The future is green for agri graduates

Agriculture sector, which changed its outlook from a mere production driven machinery to a market driven enterprise, holds a great promise for the rural India and hence for the future of India. More than fifty percent of the total retail market in India is held by rural retail. The growth of rural retail market has even outpaced that of the urban market and, the corporate sector which once used to shy away from investing in agri sector, is today vigorously competing to invest and be a part of the over all rural growth story. Though the sector is booming with opportunities, the most pertinent issue of maintaining productivity and quality remains largely unanswered and unattended to. This sector is in need of a total revamp in terms of skilled and qualified manpower. The growing agribusiness sector has the potential of accommodating a number of job opportunities which can only be catered more efficiently by students with agriculture sciences background.

The government’s gradual withdrawal from the production scene and the entry of private sector has thrown open several opportunities for the agri graduates. The involvement of private sector, in the beginning was mostly with the input industries such as fertilizers, seeds, pesticides etc. But today many leading private banks have increased their share of rural banking and so did many micro finance institutions. Thus the opportunities for the candidates with agri background in this sector have been on the rise. There is likely to be good growth in rural credit industry, as now concepts like Kisan Credit Cards, online input purchase crediting systems etc. are getting in place as also the general growth in demand for credit due to variety of facts. Apart from the conventional job opportunities, now the agri graduates are more likely to encounter more challenging and demanding jobs that too in many unlikely areas. Several Key areas such as IT, biotechnology, food processing, cold storage, agriculture Supply chain management among many others are offering tremendous opportunities. The growing presence of NGOs and other developmental organizations in the rural scene have created many opportunities where the agri professionals can prove their mettle in addition to traditional roles like research, education and extension. KPOs in agriculture are the new developments, offering exciting job opportunities, albeit in limited numbers.

Although the agriculture sector has attracted attention from the government as well as the private sector, not much attention has been paid to improve the agri education system. When the reforms are talked about in education sector, it stops short by engineering and medical sciences. While the significance of agriculture is widely acknowledged, the agriculture education has never been of any interest to any ruling parties. The future of India is definitely going to need more and more skilled and educated agriculture personnel. But by the time the actual need is realized, the country is going to face a serious dearth of qualified individuals. The young talent does not see this stream of education exciting enough. There is not only a decline in the students opting for agricultural sciences, but also there is a conspicuous exodus of the agriculture and more importantly agribusiness graduates to other fields such as consumer industries. The current mode of agriculture education should take into account various factors like employability, farmers' aspirations, market demands, industrial needs, modern realities, challenges and opportunities. Several newer courses must be added into the curriculum such as environmental sciences, precision farming, meteorology, GIS, agricultural marketing agribusiness management, international trade, post harvest technologies, project management, value addition, remote sensing, disaster management, sustainable agriculture, natural resources management, ICT,IPR etc. The only visible change that has taken place here is the emergence of Agribusiness management as a sought after discipline. Corporatisation of agriculture has fuelled the growth of this agri domain. Today several reputed business schools have propped up and several state universities have started this line of education.

The near future will see more educational institutes in the agribusiness sector coming up to cater to the increasing demand for trained professionals. The state universities, the conventional machinery churning the maximum number of agri professionals should also be renovated with sufficient enhancements and amendments to their archaic curriculum. With trade and agriculture getting globally integrated in post WTO scenario, the global opportunities are awaiting Indian agri professionals.