Skill India partners with Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare to empower rural youth through scalable skilling

For developing the skills of the rural youth and to increase their productivity, Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW) signed an agreement on 20^th March, 2018 in New Delhi. The MOU was signed in the presence of Shri Radha Mohan Singh, Hon’ble Minister for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, Hon’ble Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas and Minister for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, and Shri Anantkumar Hegde, Minister of State, MSDE. Hon’ble Secretaries of both the ministries were also present at the signing.  

Both MSDE and MoA&FW recognize the importance of providing employable skills to the youth, and to improve their livelihood. Under the MoU signed today, MSDE will identify job roles to attract rural youth towards agriculture sector, in order to fulfill their needs and aspirations.

The MoU has been signed for a period of five years, and it aims to encourage youth to undergo skills training on various vocations in agriculture, for lucrative wages or self-employment.

Highlights:

Speaking on the occasion Shri Radha Mohan Singh ji said, “Our Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has a clear vision of doubling the income of our farmers by 2022. Under his able guidance our government is working on aspects like reducing input costs; ensuring a fair price for the produce; reducing wastage; and creating alternate sources of income. Our partnership with Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship through its Skill India program will ensure that we empower our farmers and rural youth for the New India of our dreams”

Speaking on the occasion, Hon’ble Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas and Minister for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan said, “India is an agrarian country with around 70% of its people depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture. It gives livelihood opportunities to more than 26 Crore People and is still the largest employer for work force in India. The recent union budget emphasized on the importance of growth of farm sector by empowering youth in rural India. This will not be possible without scalable skilling. MSDE will partner with Ministry of Agriculture to support the 690 Krishi Vikas Kendras and ensure that the market relevant skills are imparted.”

“The new value chains, retail companies, supply chain, logistics players are creating large employment potential. There is massive expansion of Jobs and demand in various sub-segments viz. Horticulture, Farm Mechanization, Precision Farming, Dairying, Poultry, Fisheries, Cold Storage and Post-Harvest supply chain etc. and we need to train the youth to move towards these jobs. Agriculture involves multiple skills and there is an urgent need to upgrade skills of Wage workers, Farmers & Entrepreneurs. Skilling would not only ensure that agriculture becomes technologically and entrepreneurially attractive to youth but also meet the emerging demand of Para Professionals in Agriculture, Horticulture, Dairy, Poultry and Fisheries,” Shri Pradhan further added.

Key Points

1. To fulfill the objectives, both the ministries intend to use Training Infrastructure (TI) already established under Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare viz. NIAM, MANAGE, Central Farm Machinery Training Institutes, Central Poultry Development Organizations, Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) and other such Institutions to train the rural population.
2. The already-present infrastructure can be utilized for skill development and training in agriculture, horticulture, dairy, poultry and fisheries sector by Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare.
3. Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) will facilitate in setting up of Skill Centers to run the skill development programs sponsored by the MSDE at 11 selected KVKs.
4. MSDE will facilitate the MoA & FW, through Agriculture Skill Council of India (ASCI), for identification of new job roles and aligning the ongoing courses with the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF).
5. MSDE will also identify the State-wise, Sector and Sub-Sector wise skill gap analysis to find out the exact skill requirements of the State/Region, and will introduce new job roles related to Agriculture and allied sectors in rural areas through the ITIs network.

This collaboration between both the ministries would help in meeting the challenges of requirement of new kind of job roles in areas of e-auction for Agri market, Commodity exchanges, Precision Farming, Farm Advisory services through application of GIS & Mobile apps etc, Land Pooling, Contract Farming, Custom hiring, and newer technologies like use of sensors & drones for monitoring   and Robotics in harvesting, milking & aquaculture, etc.