Saravanan Raj
| Organization | National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE) |
|---|---|
| Organization type | Government/Bilateral Organization |
| Organization role |
Director (Agricultural Extension)
|
| Country | India |
| Area of Expertise |
Agricultural extension, private extension, institutional pluralism, ICTs, Social media, Digital Agriculture, Agri-Startups and Agripreneurship
|
|
Dr. Saravanan Raj is a Director (Agricultural Extension) at the National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE), Hyderabad, India. Present job responsibilities are; leading MANAGE Centre for Agricultural Extension Innovations, Reforms, and Agripreneurship, MANAGE AC&ABC Incubation Centre and implementation of Agri-Clinics and Agri-Business Centres (AC & ABC) in across India. He also Director of the Internship Programme for the M.Sc/ Ph.D students of Extension Education at MANAGE. Organizing training programmes on e-Extension, mExtension, Agricultural Innovation Systems and Extension PLUS and also workshop for the capacity development of extension professionals. Responsible for the editing and publication of “Extension NEXT”, “Agripreneur" bulletins, Programme Director for the MANAGE Young Agricultural Extensionist Programme (MYAEP), or manage30 and also for the MANAGE-University alliance for advancing agricultural extension and advisory services. |
Dr. Saravanan Raj, earlier working as an Associate Professor (Extension Education and Rural Sociology), Central Agricultural University, Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh, India. for almost 14 years, he was handling prime responsibility of B.Sc (Agriculture.)/(Horticulture)/ (Forestry), M.Sc (Agril.) & Ph.D in Agricultural Extension teaching and research in agricultural extension discipline and also co-ordinating field extension educational activities among the marginal and small land holding tribal farmers of North-East India.has specialization in the area of ICTs for agricultural extension, extension reforms, privatization, institutional pluralism and innovations, and related policy issues. In 2006, he was awarded “Netherlands Government Fellowship” and undergone the “Advanced Course in Up-scaling Participatory Approaches and Social Learning”, at Wageningen International, the Netherlands. His publications include four books on “Agricultural Extension: Worldwide Innovations” (2008) and “ICTs for Agricultural Extension: Global Experiments, Innovations and Experiences” (2010), ICT for Agriculture and Rural Development (2011), Mobile Phone for Agricultural Extension: Worldwide mAgri Innovations and Promise for Future (2014) and 45 articles in the referred scientific international and national journals, books and proceedings. He was successfully implemented three innovative e-Extension projects; e-Arik (e-Agriculture), e-Village and e-AgriKiosk along with traditional extension approaches in one of socio-economically and geographically disadvantaged Arunachal Pradesh state of North-East India during 2006-2012. Mobile based Agro-Advisory System in North-East India (m4agriNEI) is an innovative mix of mobile, web and IVRS applications along with the integration of Tele- Centres and conventional extension methods based farmer specific agro-advisory system was implemented since June, 2012 in Meghalaya state of North-East India.