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(GIST OF KURUKSHETRA) Skills for Agri-Entrepreneurship

[October-2022]

Skills for Agri-Entrepreneurship

Introduction:

The term “Entrepreneur” is derived from the French verb “Entreprendre” which means “to undertake”. In the early 16th century, the Frenchmen who led military expeditions were referred to as entrepreneurs.
Joseph Schumpeter (an Austrian Economist) in 1934 popularised the term Entrepreneurship and defined an entrepreneur as an individual who introduces something new in the economy.
Entrepreneurship is the process of identifying opportunities in the marketplace, arranging the resources required for pursuing these opportunities and investing the resources to exploit the opportunities for long-term gain.

Agri-Entrepreneurship

Agri-Entrepreneurship is imperative to transform agriculture into a more alluring and lucrative business venture as agriculture offers tremendous opportunities for entrepreneurship.
Agri-Entrepreneurship in agriculture should be sustainable, community-oriented, and directly marketed.
Agri-entrepreneurship has the ability to contribute to both social and economic development, including job creation, poverty reduction, improved nutrition, improved health, increased food security, and improving rural economy.
It is seen as a solution to the increasing burden on agriculture, generating employment opportunities for rural youth, preventing rural-to-urban migration, raising the national income and sustaining industrial development in rural areas.

Opportunities in Agri-Entrepreneurship

As a result of the WTO’s policy reforms along with the globalisation of agriculture as well as national policy reforms, the scope and potential of Agri-entrepreneurship have increased.
According to surveys, India’s total rural market is greater than its entire urban market, and it is essential for the development of the nation’s corporate growth plan.
With advanced technology and management, agribusiness has created several opportunities for agricultural product value addition, packaging, retailing, and exports.
Potential Agri-Entrepreneurship opportunities are as follows:

Agro-Produce Processing units
Agro-Produce Manufacturing facilities
Agro-Input Manufacturing facilities
Agro-Service Centres

Core Competencies and Skills for Entrepreneurs

Need for Achievement: Entrepreneurs should have a strong drive to succeed in their business and in life.
Visualisation: Entrepreneurs must envision creating a future for their business enterprises based on market demands, the socio-economic environment, and the technology environment.
Technical Expertise: Entrepreneurs must be knowledgeable in terms of technology, operations, finances, or market dynamics.
Innovativeness: Entrepreneurs must constantly seek fresh opportunities to expand their current company and come up with new ideas to solve various issues.
Independence: Entrepreneurs require independence in their job and decision-making instead of working according to general guidelines.
Risk Bearing Ability: Entrepreneurship is directly linked to risk. Entrepreneurs who take reasonable risks with help of preparation, skill development, and research outperform others.
Leadership Ability: Entrepreneurs must have exemplary leadership traits. They must possess good communication skills, decision-making skills, organizing skills and motivating skills.
Human Relations Skills: Entrepreneurs need to gain customers’ trust for their goods and services and they must also maintain strong ties with their employees to manage their business profitably.
Diligent: Entrepreneurs must be hard-working to manage a successful business venture.
Self-Confidence: Entrepreneurs must have faith in their abilities to face uncertainties.
Flexibility: Entrepreneurs need to be adaptable to shifting markets, trends, technology, laws, and regulatory frameworks, as well as shifting economic conditions.

Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS) in its Guide on Agricultural Entrepreneurship has listed different skills required by Agri-Entrepreneurship

Aligning business objectives with the value proposition
Identifying a value proposition that meets customers’ requirements and preferences
Situational analyses by collecting, arranging, analysing, and interpreting information
Diagnosing problems and finding pertinent causes
Evaluating and contrasting potential solutions to a given problem
Forecasting and estimating the work and time to execute jobs
Implementing, monitoring and evaluating activities
Selecting, designing, running, managing, and updating the agricultural production system
Planning on what and how to produce and making choices about the timing of production processes
Choosing and operating farm equipment and machinery
Designing the workflow from arranging inputs to the packaging of produce and sale of agricultural produce

Skill Development Initiatives

The organisations such as the National Institute of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (NIMSME), Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship (IIE), National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development (NIESBUD), National Skill Development Corporation, National Skill Development Agency and National Skill Development Fund have been engaged in training, consultancy and research to promote entrepreneurship and skill development.
NABARD has been a partner of the Government in implementing schemes for Agri-Entrepreneurship such as the New Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure (AMI) sub-scheme of the Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM), Agri Clinics and Agri Business Centres Scheme (ACABC), and National Livestock Mission – Entrepreneurship Development and Employment Generation (NLM-EDEG).