Skills of farmers must be enhanced, says Tata's R Gopalakrishnan

AHMEDABAD: Tata Sons Director R Gopalakrishnan today expressed concern about foodgrain production and said that enhancing skills of rural youth engaged in agriculture deserve immediate attention.

He mooted special skill development institutions to train village youth to enable them to adopt new agricultural technologies in order to bridge the foodgrain supply and demand gap and improve farm productivity through modern practices.

"When we needed skilled manpower for manufacturing sector, we established Industrial Training Institutes. Similarly, I suggest that we should set up Agriculture Technical Training Institutes or ATTIs to train rural youth in modern agricultural practices. I will also propose this idea to officials in the central government," he said.

Expressing dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Make In India' and 'Skill India' mission, he said that no attention has been paid to the agriculture sector.

"Nobody is talking about 'Make In India' for the food and agriculture sector. Skill India mission talks about increasing skills of factory technicians, but what about the food and agriculture sector employs 50 per cent of the population," he said.

"If you want to create employment, then agriculture and food processing is the biggest sector. Not so long ago, we were the largest exporters of groundnuts, but now we have become the largest importer of edible oil as well as pulses. We need to upgrade technology and simultaneously train people to increase production here," he said.