When we conduct surveys, often we consult & take into account the views of Head of household, who is generally male & aged.This excludes the young & women who too has stake in agriculture, if not much now but surely they are the future farmers. Once we get their views on the problems and constraints and how they can be supported, then only we can develop policies which support their constructive engagments in agriculture, help them retaining in rural areas to avoid migrating to cities. Youth often find it exciting to work on value chains, rather than just primary production of agricultural commodities. In our youth mentoring programme, we found youth were more excited meeting agripreneurs compared to farmers doing routine farming activities. The agripreneurs were adding value to primary farm products by processing, packaging and handling marketing even online selling farm products. Many youth are now organizing themselves as Farmer producer groups and enjoy marketing farm products alongside producing farm commodities innovatively. There is need to bring changes in school curriculums to ignite young minds on modern farming practices including export orientations, we need more youth mentoring programmes, handholding to establish them into agribusinesses. We are currently supporting agri-startups, wherein, many innovative ideas by youths are being incubated in research institutions and universites. Young and women are taking lot of interest in agriventures, which gives positive signals for farming sector. Also, many youths with urban background, are now taking up agriculture, often giving up their high profile jobs. These are new role models for rural youths. Agriculture sector needs more glamour, we have to make it attractive to youth.
https://ypard.net/2017-09-11/make-agriculture-%E2%80%98cool%E2%80%99-yo…
https://ypard.net/testimonials/mentoring-rural-youth-make-agriculture-a…
Ms. jaya surya kumari manthena