Urban dwellers will get an opportunity to connect with the University of Agricultural Sciences-Bengaluru as the UAS-B Alumni Association is organising short-term digital training and specialised talks on a wide range of subjects for people from urban and peri-urban areas.

The Alumni Association, which comprises experts from agriculture and allied sectors, will offer digital training in 22 subjects ranging from balanced nutrition for healthy living to wine-making and from management of indoor plants to Bonsai.

The wide range of subjects for training include importance of medicinal plants, importance of fruits and vegetables in human diet, home made bakery products, maintenance of landscape garden, mushroom cultivation, kitchen garden, bee keeping, gulkan-making and management of pets. Preservation of fruits and vegetables, rat and household pest management, caring of coconut trees in home garden, millets and their uses for a healthy life are also among the subjects.

According to Association President Dr. K. Narayana Gowda, any person can register himself for this course, which is being offered free of cost. The participants will get a certificate from the Association.

They have to register through a Google form (https://forms.gle/cXtQH825ZN11hC1X6) and indicate their subject of preference. The Association will inform them about the training schedule and their meeting ID, he said.

Course directors Dr. P.K. Basavaraj (9449152884) and Dr. Saralakumari (9611567094) can be contacted for clarifications.

Dr. Gowda told The Hindu that the Association had decided to particularly focus on urban dwellers as the university had always been reaching out to farmers through its frontal organisations like Krishi Vigyan Kendras and extensive network of specialists. “But for an occasional workshop or talk on urban gardening, we have not shared our expertise with urban dwellers. However, a large number of urban dwellers too are interested in some of our research subjects. Hence we decided to reach out to them,” he says, while pointing out that specialists in different fields would handle the courses.

In the second phase of the digital training, the Association is thinking of utilising the services of final year students from related subjects in the UAS-B or its graduates to physically reach out to participants in terms of supplying seeds or any other material required.

“For example, if somebody wants to grow mushrooms, we are thinking of getting our students and graduates to supply them at the prescribed or a nominal rate so that urban dwellers can actually benefit from our technologies,” he said.

Interestingly, 58% of persons, who have registered for the courses, have opted for importance of medicinal plants followed by kitchen gardening (52.3%), indoor plants’ maintenance and balanced nutrition for healthy life (both 50.7%). Twenty per cent have opted for management of pets.