College of Forestry, Vellanikkara

The Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India has identified the Kerala Agricultural University as one of the Institutions to start forestry education programme and accordingly, the College of Forestry was established in this University in 1986. Since then, the College of Forestry was functioning as a constituent college of the Faculty of Agriculture till 2012. However, considering the importance of forestry education, a separate Faculty of Forestry was constituted in 2012. The College presently is under this faculty.

Developing manpower resources required for the state’s forestry, agroforestry, non-wood forest products, wildlife sciences, wood science, and social forestry sectors, is the principal mandate of the college. To cater to this requirement, a four year B. Sc. (Forestry) degree programme was started in 1986 and a master’s programme just preceded that. Until 2013, 284 B. Sc. (Forestry) and 99 M. Sc. (Forestry) candidates have graduated from this college. For undertaking teaching and research activities, five statutory departments viz., Silviculture and Agroforestry, Forest Biology and Tree Improvement, Natural Resource Management, Forest Products and Utilisation and Wildlife Sciences were also established. Ph. D. programmes were initiated in the year 2010.

The college, over the years, has made steady progress on the academic and research fronts and has emerged as one of the leading forestry colleges in India. It has won several national level recognitions. Examples include the many ICAR-junior research fellowships awarded to the students of this college and a total of 31 of our alumni have been inducted into the Indian Forest Service/Indian Administrative service. Several of our alumni also have been awarded prestigious international scholarships (e.g., Erasmus Mundus fellowship of the European Union). Our faculty also have been getting many national and international awards and recognitions. In view of its accomplishments in the field of forestry, the college is a prominent destination for students interested in pursuing studies on nature conservation and natural resources management, not only from the state of Kerala, but also from the rest of India and other countries. The ICFRE accreditation team (2009) rated our college as one of the two best Forestry Colleges in the country (A** rating).

The college celebrated the silver jubilee of its founding in 2010-11. It is envisaged to transform the college into an international centre of excellence in tropical forest sciences in the ensuing years.