Catalog

This course explores gender and the different roles and perceptions associated with men and women and how these affect women’s ability to mitigate risks associated with climate change. The course will describe how women and children suffer the most from the impacts of climate change and will focus on women as food growers and producers. Examples of successful, women-led conservation projects will be shared as best practices and as methods for mobilising other family and community members in building resiliency and sustainable livelihoods.

Climate change affects all of us to varying degrees. Shifting weather patterns that affect food production, rising sea levels that increase the risk of severe flooding and extreme weather events — for example, heat waves, hurricanes, storms, floods and droughts — are all indicators of major climate change around the world. The environmental, social and economic impact is enormous, and vulnerable communities, especially women and children, are particularly affected.

This course explains climate change and its impact on human lives from a local context, including local trends in severe weather and the impact of climate change on livelihoods. It has a particular focus on agriculture, water and food security. The activities and readings will help you to anticipate the impact of climate change in your own context, examine policies that are relevant to your location and develop a relevant advocacy strategy. You will learn to identify key strategies for climate action such as mobilisation and community-based conservation, identify critical conservation issues in a local context and align various climate actions and policies to support conservation efforts.

Livestock especially ruminants play a significant role in global food security, rural livelihoods and economies of developing nations. They are providers of income and employment for farmers besides providing diverse range of products such as milk, meat, hides, wool, heat and energy.  The milk and meat from ruminants are also an important source of calories, high quality proteins and micro-nutrients. Under-consumption of animal proteins is linked to malnutrition and stunting with serious health outcomes globally. 17% of calories and 33% proteins consumed worldwide comes from animal sources. This necessitates to maintain good health of ruminants by adopting the best health management practices. Fluid therapy is an important component of management for many diseases that affect cattle and small ruminants. Dehydration and hypovolemia can occur due to decreased fluid intake or excessive fluid loss due to diarrhoea, haemorrhage, excessive salivation etc.

This agMOOCs course will enhance the knowledge and skill of the veterinarians across Asia and Africa to save animals and sustain productivity thereby enabling them to institute appropriate treatment protocol for the sick ruminants at field level thereby making the animal productive and enhancing the livelihood and increasing the economy of farmers.

Animal Husbandry is making a significant contribution to the national economy and socio-economic development of most developing and under developed countries. Dairying contributes significantly to the sustainable development goals proposed by the United Nations. The average milk production per crossbred and indigenous cow is 7.6 litres/day and 3.8 litres/day respectively in India. Currently the average coverage of Artificial Insemination breedable population is 28% in India. Dairy cows should calve once every year to maximize the production to have economic efficiency. Infertility among dairy animals continues to be major bottleneck in achieving this target.

Similar situation prevails in other Asian and South African countries. Practicing veterinarian can directly make a change in the livestock sectors by improving fertility in bovines. This series of lectures covers six topics of infertility problems faced by the field vets. This agMOOCs has focused all the aspects of managing infertility and its current approaches to the specific topics. Hence the vets across Asia and Africa can get benefited and make the difference in their performance in achieving greater fertility in animals to improve the farmers’ economy.

The course will cover economic importance, etiology, diagnosis and treatment of repeat breeding syndrome in cows. Anestrum – its types, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. Endometritis – types, incidence, etiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, therapeutic approach and prevention. Cystic ovarian degeneration – predisposing factors, classification, pathogenesis, clinical signs, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. Congenital and acquired defects – defects of ovary, oviduct, uterus, cervix, vagina and external genitalia, segmental aplasia of mullerian duct and hereditary forms of infertility. Estrus synchronization – principles, benefits, criteria for controlled breeding, synchronization using prostaglandin and progesterone and synchronization of ovulation.

Design Thinking is an introduction to the process of generating creative ideas and concepts. It aims at finding ways and intellect used by the designers in order to initiate the method to finally develop a robust and sustainable product. Agribusiness looks towards innovation to counter the pressures due to drastic variations in climate and population density. Design thinking in building agricultural equipment emphasize on understanding the needs of the customers, farmers, workers and machine operators, to convert the ideas through a usable approach to develop a problem-solving activity or machine. The current course covers the step by step procedure to make agricultural equipment.

Information and communication technologies have revolutionized the process of communication. Extension Education and Extension Service activities are largely involved in the dissemination of innovations among various stakeholders. Changing climate and other natural factors, widening extension worker to farmer ratio, farmers demand for specialized information services, etc. force the adoption of e-Mediated extension services. Since the beginning of ICT revolutions, experiments are being conducted to exploit the potentials and make its effective utilization in extension service mechanism. As a student of agriculture and allied sciences or as an extension professional it is essential to know the historical aspects of e-Extension, how the journey was made to arrive at the current status. Understanding the favourable as well as limiting conditions to exploit the potentials of ICTs for extension services are also essential for stakeholders. How education and extension services can be extended beyond the limits of four walls and in such exercises how information technology can act as a tool are the key issues. Development of appropriate content suitable for the specific stakeholder is the challenge for the agricultural researchers and extension service providers. Extension educationists are creating such platforms wherein professionals can come together and using IT tools provide e-Extension services to the communities. This is the video book version of lectures in the MOOC on the same topic.

Conservation Agriculture-based Sustainable Intensification (CASI) includes the adoption of zero or minimum tillage, combined with mechanised crop establishment, maintenance of ground cover, crop rotations and diversification and improved nutrition management. CASI based crop management practices improve crop productivity and profitability while reducing energy, water and labour requirements, and greenhouse gas emissions. CASI also contributes to the improvement of soil health and to the improvement of biodiversity and sustainable agricultural ecosystems which lead to improved rural households’ livelihoods.

Management of crop diseases caused by various phytopathogens needs proper detection and diagnosis of the causal agents. Adequate crop management strategies could be sorted out only when the actual causal agent is correctly established. The course is designed to discuss the approaches used for plant disease detection and diagnosis. Both conventional, as well as advanced molecular diagnostic techniques currently being used for plant disease diagnosis, will be discussed. Additional emphasis will also be given to discuss the recent advancements in plant disease diagnostics and special applications of diagnostic tools for the diagnosis of specific plant pathogens. Additionally, how plant disease diagnostics can help in the management of plant diseases will also be discussed. In short, the course is designed to present a clear picture of the concepts of disease detection and diagnosis; tools and techniques used for disease detection and diagnosis; special applications of plant disease diagnostic tools; diagnostic challenges; forensics of plants and microbes; and diagnostics in plant disease management.

Agricultural statistics training and instruction are crucial in improving global agricultural systems. Farmers and agricultural practitioners are now keen to prowess in research and learning in agricultural statistics and computer applications. Understanding recent statistical applications for descriptive and predictive analyses on yield and productivity is vital for their existence and this knowledge helps farmers make better statistical assumptions. This course explores to the industry key insights to develop a broader and deeper understanding and a strong comprehension of essential principles of data and statistics in agriculture, with an emphasis on used examples and possible impact.

This course will enhance the knowledge and skill of the veterinarians with recent updates through continuing education enabling them to implement appropriate treatment protocols and control of production disorders for the cattle at the field level thereby enhancing the livelihood and increasing the economy of farmers. Metabolic disorder or production disorder is most common disease entities in lactating dairy animals which leads to severe economic losses in terms of reduction in milk yield and impaired reproductive performance. Dairy production is challenged by the fact that 30 – 50 per cent of dairy cows are affected by one or more forms of metabolic or infectious disease at the time of calving. In cattle, metabolic diseases include Ketosis, Milk fever, Downer cow syndrome, Hypomagnesaemia, Post-parturient haemoglobinuria and Mastitis. These metabolic disease conditions are multifactorial and commonly occur due to high physiological stress or demand for nutrients with late pregnancy and early lactation being key period. Milk fever has been associated with threefold increase in risk of dystocia, uterine prolapse, retained fetal membranes, metritis, abomasal displacement and a nearly ninefold increase in clinical ketosis and Mastitis.

This course will benefit veterinarians to enrich knowledge and skill on sub-clinical and clinical form of metabolic disorders and measures for early diagnosis and management in cattle and small ruminants. This in turn will help to increase the economy of the farmers by saving the life of the animals, preventing the death of cattle from the diseases and by sustaining animal production / productivity.