MBA In Agriculture Management Has The Potential To Change Farming Environment

The job market has increased as agricultural goods have been more industrialized, food processing firms have grown, and organised retailing has become more organised. In 2021, India's agriculture sector and allied product exports were estimated to be worth $41 billion. Agricultural activity takes up around 43 percent of India's total geographical area.

According to The Economic Times, India's agriculture export basket amounted for 2.5 percent of global agricultural commerce in 2021. India's agricultural exports to ASEAN nations, on the other hand, accounted for 8.56 percent, according to the India Brand Equity Foundation. Such a large volume of activity in the agricultural sector needs a large pool of qualified personnel to support various positions in the operations, marketing, and supply chain of agriculture-related enterprises.

MBA Education Is Undergoing a Transformation

The first phase of MBA education in India provided the way for students to pursue careers in traditional areas like marketing, finance, and human resources. Business organisations, on the other hand, have evolved to become data and technology-driven, forcing B-schools to make a paradigm change in their programmes from traditional to technology-enabled. Meanwhile, the increasing industrialization of agricultural goods, the expansion of food processing enterprises, and the emergence of organised retailing have generated a significant amount of room for students pursuing MBA specialisations in Agriculture Management.

Agriculture Is A Relatively New Field

To ensure robustness, most MBA in Agriculture Management programmes begin with core management courses. Then there are current electives that cover a variety of functional areas relevant to agriculture and the industrial ecosystem that surrounds it. Students are industry-ready because of the confluence of basic managerial abilities and industry-specific information. Functions such as agro product marketing, supply chain management, distribution management, Warehouse Management, Rural Marketing & entrepreneurship, and agricultural goods and material procurement will assist students in establishing challenging careers in agriculture and related industries, which are expected to grow rapidly in India over the next decade.

Institutes that provide Agriculture Management can broaden the program's reach beyond the traditional curriculum by incorporating new technology. Contemporary value-added programmes such as Analytics for Rural Development, Smart Warehousing for perishable stock, Micro-Financing, collaborative buying, and others would provide graduates with additional learning opportunities and job alternatives.

Demands Are Increasing

Manufacturers and marketers of contemporary agricultural equipment, farming-related products, and services continue to grow their businesses, despite a scarcity of competent resources in this field. In addition, sectors including dairy (marketing and distribution), leather processing, and textiles want MBA graduates with industry-specific knowledge who can help with backend operations like procurement, quality management, and supplier management.

The cooperative societies are one sector that the institutions have utterly disregarded. Companies like Amul have recently begun to grow outside their traditional regional bounds. The expanding breadth of operations for a corporation like Amul need additional human resources in supply chain and distribution.

According to the Economic Survey 2021, India's overall processed food export value in 2020-21 was Rs 43,798 crore (about $6 billion). By 2025, India's processed food business is expected to rise from $260 billion in 2020 to $470 billion. This reflects the industry's rising scale and the opportunity it provides for professional and certified human resources in this field.