Dr. K. Nirmal Ravi Kumar (born February 1, 1969, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India), holding Master's and Ph.D. degrees in Agricultural Economics, has studied at Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU). He has a brilliant academic career with specialization in ‘Agricultural Marketing’ both in his post-graduate and doctoral programmes. Dr. Kumar joined ANGRAU in October, 2001 as Assistant Professor (Agril. Economics) and got promoted as Professor (Agricultural Economics) in 2013. He is actively involved both in agricultural research and teaching activities during the past 20 years in the University. He is the recipient of State Best Teacher Award-2016 from the Hon’ble Chief Minister, Government of Andhra Pradesh and ‘Sri Mocherla Dattatreyulu Gold Medal – for the best research worker in the Department of Agricultural Economics in ANGRAU, 2013’. During his tenure in agro-economic research, he analyzed the economic aspects of irrigation water management, impact of Government programs and policies, market participation intensity of small holder farmers etc. He also contributed towards prioritizing the research areas in major irrigation commands of Andhra Pradesh and need based technological interventions to address the same during his active stint in ‘Andhra Pradesh Water Management Project’, an international project funded by The Royal Netherlands Embassy. In the field of teaching, he teaches at every level from first year under graduate to postgraduate in Agricultural Economics. He was instrumental in introducing the use of smart devices (laptops) in the class rooms and during the past six years, the number of students using them jumped from about 50 per cent to 80 per cent. So, he combined digital technology with class room teaching. This prompted him to go for online teaching directly, so as to have personalized learning for the students. Even thinking skills were promoted among the students through conducting independent enquiry, creative thinking, reflective learning, team work, self-management and effective participation. He guided five M.Sc (Ag) students during his stint at Agricultural College, Bapatla and Agricultural College, Mahanandi during 2009 to 2015. He is also handled the responsibility of Associate Nodal Officer, in ANGRAU for coordinating the Workshop on Spoken Tutorial Project, of IIT-Mumbai since 2013. He conducted a workshop on behalf of Spoken Tutorial Project, IIT, Mumbai in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) – LaTeX (Test Code: TC-2436) at ARIS Cell, in Agricultural College, Mahanandi and all the students were found meritorious in this assignment. This made the Agricultural College, Mahanadi as the FIRST Agricultural College in ANGRAU to conduct and succeeded in the on-line examination. Dr. Kumar has written extensively and has to his credit 10 books, 9 research papers in international journals, 50 research articles in national journals, four practical manuals for all B.Sc (Ag) courses and 2 technical bulletins on economic aspects of irrigation water management.

Agricultural Marketing, Production Economics