TANSAA to help augment agriculture development

In order to improve the financial condition of numerous people, who are involved in agricultural related activities, the Tamil Nadu Senior Agro Technologists’ Association (TANSAA) has planned to join hands with Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), National Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development (NABARD) and Tamil Nadu Skill Development Corporation (TNSDC).

At TANSAA’s first annual general body meeting held at Kanniyakumari on Sunday, association president R. Ganesa Murthy and secretary N. Dayanantham said that as their focus would be on agri-related workers who were at the bottom of the financial pyramid, they had planned to enrol with MSME, NABARD and TNSDC.

Being a technically qualified and registered forum, the members hoped that the enrolment would help them participate in EOI (Expression Of Interest) for short-term course, seminars, technical training and webinars. It would also help them organise farm tourism across the nation.

While presenting the resolution, S. Rajamohamed, TANSAA member and a retired Joint Director of Horticulture, said that TANSAA also had other objectives such as rectifying skill-deficiency to enhance employability, reskilling or retraining science and technical graduates on renewable energy sources for agri-related self-employment and personality development. Steps would be taken to help women reach economic independence through agri-business.

“As we have experts in horticulture, agri-engineering, agri-business, agri-marketing, certification, seed inspection, banking sector and also scientists from TNAU, our expertise will come in handy in the development of farm sector”, Mr Mohammed added.

Offering felicitation, S. Mervin Alexander, retired Post Master General said, “TANSAA members have valuable technical resources and they should be explored constructively for promoting agriculture in the future. There is no disruptive technology in agriculture unlike in other fields. Concentration should be on qualitative farm products rather than quantity oriented. As water is an expensive input, it has to be handled carefully in future.”

K. Mani, State president, Tamil Nadu Agricultural Graduates Association, said steps should  be taken to form an agriculture council to take policy decisions related to agriculture.

TANSAA was also giving financial assistance to physically challenged college students and five students were given assistance of ₹2,500 each on the occasion. More than 600 members from across the State  participated in the meeting.