Agricultural engineering is the engineering discipline that applies engineering science and technology to agricultural production and processing. It is an interdisciplinary field which requires combined concepts of various subjects. Agricultural engineering combines the disciplines of animal biology, plant biology, and mechanical, civil,
electrical and chemical engineering principles with knowledge of agricultural principle.
Scope in India and abroad:
This is the subject with tremendous scope in all over the world, especially crop producing countries like India, China, USA, Brazil, Australia etc. Life science and crop production based industries are in high demand in Indian peninsular. Due to high demand and supply gap, requirement of increasing the crop production/hector is on
high demand. Therefore, extensive use of agricultural engineering techniques and well trained professionals are in demand. Similar issue is there in countries like Australia and USA.
IARI in India is having number of Institutes along with CIAE, Bhopal and several Agricultural Universities where students are being trained up to doctoral and postdoctoral level and scopes of entering the agricultural industry is quite promising.
Choosing specialization:
As an interdisciplinary subject choosing a specialized area is of immense importance. One can choose biology oriented disciplines which include plant biology, molecular biology, animal husbandry associated subjects or a student can choose core engineering stream such as mechanical, electrical, civil related discipline as
specialization. The former biology related sections are more towards research related where genetic, physiological and molecular biological issues are been taken care of and further research can be pursued to improve the quality of the crop and handling molecular aspects for pest managements. The later engineering section is more
towards product development such as mechanical devices, electrical and electronic devices, land management related to harvesting, post harvesting, processing, preservation and all. Person who is not much interested in pursuing research and would like to join a fast growing and ever demanding industry to develop new devices for
agricultural growth should choose the engineering specialization based on their interest in mechanical, electrical, civil etc.
Recruitment for this stream could be found in several international famous companies such as Murphy Brown LLC, A.G. Sunseeds Pvt. Ltd., Advanta India Limited, Agro Biotech, Balaji Seed Pvt Ltd, Bhakti Biotech Pvt. Ltd., Daftari Agro Private Limited, Nath Royal Ltd, Proagro Seed Company Ltd, Sunseeds India Private Limited, Indo American Hybrid Seeds (India) Pvt. Ltd, Novartis India: Seeds Division, Namdhari Seeds (Pvt) Ltd, Century Seeds Pvt. Ltd, Indo – American Hybrid Seeds (India) Pvt. Ltd etc.