Agriculture is the most important sector in the Indian economy which contributes around 23% to the Gross products and more than 70% of the total work force is employed in this sector. Almost all rural India is dependent on agriculture and allied activities like animal husbandry, diary, poultry and fisheries.
Agriculture engineering is the engineering discipline that applies engineering science and protects the environment, and they design machineries and structures and alternative energy systems to meet the needs of agricultural operations.
Agricultural engineering, like all other branches of engineering uses scientific principles and technology to solve problems relating to sustainable agricultural production. Agricultural Engineers may perform tasks such as planning, supervising, and managing the building of dairy effluent schemes, irrigation, drainage, flood and water control systems.
Agriculture engineers may be involved in various places like in sales,marketing and servicing of farm equipment and agricultural implements, in designing and constructing farm buildings, in product planning, mechanizing procedures and crop storage and processing.
Agricultural engineering graduates have ample options in their hand. Apart from joining manufacturing industries they can also option for water resource management, forestry, mining and rehabilitation, food processing and many more. Agriculture engineer can also work in NGOs under various schemes and projects.
Engineers who are interested in research activities can become agricultural research scientists by joining in research organisations like Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI), Indian council for Agriculture Research (ICAR) etc.
Another career option for those who have good academic record is teaching and they can start as assistant/associate professors in agricultural universities and institutes. One can venture into business by setting up farms, production and marketing of food grains and other farming activities.
List of Universities offering Courses in Agricultural Engineering
Remuneration depends on the status of the industry and experience, qualification and ability of the employee. They can find job openings both in India and abroad.
A fresh graduate can expect a salary ranging between Rs.20, 000 to Rs.25, 000 per month. After two or three years of experience on good projects, one can earn upto Rs.30, 000 per month.
Those who are working with private organisations, MNC’s and NGO’s can earn a good amount. A lecturer in the field of agricultural engineering can earn an initial amount of Rs.15, 000 per month.
There are excellent job prospects in Agricultural sector for engineering graduates in India. The profession is now far from the traditional perception of the people towards agriculture.
Lucrative job prospects are available for qualified agricultural engineers in fields like:
Central and state government organisation and private firms recruit agriculture engineers as officers for the development of agriculture in a district. In farm equipment manufacturing industry, they design, develop and manage various types of agricultural related equipments. Postgraduate students can work as supervisors, distributors or they can start their own business.
Agriculture engineers in food processing industry perform some of the duties like Planning and construction of warehouses or godowns for the storage of food grains.
For Bachelor Degree Courses :
The basic eligibility criteria for BE/B tech in Agricultural engineering is 10 + 2 or equivalent with Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and preferably Biology. To get admission in good colleges and universities (such as IIT) one has to qualify entrance examination such as AIEEE, JEE etc.
The duration for BE/B tech is 4 years.
For Master Degree Courses :
For doing ME/M tech programs in agricultural engineering one should have completed BE/B tech in same discipline. For this purpose, one needs to qualify the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) examination.
