India has always been an agrarian economy, but the agricultural sector has long not been considered profitable in terms of money. The Green Revolution, which began around 1965, changed society's attitude by providing food security, increasing the productivity of the agricultural sector, reducing rural poverty through farming, double cropping, introducing HYU seeds, and increasing the use of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides.
However, the Green Revolution was not good, negatively affecting the environment, soil quality, and farmers’ health, leading to water-intensive irrigation methods. After the Green Revolution began, there was a boom in agricultural inputs such as inorganic fertilizers, pesticides, machinery, etc.
Various multinational companies also seized the opportunity and entered the sector. This transformation from agriculture to agribusiness paved the way for agriculture and made it a profitable industry. The transformation of agriculture into a business is also known as agripreneurship. It was not only an opportunity but also a necessity to improve the production and profitability of the agricultural sector.
This sector has attracted the interest of young people from rural and urban areas to create Agri-Start-ups. These start-ups differ from the large companies that have been operating because they not only provide goods and services to farmers but also have a connection with them. It is a new business model that Agri Start-ups have introduced. They sell their goods and services to farmers and create value for them by making farmers their business partners.
The Indian government is promoting Agripreneurship in a big way through its policies, programs, and regulations to encourage entrepreneurship and create an enabling environment that leads to self-employment.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare renamed the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana in 2017 as this program aims to make agriculture a remunerative economic activity. More than 5,000 projects have been approved under this program, and five knowledge partners and 24 agribusiness incubators have been appointed.
The program aims to improve the competitiveness of existing individual microenterprises in the unorganized segment of the food industry and promote the formalization of the sector.
The AatmaNirbhar Bharat Package, an agricultural infrastructure fund, was launched in 2020 under a major government program to provide long-term credit facilities for investment in the creation of post-harvest management infrastructure and agricultural community facilities.
As we know, the diversity of ideas is reflected in the different geographical conditions and soil profiles. Therefore, agricultural products such as AatmaNirbhar Bharat or Self-reliant India are based on the principle of maximizing potential.
The focus should be on promoting entrepreneurship among people in rural areas. They should have area-specific technical training programs because the success of the development strategy is the awareness it creates among all stakeholders to make Agripreneurs self-reliant through them to AatmaNirbhar.
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