Importance of Management Education in Agriculture Sector

Introduction:

India is an agrarian economy and agriculture is considered as the backbone of our economy. In India, Agriculture has been practiced since ancient times, when other developmental sectors were not even in existence and farming was mostly treated as a life sustaining activity. Today, Due to the impact of globalization; production and marketing have become the buzz words in agriculture sector; biotechnology, precision farming; and various hi-tech and mechanized techniques have resulted in paradigm shift in agriculture.

Over and above, education plays a prime role in achieving the development in any sector. Currently, agribusiness education is one of the promising qualifications helps to mould the personnel in to potent managers having managerial expertise. To realize the real potential in Indian agriculture and to grow it to the point of a prospective sector, it is necessary to manage the sector like a professional enterprise.

Need, importance and scope of agribusiness management education:

Agriculture has achieved satisfactory growth since last few decades, but presently due to various national and international factors the agriculture growth is relatively stagnated. The up gradation is needed right from harvesting the agriculture produce till it reaches to consumer level. Majority of farmers and small entrepreneurs are not well about standard practices required during pre-harvest and post-harvest operations, which plays a vital role in overall productivity. On the other side to many middleman in marketing channel are major cause of concern. As a result of this, the farmer who is the key performer in farming is not getting possible return to his produce. Consequently overall distortion in marketing channel and high price to final produce adversely affect on cost competitiveness. In addition to this growing population has resulted into global disparity between market demand and supply side of agricultural produce. Thus special consideration is required on proper management practices, redusing raw material wastage at farm and processing level, effective marketing strategies like advertising, positioning at national and international level etc. Finally proper management of all the agribusiness activities right from planting the seed to getting the actual reward at market place is required. These issues are expected in agriculture sector which certainly has hidden potential of creating second wave in agriculture revolution.

Potential in agribusiness education :

Agriculture is the foundation of Indian economy. It provides food for the mankind and raw material for the industry. India has suitable climatic and geographic condition favourable to agriculture growth and undoubtly agriculture will always be an indispensable sector of Indian economy. There is need to divert knowledgeable experts and dynamic manpower to the rural area to manage the agricultural land effectively.To shape the Indian agriculture into commercially viable entity, there is vital need to inculcate the spirit of enterpreneureship, and only then agriculture can become a major contributor to the nation’s gross production. By the involvement of corporate sector, agriculture field can shift from merely the stage of self sufficiency to profit gaining enterprise which will result in overall development development of Indian economy. Management education surely help in developing trained personnel to cater to the agriculture industry and by creating such dynamic workforce India will certainly become the leader in agriculture.

Akshay Jambhulkar

PGPABM I

2009-11