Palampur: Agriculture University is planning to involve rural youth to in agriculture. Prof. H.K. Chaudhary, Vice-Chancellor, CSK H.P. Agriculture University said that agriculture University will take effective steps to involve rural youth in agriculture.
The Vice-Chancellor asked the Deans and Directors to take steps to involve the youth, especially rural youth in agriculture. He said that efforts should be made to motivate youth with exact knowledge about agriculture, animal husbandry and allied avocations. Prof. Chaudhary said
“They need institutional back stocking and financial support to initiate farm-related avocations.”
The Vice-Chancellor said that many programmes at the national and state level have been initiated to involve youth in agriculture. The farm students were involved in rural agricultural work experience which has been transformed to a new student ready programme, Stand-up and Start-up programmes, Make in India, Skill India Mission, P.M. Kisan Vikas Yojna and many other entrepreneurship development programmes have been started to empower the youth.
Prof Chaudhary said that unless youth start earning more, they will feel discouraged. As attracting youth to agriculture is a buzz word so they need to be trained to job creators and job providers to others.
The Vice-Chancellor said that rural youth can be trained to be good extension workers, farm input suppliers, they can provide custom hire services for farm implements, etc. Some other areas where youth can be trained include conservation agriculture, protected agriculture, improved seed suppliers, certified nursery and quality flower growers, mechanization, post-harvest processing, micro-irrigation, labs for water and soil testing, organic certification, bio-fertilizer and bio pesticides suppliers for organic agriculture., agro-tourism, etc.
