Media (print, visual and digital) plays an important role in creating awareness among the public on the recent developments happening in agriculture and its associated sectors in the world. It is important that agricultural research institutions have to come together with the media for effective dissemination of their technology innovations, success stories and development initiatives to the farmers, policymakers and stakeholders. In this direction, the ICAR-Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture (ICAR-CIBA, Chennai) has conducted a Scientists-Media Interaction Meet on 15th September 2017 to discuss the means of increased engagement with media for communicating with the stakeholders. Correspondents from press, visual and digital media, agriculture magazines, postgraduate students of journalism from the city colleges and scientists participated in the programme.
In the technical session, Dr.K.KVijayan, Director, CIBA emphasized on the branding of the institute and its technologies and presented the impact of media coverage given by the press for taking the CIBA technologies to the public, farmers and entrepreneurs. He highlighted the role of brackishwater aquaculture in economic development of the country in terms of contributions to food, employment and prosperity, and emphasized that safe food and water requirement will gain prominence in the years to come and connectivity between the research institutions and media is important for popularizing R&D coming out of the research institution in the country. Further, highlighted the examples of achievements in seed production of Asian Seabass fish (Lates calcarifer) and milkfish (Chanos chanos), native shrimp (Penaeus indicus), development of vanamai plus feed for shrimp, mobile app (Vanami shrimpapp) on shrimp farming and diagnostic kits. CIBA director thanked the media for their continued support and opined that their sustained efforts on participatory mode with the research institutions would go a long way in achieving sustainable progress for Indian farming and farming community. During the interaction between media persons and scientists, it was emphasized that interpreting the technological information to farmer’s understanding in an interesting format, developing case studies of the technologies and converting the technological interventions into success stories in vernacular languages are very important to market the technology to the end-users.
During the inaugural session Shri.M.Annadurai, IIS, Director, Directorate of Field Publicity (DFP), Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, who was the chief guest, underlined that constant interaction between the scientific institutions and media located in a geographical area is important to know the felt needs of the society and taking the technological solutions available with the institutes to solve the field problems. Further, he added that market demand and supply and stiff competition among the media and the impact of social media are some of the issues to be understood while planning an institute-media linkage strategy. Dr.M.Kumaran, Principal Scientist and coordinator of the event briefed the catalytic role media can play in flagging off the issues to the policy makers and science popularization for public support and funding, balancing needs for sensational news for every day by the media. Dr C.V.Sairam, Principal Scientist and Scientist-in-Charge, Social Sciences Division of CIBA welcomed the gathering and Dr.T.Ravisankar, Principal Scientist and Scientist-in-Charge, Institute Technology Management Unit, CIBA proposed the vote of thanks.
