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Overview:

M.S. Swaminathan School of Agriculture (MSSSOA) is located in Gajapati district in South Odisha that is among poorest districts of India. The livelihood of the residents of the district is primarily based on subsistence agriculture, forest produce, wage labour and distress migration.

As identified by the Food Security Atlas of Rural Odisha (2008), the zone of acute food insecurity in the state comprises Kandhmal, Malkangiri, Rayagada and Gajapati districts of Odisha. The Atlas also suggests that for the livelihood development of hill-forest-based population, following strategic interventions will be required.

• Implementation of the Forest Rights Protection Act to provide security of tenure
• Investment to enable a shift to production of high value crops
• Expansion of irrigation in a manner appropriate to hill and plateau regions
• Improvement of rural connectivity, so as reduce transaction and transport costs and increase economic opportunities
• Shortening the chain of intermediaries and promoting value-added processing in non-timber forest products (NTFP)

Given the above context, MSSSOA has adopted the national agenda of doubling farmers’ income sustainably. It aims to develop a workforce that is exposed to domains such as precision agriculture and are able to leverage digital technology and data management to deliver transformative change in the socio-economic conditions of the farmers as well as contribute to the entire agri-value chain and research.

Centurion University has also incubated many social enterprises and outreach entities under the umbrella of Gram Tarang in the areas of employability enhancement, financial inclusion, agri-processing, last-mile supply chain and biotechnology.

MSSSOA is accredited with ICAR and has established close operational relationship with community and network of companies in agroindustry, NGOs and Government Organizations to enrich its educational offerings. It’s the top Agriculture college in Odisha as well as nationally.

Departments:

Whilst the MSSSOA has full-fledged departments for areas such as Agriculture Science, Entomology, Genertics and Plant breeding. Each of the departments is equipped with requisite facilities such as laboratories and smart classrooms, they also collaborate with other schools on campus such as Engineering & Technology to ensure holistic learning. Each department has well qualified, dedicated and experienced faculty, supplemented by industry expert and global content.

Support for Placements and Higher Studies

University has a dedicated career counselling and training cell that ensure that the students are able to individually identify and are prepared to effectively realize their career aspirations. These could range from securing a job, start their own enterprise and/or pursue higher studies. Extra classes are arranged throughout for various competitive examination such as JRF and GATE. Besides this, the students are supported to achieve English proficiency, reasoning and quantitative ability levels required irrespective of their career aspirations.

Campus:

The campus spread of 150+ acres is an oasis of greenery, environmentally friendly buildings and excellent facilities to ensure it’s a ‘home away from home’. MSSSOA has also implemented a number of Natural Resource Management (NRM) practices in the campus having around 1600 mango trees and 600 teak and other plants of different varieties. These include watershed development, recharging ground water and soil nutrition management.

Campus has multiple sports facilities such as international standard basketball and tennis courts, flood lit multi-purpose playground and cricket practice pitches. Besides our dedicated hostels and mess facilities, campus also has multiple shops/marketplaces that act as excellent locations for the students to meet and socialize with their peers.

Other facilities also include dedicated banking counter, ATM as well as a dispensary (with a doctor and three paramedical staff and an ambulance).

Library:

The School has well-equipped library with broad band Wi-Fi connectivity. It provides a sound physical and digital learning environment round the clock. The learning materials are in the Printed, Audio and Visual form. The library is integrated into the University’s Management Information System (MIS). It deploys Open Access system with different work stations.

Accommodation

Being a residential program, the School encourages students and faculty to live on campus. There are dedicated hostels for boys and girls offering multiple configuration/options. About 80% students and 50% faculty and supporting staff stay on campus. There are 10 hostels (6 for boys with 304 rooms accommodating 1021 students and 4 for girls with 104 rooms accommodating 318 students).

Clubs and Extra Curricular Activities:

Besides extensive sports facilities and events, there are student run Health Club, Yoga Club, Adventure Club, Meditation Club and Karate Club under the guidance of respective faculty in-charges. The students regularly participate in cultural, NSS, NCC and other socially responsible activities.

Key Highlights

• ICAR Accredited
• State of the art facilities such as IoT enabled poly-houses, drones for multiple applications, genetics and plant breeding labs, food and dairy processing facilities
• Opportunities to pursue multi-disciplinary areas such as precision agriculture, cultivation of value added crops and management of livestock using digital technologies (AI/ML, Analytics and AR/VR)
• 6 months of direct off campus internships with leading organizations, development organizations, research entities as well as directly with farmer/agriculture focussed organizations
• 6 months of direct experience of managing industry class food processing facilities from sourcing to delivery/selling of the final product
• University owned best in class equipment such as a combined harvester, irrigation equipment, agri-tools and tractors
• Strong industry linkages with frequent interactions with leading agri-scientists and professionals