As part of the Agrilinks 10-year anniversary, we are celebrating with testimonials from some of our top users. Read on to hear from Mahesh Chander, a joint director of extension education at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute. The following is a transcript of a 10-year anniversary video series. The full video can be played at the bottom of the page.

Hi, I’m Mahesh Chander. For almost 30 years now, I have been working as an agricultural specialist in India. 

My association with Agrilinks goes to since it came into being, almost 10 years back. I’ve been associated with Agrilinks since its inception, you could say.

My association with Agrilinks has been very rewarding for me, because I have benefited from a lot of content related to my work it publishes. 

To someone who doesn’t know much about Agrilinks, I can say that it is an online platform with a lot of professional content related to agricultural development, food security, nutrition security, gender issues, youth, agriculture extension services. Likewise, anything that relates to agricultural development — almost everything is covered under the content profile of Agrilinks, and all of this content is regularly published online.

It is an online community which caters to the need of development professionals like me. 

If somebody asks me, “In what way Agrilinks has been helping you?” I would say, then, that when I teach or train, all the content which I happen to read through on Agrilinks, that becomes a part of my content delivery. When I interact with my students, I can give examples from the global level which are published on Agrilinks. I can share this content with the students, all the trainees, and that will help in their capacity building. They get, also, motivated to read the new content — how to be creative in problem solving. 

So, this is the beauty of being associated with professional platforms like Agrilinks. 

I not only read Agrilinks for the articles, but I also write myself for Agrilinks. I wrote almost 7 blogs in all these years, on animal issues, food and extension, corporate social responsibility and all different issues which I have been working on and I thought I should share. This is something unique. And Agrilinks regularly publishes this content. 

Agrilinks not only published my content, it was carefully edited with professional editing support. And one other important thing about Agrilinks is that it doesn’t take much time. Generally when I submit today, within a week that content gets published. 

It gives a lot of satisfaction to me that Agrilinks thought of publishing the content because they found it very unique, very creative, very innovative and my article could find a place on the Agrilinks platform. 

So the way I have been using the Agrilinks platform for my professional development, and all of you can also think of not only reading the content on Agrilinks, but also publishing for Agrilinks a number of blogs sharing your work. 

So, if somebody says, “What are the major problems the world is confronting?” what I feel is, still many farmers are using poor quality seeds, they are not having good farm implements, they are also using inefficient irrigation systems and irresponsible use of chemical fertilizer, there is not a balanced use of chemical fertilizers. Their plant production mechanism is also very poor in much of the poorer world. So, these things, if you are able to ensure good quality seeds, good farm implements, balanced use of fertilizers, good use of irrigation, making irrigation systems very efficient, availability of the plant products and mechanisms for pests and weeds and all these things, agriculture productivity can be improved significantly. 

Once agriculture productivity is improved, then it will improve the food security scenario and generally we will also think about nutrition security, because in the last 10 years, that shift has taken place from food security to nutrition security. It has become more important, because many people are suffering from stunting, anemia, wasting, especially in developing countries including India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and in these countries there is a big issue, not only with food security. Food availability is there, but nutrition security is still missing. So these are the new challenges which Agrilinks can effectively meet by sharing innovative content and problem solutions.  

Agrilinks content is generally solution-oriented. It doesn’t only talk about the problems, it talks about how these problems can be tackled. So that is one good thing about Agrilinks, I have found that they are solution-oriented. They provide solutions. We need solutions in order to improve the food security scenario, the nutrition security scenario, to work on the poverty in the world, we need to be solution-oriented. And, fortunately, Agrilinks is solution-oriented. 

Agrilinks is celebrating 10 years of its existence. I’ll say happy 10 year anniversary to Agrilinks. And I wish that Agrilinks keeps on serving the farming community, humanity, the way it has been serving, with even more rigor. 

So, once again, happy 10-year anniversary. And finally, I will describe Agrilinks as, in a single word, it is innovative. It is creative. But in just one word, it is innovative. And it must remain innovative to tackle the problems and challenges this world is facing. 

Happy 10-year anniversary to Agrilinks, once again. Thank you.