Understanding the increasing potential of food and agriculture sector, an aerospace specialist has joined IIMA's two-year Food and Agri-Business Management (FABM) programme this academic session.

Harsh Dewra, 22, from Bhopal, who went to University of Manchester in 2012 to study aerospace engineering, has joined the 2017-19 batch of Post Graduate Programme (PGP) in FABM. 

Dewra, who was fascinated by space craft since childhood said, "I want to help distressed farmers using technology. They are the backbone of any county and in India, they are distressed. While this sector is the most underdeveloped sector, it also has lot of potential."

Dewra whose father is an MLA, said, "After two years at IIMA, I would like to help farmers using aerospace technology and innovation." Not only Dewra but there are several others from various backgrounds who have joined the PGP-FABM batch this year. A total of 46 students have taken admission out of which 23 (50%) are females.

The number is high as against 2015, when the percentage of female students was 39%. In terms of discipline, 25 students of this year's batch are engineers, 13 have science background, six come from commerce/management field and two from Arts faculty. Whereas, in terms of background, 18 are from biotechnology, seven from agriculture, four from food technology and 17 from other fields. "In my third year, I had developed drones all by myself. Living aboard, I realised drone analytics can help farmers to a great extent. It can help check stress level of soil and water propotion. In 2016, I returned to India and wanted to understand the management game of this sector," said Harsh Dewra, Aerospace specialist.