Kerala Agricultural University

The College of Agriculture, Vellayani was established in May 1955 and continues as the Centre of undergraduate and Post Graduate education. The institution was set up in the palace building belonging to the royal family of erstwhile Travancore State. Within a few years, the College was sufficiently strengthened to claim parity with any other leading Agricultural Institution in India. Postgraduate programmes, leading to M.Sc. (Ag.) and PhD degrees were started in the college during 1962 and 1965 respectively. Simultaneous development of the College farm provided field facilities for giving adequate work experience for the B.Sc.(Ag.) course and for conducting research for M.Sc. (Ag.) and PhD students. When the Agricultural University was established in Kerala in 1972, the College of Agriculture, Vellayani had grown up adequately to form the major constituent of the University. With the inclusion of this institution in the Agricultural University, agricultural education and research in the state underwent tremendous changes and development. The `trimester' system of teaching with `internal evaluation' was introduced in the University and it emerged as a novel ideal system in the field of agricultural education. Now the teaching is done under the related `semester system'. The College of Agriculture, Vellayani has now become the nerve centre of agricultural research and education in the Southern State. Much stress is being given at the undergraduate level to train the students in all the farm operations. They have to raise all the important crops of the State in small plots on the college farm under the `work experience' programme. In the final year of the course, they are given intensive field training in the Krishi Bhavans of the Department of Agriculture and in the Research Stations of the University where they get proper exposure to the practical problems in agriculture. This makes the students fully competent to face field problems in their future official careers.