Agri startups
http://www.scholarshipsinindia.com/agriculture.html
The above URL gives the supposedly complete list of Agricultural colleges/universities in India. It’s less than hundred as one can see.
This is the maximum possible educated manpower that is provided to a sector that feeds approximately 50% of this country’s population. I say maximum possible because, of these, a substantial number of these students might probably end up doing Phd, some would enter the civil services, some might take up jobs with titles like Agri-marketing where slowly the Agri- part would vanish and the guy will be selling soaps by Hindustan Unilever in rural areas. And i am not even talking about sectors like software. I know at least one Agri graduate who is into software.
In contrast, Tamil Nadu alone has above two hundred engineering colleges.
I get the point that there are so many engineering colleges because of the demand from the Industry. But what have we done to stoke productivity in Agriculture? Loan waivers are actually detrimental to the development of the sector in the long run. I think the government should build an ecosystem where know how, access to capital and entrepreneurship can flourish. We need someone with an eye on economics rather than elections.
I am just thinking out loud here,
What if the govt announced tax holidays for special purpose vehicles instituted for people willing to enter farming with a corporate setup, and they can join hands with some sort of a VC willing to invest capital. The farmers can give the land on lease (not outright sell) to the SPV for compensation which includes a fixed as well as variable component (share on profits). Schemes such as these obviates the need for loan dispensing and then waiving it off. The farmer does not lose his shirt even if the venture fails. He is basically entering into a lease deal with some experts.
If there can be so many players in sectors as chronically bleak as civil aviation, I don’t see why this can’t work out.
June 6th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Came across many MBAs’ from IRMA - Institute of Rural Management Anand. None of those worked for any rural or agricultural organization. All selling soaps to software or managing software projects.
Think all those got into IRMA as they didn’t get into IIM.
For that matter, many bankers are not CAs but engineer-MBAs. Apparently an engineer/MBA is considered good for all well paying jobs.
Even if the agri sector generates lot of well paying jobs, most of those will eventually be grabbed by IIM MBAs and agri graduates will be pushed out.
June 6th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Mahesh
>>Think all those got into IRMA as they didn’t get into IIM
Adhey adhey..i know at least one IRMA product who is copy+pasting proposals for one mid sized IT services company in chennai…
Engineer + MBA is an unbeatable combo.. spicehut combo pack madhiri
>>Even if the agri sector generates lot of well paying jobs, most of those will eventually be grabbed by IIM MBAs ..
Thankfully there are less IIM MBAs than Agri graduates i think. And ideally there should be something an agri grad knows abt the sector which an MBA doesn’t….
top level la na tholayattum… like the way there are MBA grads in selling/consulting space in IT but the industry is still sustainable with only 1000s of programmers…
June 7th, 2008 at 2:28 am
u r tagged
June 7th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Thats indeed an interesting and thought provoking write up…
//In contrast, Tamil Nadu alone has above two hundred engineering colleges.
I get the point that there are so many engineering colleges because of the demand from the Industry. But what have we done to stoke productivity in Agriculture?//
Very true!
June 9th, 2008 at 3:53 am
I have seen couple of posts u write on the tax system, and this one abt start-ups and all, I wanted to tell u abt this book - “India Unbound” written by Gurcharan Das. I have written abt it in my blog too. A must read!
June 9th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
fathima
thank u for the reference.. un blog vandhu matter padikaren