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The iconic educational and farmers welfare Institute of South Gujarat, Navsari Agricultural University (NAU) with its headquarter in Navsari came into existence with the promulgation of Gujarat Agricultural University Act 2004 on May 1, 2004. NAU’s jurisdiction covers seven districts of South Gujarat viz., Surat, Navsari, Bharuch, Valsad, Narmada, Tapi and Dang. At present, there are seven Colleges imparting five bachelor’s, twenty seven Master’s and twenty one doctoral degree programmes. NAU has the following faculties: Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry, Agribusiness Management, Agricultural Engineering and Agricultural Biotechnology. Further, there are 25 research centres at 15 locations to carry out need based research on mandate crops viz., paddy, sugarcane, cotton, sorghum, small millets, mango, banana, sapota and vegetables. The NAU has extensive reach to the farmers and covers sprawling South Gujarat through its 5 Krishi Vigyan Kendras located at Navsari, Surat, Waghai, Vyara and Dediapada and Sardar Smruti Kendra, T & V and ATIC at Navsari to undertake dissemination of latest technologies to end users in seven districts of South Gujarat.
All the eight constituent colleges of NAU, Navsari are accredited by “National Agricultural Education Accreditation Board” of ICAR, New Delhi up to March 31, 2026. As per the “Ranking of Agricultural Universities” conducted by ICAR, the NAU, Navsari was ranked XXII (2016), IX (2017), XIV (2018), XLII (2019) XXXI (2020) during the last five years. Moreover, consecutively for last three years NAU, Navsari was also bestowed with 4 star rating by Government of Gujarat under GSIRF ranking. The NAU, Navsari is a cosmopolitan campus and during the year 2021-22, had admitted a total of 770 students including 434 students to undergraduate degree programmes and 336 students to postgraduate degree programmes. University also admitted 257 students in four diploma courses offered by seven Polytechnics.
The NAU has released 105 high yielding good quality varieties of various crops including 18 varieties of cotton, 20 varieties of rice, 9 varieties of sugarcane, 8 varieties of sorghum, 8 varieties of nagli, 4 varieties of pigeon pea, 4 of adenium, 3 each varieties of turmeric, vari, Indian bean and moong, 2 varieties each of niger and mango ginger, 1 each variety of cowpea, sunnhemp, little gourd, pointed gourd, castor, brinjal, tomato, malabar neem, urd bean, greater yam, sesbania, elephant foot yam and okra. Moreover, the NAU endorsed, 1 each variety of pigeon pea-Vaishali, sorghum- Phule Revati, rice- NAUR-1 (Aerobic condition), sweet potato- Bhukanti and soybean-Phule Agrani. The University also developed 681 technologies including 282 in the field of Natural Resource Management, 201 in Horticulture and Agro-forestry, 97 in Plant Protection, 48 in Agricultural Engineering, 44 in Animal Science, 8 in Basic Sciences and one in Social Science for benefitting farming community. Under Mega Seed Project, NAU has produced 66617 q of breeder, foundation, truthful and certified seeds, 69090 q of sugarcane setts, 100.55 lakh saplings of various fruits and vegetables, 25.44 lakh tissue culture plantlets of sugarcane and banana. Furthermore, NAU has also produced 8.00 lakh litres of different Biofertilizers & Biopesticides, 54,000 kg trichoderma, 2.50 lakh fruit fly trap, etc over last 16 years. The fruit fly trap (Nauroji Stonehouse Fruit Fly Trap) is enormously cost effective and a benefit of 81,840/ha could be achieved by spending merely Rs. 350/ha as per the estimate of 2009, which has further increased in the recent context. The Bamboo Resource Centre at College of Forestry has bambusetum having 34 bamboo species, bamboo nursery, bamboo preservations setup, bamboo workshop, bamboo based agroforestry model, bamboo based handicrafts viz., Bamboo Gate, Bamboo Fencing, Bamboo Wall Paneling, Bamboo Gazebo Bamboo Furniture, etc.
The research stations of NAU, received Best Performing AICRP centre on fruits (2016, 2020 & 2021), small millets (2017, 2022) and tuber crops (2018, 2020, 2021), IFS (2021) and sugarcane (2018). At present, a total of 18 AICRPs including 4 voluntary centers are operational at NAU.
The University library of NAU has received Best Usage of “J-Gate@CeRA” award (2018), Best CeRA Ambassador Award (2019) for West Zone by ICAR-CeRA. Further, NAU has eighteen boy’s hostels, thirteen girl’s hostels and one International hostel to accommodate more than 2500 students. University also has student amenities like indoor and outdoor sports facilities including a modern gym, auditorium, bank, post office and health centre.
On the extension front, university organized more than forty two thousand activities including FLDs, farmer’s day/field day, farmer’s Shibir, educational tour/field visit, farmer’s meeting/ Krishi goshthi, seminars/workshop for famers, on farm trials, veterinary clinical camps for benefitting farmers and farm women since its inception.
The NAU, Navsari has recently signed an International MoU with Accrued Gains Pvt. Ltd., Botswana and Novel Holding Inc., USA for the commercial scale production and marketing of Banana Pseudostem based Organic Liquid Nutrient “NOVEL” (internationally patented technology) in entire Africa and USA. Further this technology has also been licensed to forty one private firms so far.
Moreover, a World Bank funded and Government of India ICAR sponsored project under CAAST component of NAHEP entitled “Establishment of Secondary Agriculture Unit for skill development at NAU, Navsari for PG Students and Farmers” has been implemented since 2018. Under the project, university purchased advanced Equipment’s, Plant & Machineries for strengthening of existing units of the project and created state of art facilities at Post Harvest Technology, Forest Products Utilization, Forest Biology and Tree Improvement, Banana Pseudostem unit, Forest Quality Test Laboratory and Livestock Production Management. So far three existing units of CAAST are ISO certified with food safety management & quality management. At present eight entrepreneurs, more than 50 contemporary bamboo & wood products, 12 products from fruits & vegetables and two organic banana liquid nutrients from banana, four mobile applications, two web-applications developed under the aegis of NAHEP-CAAST sub-project. Based on the evaluation made by PIU, ICAR, New Delhi for the year 2021-22 NAU, Navsari stood 2nd amongst 14 SAUs/ICAR institutes at National level. At present, total of 10 Experiential Learning Units (ELUs) funded by Education Division ICAR are operating for imparting ‘Hands-on-Trainings’ and providing an opportunity to ‘Earn while Learn’ to UG students of various faculties. Further, Education Division, ICAR also provides NTS (UG & PG), Student READY stipend and PG fellowships to students admitted through AIEEA-ICAR.
(Dr. Z. P. Patel)
