World Youth Skill Day

Skill Development & Agri-entrepreneurship

Dr. Parveen Kumar*

    With a focus on youths as change makers and as important stakeholders in achieving the vision of ViksitBharat@2047, the World Youth Skills Day this year is celebrated with the theme ‘Skills for a Shared Future’.  The theme emphasizes upon the need to skill young people with the basic skills required to thrive in this rapidly changing world which is witnessing a major technological transformation and socio-economic transition. It is here worthy to quote Secretary General of United Nations, Mr. Antonio Guterres that, ‘As AI reshapes our world; young people must be seen not just as learners, but as co creators of a fairer digital future’ have made two things crystal clear. First is the emergence of Digital technologies like Artificial Intelligence in giving the world a new developmental paradigm and second is the crucial role youth of the world have to play in effective use of Digital technologies for furthering the cause of humanity. For effective use of digital technologies, equipping youths with the digital skills is must. The World Youth Skills Day celebrated every year on July 15 emphasizes upon the importance of equipping young minds with the required skills so as to accommodate them in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.  

    Before proceeding further, it is also necessary to discuss about Skills. Skills refer to a person’s abilities to do a work more effectively; it is the ability to use the knowledge gained through training and learning process effectively and readily in the execution or performance of different tasks so as to get the desired results. Skills are of two type’s viz soft skills as well as hard skills. Soft skills refer to personal attributes and abilities that enable individuals to interact effectively with others. Some of the soft skills include communication, team work, problem solving, adaptability, time management, critical thinking and emotional intelligence. Hard skills also called as Technical skills are learnt through trainings and class room teaching. These are specific abilities and capabilities and skill sets that an individual can possess and demonstrate in a measured way. 

    Digital skills can be considered as the hard skills. Digital skills like coding decoding, data analysis, use of specific software, artificial intelligence and robotics all fall under the category of hard skills because they involve concrete, teachable abilities related to specific use of various technologies. Skill development of youth works as a catalyst for employment of youth and it has never been as important as it is in the present era. A host of factors have necessitated this. These factors include the call for earning demographic dividend, the diminishing employment opportunities in the government sector, a few prospects for decent and willing work and many other factors. At present there is a huge gap between the requirement and availability of skilled men power in the country. This gap ultimately hits hard the productivity and economy of any country.  

    India has the unique distinction of being one of the countries in the world where the working age population is in excess of those dependent on them and as per the World Bank this will continue till 2040. With large no. of population in the working age group, India has the demographic dividend. This has been recognized by economists and policy makers as a potential source of significant strength for national economy provided we are able to equip and continuously upgrade the skills of population working in that age group. Recognizing the importance of skills in development of youths and in the growth of national economy, the government is focusing on skill development of the youth. To remove the disconnect between demand and supply of skilled manpower and to build the new skills and innovative thinking not only for existing jobs but also for jobs that are to be created, Government of India headed by Prime minister Sh. Narendra Modi set up a separate ‘Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship’ on 9 November 2014. The new ministry is to coordinate all skill development efforts across the country. The Ministry aims to skill on a large scale with speed and high standards in order to achieve its vision of a ‘Skilled India’. 

    With more than 9 billion people predicted to populate the planet by 2050, finding better and smarter ways to grow food is essential. We thus need new ways to grow more food more sustainably and profitably by applying digital technologies such as data science, advanced sensors in the field and from space, digital communication channels, and automation on the field. Today agriculture is witnessing what is called ‘Digital Farming or digitalisation’. Digital Farming is ‘ICT and data ecosystems to support the development and delivery of timely, targeted information and services to make farming profitable and sustainable while delivering safe nutritious and affordable food for all’. In the future the farming community is all likely to see through digital glasses and at the same time young farmers’ are likely to don the digital glasses or consult devices that will help them to analyze their work and accordingly take decisions for their betterment. Digitalisation of agriculture has also emerged as another revolution, more so for the large numbers of the world’s smallholder farmers. Nearly a third of the global population relies on agriculture for a living, and growth in this sector has been shown to be at least twice as effective at reducing poverty as growth coming from other sectors. Thus Digitalisation has to be promoted.  Among various digital farming Internet of Things (IoT) has emerged as one of the most reliable digital farming technologies. IoT (Internet of things) in an agricultural context refers to the use of sensors, cameras, and other devices to turn every element and action involved in farming into data. Weather, moisture, plant health, mineral status, chemical applications, pest presence and much more can all be turned into large data sets that allow big data engineers to draw out insights about the farm at varying levels of granularity via software algorithms. Actually IoT is not a product or particular tool, but a family of technologies. In IoT-based digital farming, a system is built for monitoring the crop field with the help of sensors (light, humidity, temperature, soil moisture, etc.) and automating the irrigation system. The farmers can monitor the field conditions from anywhere. Similarly, Precision Farming help us to break the field down into differentiable, geo-located and individually homogeneous units of productive assets. This requirement is about each unit as a productive asset. Precision location ensures that information collected about that unit is measured, collected, analyzed, and actioned for the same location and is differentiated from all of the other surrounding assets. For crop nutrition, for instance, it will mean finding the optimum fertilization program for individual fields, helping farmers’ to decide when and how much to apply and react to variations in different parts of a field. Precision farming is one of the most famous applications of IoT in the agricultural sector and numerous organizations are leveraging this technique around the world. Another example of application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the use of drones in agriculture. Today drones are used in agriculture to accomplish various agricultural tasks/practices which otherwise were accomplished using manual labour. This has resulted in considerable saving of time and relatively more efficiency. Agriculture has become one of the major industries to incorporate drones and robots. 

    The government is now focusing on Skill to Entrepreneurship model. Hon’ble Primeminister of the country Sh. Narendra Modi has also exhorted the youth to skill, reskill and upskill themselves to remain relevant in the rapidly changing business environment. Young people are almost three times more likely to be unemployed than adults and due to the lack of skills. Agriculture is a sector which has the potential to absorb unemployed and for this we need to develop entrepreneurial skills amongst them. Agricultural entrepreneurs can identify new market opportunities, take calculated risks, and create sustainable business models that contribute to the overall development of the agricultural industry. There are so many skill and entrepreneurship development initiatives of various agencies which offer a diverse array of opportunities to the youth to update their knowledge and equip themselves with the latest skills to set up their own income generating units. MANAGE Hyderabad is running various programmes like Skill Training of Rural Youth (STRY), Agri-clinics and Agribusiness centers (ACABC), Certified Farm Advisors, Agri startups for skill development of the youths. Various other agencies like Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI), Jammu and Kashmir Bank, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), Khadi and Village Industries Commission KVIC are providing skill and entrepreneurial opportunities to the youth. Besides State Agricultural Universities themselves as well as through Krishi Vigyan Kendras are also regularly skilling the young population in various activities related to farm and allied sectors. As a result of the skill development initiatives of various agencies, a large no. of youths have set up their own entrepreneurial ventures thereby generating employment opportunities for many others.  

    There are numerous successful examples where young agricultural entrepreneurs are employing advanced techniques and tools to optimize production, reduce wastage and maximize profitability. Appropriate skill development has the potential to check unemployment particularly in rural settings, creation of useful assets, reduction of migration from villages besides channelizing the energy of youth in a positive and constructive way so as to enable them to contribute to country’s vision of ViksitBharat@2047.

        The author writes on agriculture and social issues; can be reached at pkumar6674@gmail.com