New Delhi: At a time when the Indian economy is showing negative growth in almost every sector due to the sudden rise in Covid-19 cases, agriculture emerged as the only sector with a positive growth of 3.4 per cent. The contribution of agriculture to the Gross Domestic Product also reached around 20 per cent during the year 2020-21 from 17.8 per cent in 2019-20.
Pandemic has not only affected the economy at large but also hampered the job sector. The unemployment rate in India reached around 13 per cent in June as per CMIE data. As the nation looks forward towards the revival while coming out from the shocker of the second wave of Covid-19, experts opine that agriculture is being seen as big hope with tremendous opportunities not just for the aspiring youth of India but also the trade sector.
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In an exclusive interaction with ETV Bharat, Chairman of Indian Chambers of Food and Agriculture, MJ Khan spoke on the growth prospects and opportunities in the sector. Talking about the growth that the agriculture sector delivered during the pandemic he said that finally, the realisation that nothing can work without food has been re-emphasized.
"The basic sector was long neglected because the other sectors like manufacturing, services and new technologies were growing at a much faster rate. During the pandemic when life came to a halt, many people came back to a normal life largely depending on survival strategy which was to have enough food and necessary medicine. This is when agriculture maintained its upward growth" said MJ Khan.
"While the long term average growth is between 1.8 to 2.4 per cent, last year during the peak time of Covid period the agriculture sector grew by almost three and a half per cent despite several restrictions amid lockdown. Not only that, the agriculture exports grew by 24 per cent which was unprecedented and never happened before. This has renewed a lot of interest of investors, career seekers and also the other industries in the sector but now they want to explore the opportunities in the agri-business sector," he added.
The kind of interest being shown by the educated class in the agriculture sector has also grown with the increasing growth percentage and increase in exports. According to Khan, this did not happen before mainly because traditionally the sector had a lot of disruption in the supply and demand chain with hardly any value addition.
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"Now that the trade is opening up in agriculture in a significant way, people are realising that they can enter the sector with innovative business ideas, plans, models and new technologies. They can create opportunities either by increasing efficiency or improving the supply and value chains. They can even participate in the Agri trade. So the importance of agriculture has been re-emphasized very significantly in the last one year"
As the new education session will begin and lakhs of students will be entering into the higher education sector which will shape their career and future, experts suggest that there is immense scope in agriculture education and youth should opt from a wide variety of courses being offered by around 105 national-level research institutions, 80 agriculture universities, 500 agriculture colleges and 15 agri-business management institutions.
For traditional courses, one can apply for universities and colleges and for careers in corporate and technology, colleges and institutions are offering a range of undergraduate and postgraduate level professional courses like agriculture engineering, veterinary sciences, Agri-Business management, fisheries and dairies etc.
"For best possible career opportunities, one can opt for a graduation degree from any of these colleges plus an MBA from top-notch institutions like IIMs, MANAGE Hyderabad, IRMA ANAND, NIAM Jaipur, CABM Pant Nagar, IABM Bikaner, NAARM Hyderabad and also private institutions like Imperial School of Agri-Business (ISAB) are offering professional degree courses in Agri-Business," said MJ Khan.
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Out of 80 agriculture universities in India, 55 are offering Agri-Business Management courses today. Experts opine that the entry of more and more educated professionals into the sector will not only help solve the problem of distortions but also help in value addition.
"This is the very idea of supply chain systems. So far there has been no value addition but only margins added by traders and middlemen at all levels. The educated class will address distortions while exploring opportunities for themselves. This will result in farmers getting better price and consumers paying reasonable prices. The government is supporting startups and FPOs. With a target of opening 10,000 new FPOs, there will be 2-3 FPOs in every block and around 20-30 FPOs in each district in the coming years. It will revolutionise the agriculture sector as the FPOs will work as business aggregator platforms from where farmers can connect with industry and markets. This has an outlay of Rs 5000 crores. All this will make agriculture much more profitable than what it is today, there is a huge opportunity in Agri trade as well" MJ Khan added.
