in agricultural engineering, the demand for B.Tech (Agricultural Engineering) is increasing. Two colleges, one in Bapatla and the other at Madakasira in Anantpur, have 54 seats each. While 60 per cent of seats are filled on basis of on ranks in Eamcet, 40 per cent is under the farmers’ quota.
Food technology is fast emerging as an emerging business and two colleges —College of Food Science and Technology, Bapatla, and in Kadapa —offer 45 seats each. Students from both M.P.C and Bi.P.C can take admission in these courses in which the seats are equally divided.
Admission into B.Sc (Home Science) is based on marks obtained in Intermediate and the course is offered exclusively to women.
