Rural Markets and Agriculture

India has emerged as a major global economic power with the economy registering high growth rates in the recent past. Parts of India have started to display signs of affluence, but this progress has not even uniform. The rural regions have not been able to match their urban counterpart. Even with increasing urbanization and migration it is estimated that 63 percent of India's population will continue to live in rural areas in 2025.The development of rural India is essential for sustaining the Growth levels in the country. With agriculture being the primary employer of more than half of India’s population. However, in recent years, agricultural growth has dropped. The growth rate in agriculture sector investment and profitability, net sown area under crops and the area under irrigation have also dropped.

Agriculture being the mainstay of India’s economy, it is imperative that considerable efforts are made to extricate the sector from stagnation. Larger irrigation facilities better seeds and agri-inputs at reasonable costs will have to be provided to farmers. The access to improved inputs and technologies will have to be coupled with provision of finance infrastructure and marketing facilities. Agriculture needs to become an income producing activity and farmers should not be left to the uncertainty of weather, financial resources, and markets.

One of the key reasons for the stagnation of India’s agriculture is the falling productivity. Challenges with hard and soft infrastructure coupled with poor sources of information and financing have created a lot of distress in the sector. 2008-09 was the poorest year in the last 5 years, with the agricultural sector growing at 1.6 percent. Hurdles in the Agri-supply chain with respect to poor seed development, poor Crop selection and management techniques, inadequate irrigation and water conservation measures, poor cold chain and processing infrastructure, lack of research and development and poor extension of current technologies have resulted in wastages. Lack of basic infrastructure such poor roads inadequate education and healthcare facilities have also inhibited the growth of this sector.

Beside the transport, the state of infrastructure for horticultural produce as well as meat products leaves much to be desired. India has around 5000 cold storage facilities, of which 90 percent are privately owned. Nearly 80 percent of the cold storage facilities are accounted for by a single commodity namely potato. Addressing these structural challenges through innovative measures and technologies which effectively link production systems with processing and consumption an lead to self sufficiency in food as well as improvement in rural welfare.

In order to achieve this, we need to work on resolving some of the self-made Problems as well as build mechanisms to address external problems such as climate variability and erosion of natural resources. By analysing the various linkages in the agriculture value chain and identifying the challenges within each, we could come up with effective solutions. This could not only unearth new opportunities but could also transform these challenges into potentially profitable investments.

There is a need for new technologies, new organizational structures, new institutional responses and, above all, a new compact between farmers, technologists, scientists, administrators, businessmen, bankers and consumers. Hence, there is a need for creative and imaginative solutions that increase agricultural productivity, farm incomes, and food production and, at the same time, also contribute to greater purchasing power for the poor.

Akshay Jambhulkar

PGPABM I

2009-11

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