Agri Business Incubation (ABI) of ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR), Bengaluru organized one day training on Entrepreneurial Opportunities in Mechanization of Horticultural Crops on 21.12.2023. Dr .M. Pitchaimuthu, Principal Scientist & Nodal Officer, BPD Unit, ICAR IIHR welcomed the dignitaries and the participants. Dr. Manjunath,B. L. Nodal Officer, ITMU explained about the activities of licensing of horticultural technologies and other related information to the trainees and Dr S.K Singh, Director, ICAR-IIHR has chaired the Inauguration and valedictory session in his remarks highlighted the skills of machineries used in horticultural crops and utilize the knowledge of scientist and gov't schemes. He stressed on the importance of practicing the learnt aspects as it will provide the knowledge on machinery that is helpful in the horticulture area. Dr. Senthil Kumar R., Nodal officer, TSP and Division of Social Science and Training, explained about the importance of entrepreneurial development program and gov't support to increase the entrepreneur ecosystem in the field of horticulture. Dr. G. Senthil Kumaran, Course Director highlighted the topics of training. Training schedule included series of lectures such as mechanization in production of horticultural crops, machinery for processing of horticultural crops, basic design and construction of poly houses, basic requirement to setup a machinery fabrication workshop. Participants also visited the machinery workshop developed by IIHR for horticultural crops and visited BESST-HORT to know about processing machineries for fruits and vegetables. Technical sessions were conducted by Course –Director, and Course co-Directors Dr. A. Carolin Rathinakumari, Dr. S. Bhuvaneswari and technical staffs from Division of PHT & AE.Training was designed in such way that participants should gain practical knowledge and experience about scientific way of construction poly house, harvesting, grading, preserving and processing of horticultural crops. Among 24 participants from different parts of the Southern States, twelve participants were sponsored by SCSP and TSP project of Institute. The training materials included technical presentations with the distribution of certificates to the participants.
