The Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers
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Sustainable Utilization of Non- Timber Forest Produce - A Way Forward for Empowering Tribal Communities
No full textIntroduction Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) play an important role in the livelihoods of millions of tribal people across the globe by fulfilling multiple functions such as providing food, shelter, medicine, energy, and cultural artifacts. NTFPs include resins, essences, and a variety of barks and fibers like bamboo, rattan, sal, mahua and a broad range of other palm, grasses, and pharmacological herbs. Among farm products, plant herbs (64.28%) are predominantly used followed by trees (21.43%) and shrubs (14.28%) where various plant parts are used for their nutritional and chemical properties. NTFP sector is one of India’s major unorganized sectors with a wide scope of dependent population of around 275 million and an annual turnover of more than 6000 crores. Due to the varied usage and wide distribution throughout India (Figure 1), NFTPs are found to offer green social security to billions of people. This article presents a technical perspective on the development of Indian tribal communities through the sustainable usage of NTFPs
Automation and Artificial Intelligence: Reorienting Indian Farming towards Smart Agriculture
No full textIn the Economic Survey of 2019-20, the share of agriculture in GDP was 17.8 percent, which has increased to 19.9 percent in 2020-21. e schemes being run by the Government of India in agriculture have played an important role in this growth, but in 2050, to meet the agricultural challenges related to food security, India will have to implement smart farming techniques on a large scale. ere has been a recent paradigm shi in engineering and technology due to emergence of three innovative technologies: Articial Intelligence, IoT and Blockchain
Growth of Export of Agricultural and Processed Food Products in India, 2022-23
No full textContinuing with the trend from the previous year, the exports of agricultural and processed food products rose by 14 percent in the rst three months of the current Financial Year 2022-23 (April-June) compared to the corresponding period of FY 2021-22. For the year 2022-23, the government had set an export target of USD 23.56 billion for the agricultural and processed food products basket under APEDA. e initiatives taken by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry have helped the country in achieving 25 percent of the total annual export target in the rst three months of the current scal. According to the Quick Estimates data released by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S), the overall export of products under APEDA ambit (Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority) increased to USD 5987 million in April-June 2022 from USD 5256 million over the same period of the last scal
Supercritical fluid extrusion: Process technology and applications in food industry
No full textExtrusion processing is one of the several approaches that has been used to alter the physicochemical and microstructural properties of biopolymers. A novel hybrid extrusion process, called supercritical fluid extrusion (SCFX) that combines the conventional extrusion process with a supercritical fluid such as supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) as a low temperature-blowing agent offers new opportunities to design novel products. As a low temperature extrusion system SCFX permits the use of heat sensitive materials like proteins, micronutrients, nutraceuticals, etc. in the formulation. SCFX system also acts as a continuous reactor to direct the reaction in feed material to obtain extrudates with desirable physicochemical, textural, and functional properties. This article provides a brief review of the SCFX process, and its novel application in food industry
Top ways to achieve adequate soil health for high crop yielding
No full textSoil is rightfully the most critical constituent of the earth’s biosphere. For any country, good soil health is a key indicator of its long-term ecosystem sustainability. There is a multiplicity of scientifically proven benefits that can be attributed to good soil health. Improvement in land management, sustainable crop production, and enhanced quality of agro landscape are only a few of the many perks that decent quality soil entails. Time and again, there have been numerous revelations in the agricultural space expediting multiple approaches to optimal soil health. The appropriate way, however, is to combine certain new generational techniques like high-tech tilling, and some timeless classical practices like crop rotation. Let’s look at some interesting ways to attain a prolific soil structure
Flood Frequency Analysis in Middle Reach of Mahanadi River Basin, Odisha
Get PDFA 30 year (1986-2015) daily discharge data of five gauging stations namely, Kantamal, Kesinga, Salebhata, Sundargarh and Tikarapara of middle reach of the Mahanadi river basin of Odisha, India were analyzed for predicting peak flood discharge at various return periods (probability of exceedance). Twelve probability distribution functions (PDFs) viz., Normal, Log-Normal, Pearson, Log-Pearson, Weibull, Generalized Pareto, Extreme Value Type III, Gumble-maximum, Gumble-minimum, Generalised Extreme Value, Exponential and Gamma were tested by comparing the values of chi-square test, and two statistical measures of error, namely, root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE). The analyses were carried out using the FLOOD software. The Gamma distribution was found to be the best fitted PDF for the Kantamal, Kesinga, Sndargarh and Tikirapara gauging stations of the middle reach of Mahanadi River as these stations had the lowest values of the Chi-square, RMSE and MAE. However, Extreme Value Type III was the best PDF for the Salebhata station. The predicted peak daily discharge ranged from 11012.1 to 31728.1, 1917.9 to 16076.8, 574.8 to 5100.3, 328.9 to 5501.9 and 11092.3 to 31728.1 m3s-1 for the Kantamal, Kesinga, Salebhata, Sundargarh and Tikirapara, respectively for probability of exceedences ranging from 10 to 90%
Effect of Drying Methods on Drying Kinetics, Nutritional Composition and Quality Parameters of Asthma Plant (Euphorbia hirta L.)
Get PDFAsthma plant (Euphorbia hirta L.) is a small annual documented weed contains many phytochemicals that have disease preventing properties. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of different drying methods viz., solar tunnel drying, tray drying, dehumidified air drying and shade drying on drying kinetics and nutritional composition of asthma plant. Dehumidified drying took least time (10.5 h) compared to other drying methods and the drying took place only in the falling rate. The logarithmic model was best fitted for the samples dried under dehumidified air dryer with the highest R2 value of 0.9989 and least RMSE value of 0.0096. Better retention of nutrients like protein, carbohydrates, crude fiber, crude fat and total ash in de-humidified air drying compared to other drying methods. The drying method doesn’t have significant effect on the physico-chemical properties of asthma plant viz., colour, pH, water activity and ascorbic acid content
Effect of Modified Deficit Irrigation Strategies on Fruit Quality of Tomato under Greenhouse
Get PDFDeficit irrigation strategies need to be devised to save irrigation water and optimize yield while maintaining fruit quality. The present study was undertaken to assess fruit quality of tomato (cv. GS-600) under different irrigation treatments in greenhouse environment. Different irrigation treatments were namely (1) Full irrigation, where the required amount of irrigation water estimated from pan evaporation data was applied to all sides of the plant root zone through drip irrigation; (2) RDI30, (3) RDI50, (4) PRD30 and (5) PRD50, where 30% and 50% less amount of water was applied compared to full irrigation. In RDI, water was applied to all sides of the root zone but in case of PRD, left and right side of root zone were irrigated alternately during every irrigation. Significantly higher fruit diameter (6.45- 8.9 cm) in PRD30 irrigation treatment was observed compared to other deficit irrigation treatments though it was at par with full irrigation treatment (7-9 cm). Among the deficit irrigation treatments, total soluble solids (TSS) (6.7 °Brix) and titratable acidity (0.44%) were higher in the PRD30, whereas full irrigation led to significantly lower TSS (4.5 °Brix) and titratable acidity (0.35%), respectively. Compared to full irrigation treatment, partial root zone drying with 30% deficit irrigation can enhance fruit quality while saving water
इंजीनियरिंग और प्रौद्योगिकी: भारत की विकास गाथा को गति देना
No full textइंजीनियरिंग और प्रौद्योगिकी: भारत की विकास गाथा को गति देन
A Multi-Criteria Framework for Evaluating Reference Evapotranspiration Models
No full textAccurate estimation of reference evapotranspiration (ETo) is essential for effective irrigation planning and water resource management. This study evaluated 10 temperature-based ETo models and compared with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Penman-Monteith method (FAO-56 PM) under the humid subtropical climate of Dehradun, India. Model performance was assessed using statistical indicators, including mean bias error (MBE), root mean square error (RMSE), normalized RMSE (NRMSE), percent bias (PBIAS), Kling-Gupta efficiency (KGE), index of agreement (d), and coefficient of determination (R²). As these statistical measures sometimes provide contradictory results; a structured decision-making tool was needed. To address this issue, compromise programming index (CPI) based on a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach, was employed in this study. CPI integrated multiple statistical indicators into a single composite index by quantifying the deviation of each model’s performance from an ideal solution. In this study, all indicators were weighted equally to avoid subjectivity and to ensure balanced evaluation across accuracy, bias, and efficiency measures. Results showed that the average ETo values from different ETo models ranged between 3.12 mm day-1 (Dorji model) and 5.97 mm day-1 (Baier and Robertson model), compared to 2.95 mm day-1 (FAO-56 PM method). The Dorji model outperformed other models, exhibiting the lowest errors (MBE = 0.17 mm day-1, RMSE = 0.35 mm day-1, NRMSE = 0.12, PBIAS = 5.79%) and strong agreement (KGE = 0.79, d = 0.98, R² = 0.99). CPI-based ranking confirmed the Dorji model as the most reliable (CPI = 0), followed by the Hargreaves-Samani models, while the Berti model ranked lowest, suggesting a need for recalibration. Overall, this study highlighted the value of integrating CPI with statistical indicators to identify locally suitable models for accurate ETo estimation under diverse climatic conditions