The National Agro Foundation Centre for Rural Development at Illeedu Village in Chengalpet district offers an excellent environment for training. The training center lies in the midst of a natural serene rural environment spanning across six acres. The center encompasses classrooms, exhibit halls, experimental farms, residential facility, open air theatre, and farm machinery center and other facilities. The facilities are best in the locality with well-equipped Class room and facilities like projectors, public address systems, and comfortable seating arrangements. The training centre at Centre for Rural Development is fully equipped to cater to the training requirements of various NGOs, Corporates and other development organizations. It is also acts as demonstration centre to showcase various agri technologies and agri inputs for farmers in the surrounding villages.
The training center is accredited as Nodal Training Institute for conducting Agri-Clinic & Agri-Business Center (ACABC) course by MANAGE (GOI) and Resource Institution training center for promoting FPOs by TNSFAC (GOI), NABARD etc.NAF has been empanelled by Tamilnadu Corporation for Women Development Limited (TNCDW.) for training Women SHGs members and SHGs federations. NAF is also working as a Technical Support agency for TNCDW for training of mahilakisans under MKSP (GOI Scheme).
Till date, the center has trained 73,118 farmers, 820 agri-preneurs and 112 Farmer Producer Companies. NAF has conducted 10 training programs for farmers from Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh on Lean farming technologies. Apart from this NAF has also trained 150 Officers from various Banks on Agriculture and Rural Development.
The facilities at the training center are flexible and technologically-advanced to suit various skill training activities. Dedicated team is working full time to build customized training material; Tailor made training programmes, documenting the project implementation and best practices from the project.
The centre also offers customized immersion programs for corporate employees to get a feel of rural India, through various voluntary programs and extension activities carried out in the project villages.
The following facilities are available at CFRD for use by development organizations, CSR partners and Corporates for immersion programs and exposure visits:
Training Hall - 2 nos with seating capacity of 100 each
Dormitories for Participants: 35 person capacity
Individual Rooms: 2 double bed rooms (4 person capacity for facilitators)
Dining hall facility: 30 people capacity
Demonstration Units: Azolla Unit, Vermi Compost, Organic formulation unit, Polyhouse, drip irrigation etc
Open Air theatre 60 person capacity