Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal

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Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal
Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering Nabi Bagh Bhopal.jpg
Other name
CIAE [1]
TypeRegistered Society
Established1976;49 years ago (1976)
DirectorC. R. Mehta
Administrative staff
440 [2]
Location, ,
India

23°18′36.69″N77°24′17.68″E / 23.3101917°N 77.4049111°E / 23.3101917; 77.4049111
Website ciae.icar.gov.in

The Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering (CIAE) is a higher seat of learning, research and development in the field of agricultural engineering, situated in the lake city of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. It is an autonomous body, an Indian Council of Agricultural Research subsidiary, under the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmer's Welfare, Government of India. [3]

Contents

Profile

ICAR-CIAE was established on 15 February 1976 at Bhopal, with a view to provide a research platform for Agricultural Engineering. [4] The early mandate was to address the areas of farm machinery, post harvest technology and energy in agriculture. However, the range of activity was later extended to cover Agro-Industrial Extension, Instrumentation and Irrigation and Drainage Engineering.

Mandate

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Domesticated plants
A fruit and vegetable market Milan Vegetable Market.jpg
A fruit and vegetable market
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Abalone farm
A cotton picker at work. Baumwoll-Erntemaschine auf Feld.jpeg
A cotton picker at work.
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Rollover protection bar on a tractor
Tractor and chaser bin Ueberladewagen (jha).jpg
Tractor and chaser bin

CIAE was established with a mandate to: [5] [6]

  1. Undertake adaptive, applied and basic research leading to development / improvement of equipment, technology, process for production, post- harvest technology and processing and energy use in agriculture and rural industries.
  2. Develop hardware and technology in cooperation with other ICAR Institutes in the areas of crops, horticulture, aquaculture and animal husbandry for production and processing.
  3. Provide leadership and co-ordinate network of research with state agricultural universities for generating location-specific technology and value addition.
  4. Provide input to ICAR for policy interventions with respect to agricultural mechanization, energy management in agriculture, irrigation and drainage and post-harvest management.
  5. Provide consultancy and undertake sponsored research for agricultural machinery industry and other organizations.
  6. Act as a repository of information on agricultural engineering.
  7. Act as a centre for training in research methodologies and technology and conduct graduate, post-graduate and doctoral research programs.
  8. Collaborate with relevant national and international agencies in achieving the above objectives.

Facilities

Research laboratories

CIAE is equipped with various laboratories: [5]

  1. Tillage and Soil Dynamics
  2. Biochemistry and Microbiology
  3. Seeding and Planting
  4. Chemical Analysis and Quality Control
  5. Plant Protection
  6. Food Processing and Product Development
  7. Animal Energy
  8. Baking
  9. Material Testing
  10. Fermentation
  11. Ergonomics
  12. Pilot Plants
  13. Cleaning, Grading and Milling
  14. Bio-Fuel Energy
  15. Food Engineering Properties and Drying
  16. Mechanical Power
  17. Oil Extraction
  18. Irrigation Equipment Testing
  19. Food packaging, handling and storage
  20. Drainage Engineering

CIAE Research Farm

CIAE Research Farm covers an area of 92.66 hectares distributed for Crop cultivation, Orchards, Water harvesting ponds, Degraded waste land, Sports complex, Roads, Residential and non-residential buildings and a Meteorological observatory. The farm activities are divided into two sections namely Farm Production & Field Research Management Section and Landscaping, Gardening and Horticulture Section.

Research Workshop and Prototype Production Centre

The centre has a Prototype Production Workshop, equipped with machining, welding, grinding, press work, cutting and shearing, tool and die making and heat treatment facilities. The workshop is used for batch production of prototypes for multi-location trials and pilot introduction. CIAE has a Research workshop also catering to the needs related to fabrication of new designs of research prototypes and set-ups and refinement of existing designs.

Library

CIAE has a library which is open to the staff, extension workers and other university students coming under the MOU programs and is home to 11921 books, 4169 bound journals, 3405 reports/ bulletins, 98 CIAE publications, and 245 CD-ROMs. It is housed in an area of 5400 sq ft and subscribes to 135 journals, both Indian and foreign. It is also equipped with computer and related infrastructure. [4]

Prioritization, Monitoring and Evaluation Cell (PME)

PME Cell in CIAE is an NAIP program, established on 1 June 2007, with a mandate to:

Agricultural Knowledge Management Unit

AKMU is the management unit of CIAE on matters related to computers, networking and other areas of digital technology. It maintains the Information and Communication activities of the Institute through modern infrastructure and home developed and outsourced software. [4]

CAD cell

CAD Cell is staffed by personnel who oversee activities from production drawing to the stage of transfer of technology. The cell also provides training facilities on Computer-Aided Design.

Guest House and Trainees' Hostel

The institute also maintains a Guest House to accommodate 48 guests and as a Trainees' Hostel to house 32 trainees.

International Training Centre

The International Training Centre (ITC) at the Institute provides facilities for International training and Conferences. The centre has a conference hall and communication and accommodation facilities.

Courses

CIAE is affiliated to the Indian Agricultural Research Institute and is accredited Indian Council of Agricultural Research by the New Delhi for its MTech course in Energy in Agriculture. [7] It also extends its infrastructure facilities to students for research programs. [7]

Agricultural Technology Information Centre (ATIC)

CIAE is home to an Agricultural Technology Information Centre (ATIC), established in November 1999. The centre has a declared mandate to:

The centre is engaged in the distribution of un-priced and priced publications, the sale of seedling and planting materials, bio-fertilizers, processed farm products, soy food products, fish feed and Video Cassettes/CDs, providing information through Agricultural Equipment Display Center, exhibitions and manufacturers' meet and the collection of feedback and its transmission.

Research and development

Research and development activities at CIAE may be classified into three major heads:

  1. Technologies Developed
  2. Institutional Projects
  3. Externally Funded Projects

Technologies developed

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Hammer Mill

CIAE is credited with the development of several agricultural and related equipment. [8]

Institutional projects

CIAE has lined up a series of regular research projects where research fellows and students can participate. The below mentioned list gives a bird's eye view of the research activities at CIAE on a regular basis.

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Externally funded projects

CIAE has four types of externally funded projects.

NAIP project

CIAE hosts many National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP) projects.

  • Value Chain on Biomass based decentralized power generation for agro enterprises.
  • Precision farming technologies based on Microprocessor and Decision Support Systems for enhancement input application.
  • Efficiency in production agriculture.
  • Evaluation of X-ray, Computed Tomography (CT) And Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for detecting the internal disorders.
  • A value chain in major seed spices for domestic and export promotion.
  • Visioning, policy analysis and gender (Completed on 31/03/2012).

NICRA project

The National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) was inaugurated on 2 February 2011 CIAE as one of core institutes with Strategic Research, Technology Demonstration, Capacity Building and Sponsored/ Competitive Grants were the main elements of the project. CIAE hosts the researches on enhancement of resilience of Indian agriculture to climate change and climate vulnerability.

The following are the ongoing R and D activities at CIAE under NICRA project:

  • Adoption and performance assessment of agricultural machinery for resource conservation under permanent bed cultivation of soybean-wheat and maize-gram crops.
  • Development of spectral reflectance based prototype of variable rate urea application system for top dressing in rice and wheat crops.
  • Design and development of two stage furrow openers suitable for variable depth seed and fertilizer application in maize-wheat cropping system in central India
  • Development of pre-emergence herbicide strip applicator as an attachment to sowing devices for wide spaced crops.
  • Study of existing irrigation pumping system practices in Madhya Pradesh and suggestions if any for improving the performance.
  • Investigation on entrained gasification of agro residue for power generation.
  • Environmental impact assessment of different energy conversion processes for efficient utilization of surplus crop residues and Generation of bio-char from different crop residues.
  • Self-sustainable energy management of dairy farm through efficient utilization of dairy residues.
  • Demonstration and adoptive trials of conservation agriculture implements in selected village cluster of Madhya Pradesh state.

National Fund project

The National Fund for Basic, Strategic and, Frontier Application Research in Agriculture provides funding for various CIAE projects on the Use of machine vision for distinguishing among crop varieties. The research program aims to develop methodology for distinguishing among varieties/ germplasm of rice, Indian mustard, chickpea and okra using visible imaging and to optimize imaging and image processing parameters under visible spectral domain. Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, National Bureau of Plant Genetics Resources, New Delhi and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Kolkata participate in the project.

National Fellow project

ICAR has placed a National Fellow Project at CIAE on the subject, "Development of Soy and Multigrain based nutritionally balanced functional foods for children". The project aims to eradicate malnutrition in children by making cost effective nutritious and easily assimilated food available to children. The main focus of the project in on the use of seasonal, local, low-cost and abundantly available raw food ingredients having high nutrition and functional properties like cereals, coarse cereals and millets, soybean, dairy ingredients and horticultural produce.

The main objectives of the project are:

  • Development of cost effective nutritive functional foods with combination of locally available cereals, soybean, fruits, vegetables and dairy ingredients for children.
  • Analysis of the products for nutritional, safety, quality and consumer acceptability attributes.

Optimisation of ingredients and process parameters for preparation of ready to eat mixes, snacks specially designed for children.

  • Study of developed foods in selected districts through feeding trials on children.
  • Dissemination of the technology through trainings and entrepreneurial development.

Publications

CIAE has brought out many publications for students and general community. [9]

Research Publications

List of countries by agricultural output

Largest countries by agricultural output at market exchange rates according to IMF, 2014
Economy
Countries by agricultural output at market exchange rates in 2014 (billions in USD)
(01) Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg  China
973
(02) Flag of India.svg  India
337
(---) Flag of Europe.svg  European Union
332
(03) Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States
193
(04) Flag of Indonesia.svg  Indonesia
123
(05) Flag of Brazil.svg  Brazil
122
(06) Flag of Nigeria.svg  Nigeria
98
(07) Flag of Russia.svg  Russia
88
(08) Flag of Turkey.svg  Turkey
68
(09) Flag of Pakistan.svg  Pakistan
61
(10) Flag of France.svg  France
55
(11) Flag of Australia (converted).svg  Australia
55
(12) Flag of Japan.svg  Japan
53
(13) Flag of Mexico.svg  Mexico
46
(14) Flag of Thailand.svg  Thailand
45
(15) Flag of Spain.svg  Spain
44
(16) Flag of Italy.svg  Italy
43
(17) Flag of Iran.svg  Iran
43
(18) Flag of Egypt.svg  Egypt
41
(19) Flag of Malaysia 23px.svg  Malaysia
38
(20) Flag of Argentina.svg  Argentina
38
Rest of the World
1,966

The twenty largest countries by agricultural output at market exchange rates in 2014, according to the IMF and CIA World Factbook

References