Attracting and Retaining Youth in Agriculture in Maharashtra & Gujarat

The ICAR-Agricultural Technology Application Research Institute, Pune organized a Review Workshop on “Attracting and Retaining Youth in Agriculture (ARYA) for KVKs of Maharashtra and Gujarat” at Kolhapur.  

The Chief Guest, Dr. K. Narayan Gowda, Former Vice-Chancellor, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru accentuated to identify the willing rural youths, empowering them for taking up the various agricultural and allied sector enterprises, orienting towards entrepreneurial skill development for sustainable income and gainful employment. He expressed his concerns on less interest of rural youths in agriculture. He stated that making farming as a profitable area is a more challenging task. He urged to fill up the vacuum of farming in the rural areas. Dr. Gowda urged for identifying the enterprises as per locality’s’/villagers’ demands, required inputs and market. He also opined for exploring the financial support from the other agencies for the sustenance of the enterprise.

Dr. Lakhan Singh, Director, ICAR-ATARI, Pune urged the Krishi Vigyan Kendra experts for developing the entrepreneurial skills among the identified rural youths. He urged the rural youths to be vigilant about the market demands, visualize calculated risk, choosing right enterprise, building confidence, quality products, etc., for profitable employment.

A total of 11 ARYA Centres (Nagpur, Rajkot, Osmanabad, Bhavnagar, Pune, Kheda, Washim, Navsari, Sholapur, Anand and Nasik) presented their Progress Report for the Year - 2019-20 and Action Plan for the Year - 2020-21.