Dr V K Jayaraghavendra Rao
Some facts about agriculture labour
Dr V K Jayaraghavendra Rao, Retd Principal Scientist, ICAR-IIHR (Indian Institute of Horticultural Research), Bangalore shares an overview of agriculture employment.
Employment opportunities in agriculture remain a crucial determinant of India’s economic development, social stability, and livelihood security. Although agriculture’s contribution to the national Gross Domestic Product has steadily declined to approximately thirteen to fourteen per cent, it continues to employ a substantial portion of the population, particularly in rural regions. The persistent dependence on agriculture, despite its lower productivity compared to other sectors, has resulted in multiple challenges, including disguised unemployment, underemployment, low wages, seasonal labour fluctuations, and significant rural-to-urban migration. Addressing these issues requires not only policy interventions but also a systemic understanding of employment patterns and sectoral dynamics.
Over the past decade, the Indian government has introduced several programmes aimed at generating employment and improving income security in rural areas. Among these, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has played a prominent role in offering a safety net to rural households by guaranteeing a minimum of 100 days of wage employment annually. Complementary initiatives, such as Atma Nirbhar Bharat measures, agri-business infrastructure funds, and targeted rural investment schemes, have aimed to promote self-employment and stimulate local economic activity. These programmes have contributed to a noticeable shift in employment trends, with rural areas experiencing an increase of approximately thirty-two million workers over recent years, while urban employment has simultaneously declined by roughly 2.8 per cent. This contrasting trend indicates that rural areas, though still underdeveloped in terms of income and industrial activity, are becoming relatively more attractive as employment hubs compared to cities facing saturation and high cost of living.
One of the fundamental implications of rising rural employment is the potential reduction in urban migration and the associated pressures on city infrastructure. Cities like Bengaluru, Chennai, and Coimbatore illustrate the pattern of temporary migration, where workers from surrounding villages migrate to urban centres for short-term employment as taxi drivers, delivery personnel, street vendors, domestic helpers, and casual labourers. Many of these individuals engage in circular migration, returning periodically to their villages while maintaining their urban work connections. This temporary urban migration reflects the insufficient attractiveness of rural employment, despite government initiatives and growing opportunities, highlighting a gap between rural income potential and worker aspirations.
Sectoral and gender dynamics
Rural employment in India is largely concentrated in the primary sector, primarily agriculture, where nearly 60 per cent of the workforce is engaged. Despite this high concentration, the sector contributes only around thirteen to fourteen per cent of the country’s GDP, highlighting the low productivity of agricultural labour. The majority of these workers are unskilled or semi-skilled, performing tasks such as ploughing, transplanting, weeding, irrigation, harvesting, and post-harvest handling. A significant proportion of rural employment is therefore characterised by disguised unemployment, where more labour is employed than is actually required for agricultural production. This results in low wage levels, underutilisation of labour, and seasonal unemployment, particularly during non-cropping periods.
In the secondary sector, which includes small-scale manufacturing, agro-processing, rice mills, and other industrial activities, only about 20 per cent of the rural workforce is employed. These activities, though more productive than primary agriculture, are limited in scale and geographically concentrated in a few peri-urban industrial hubs such as Tumakuru, Kolar, Chittoor, and areas surrounding Bengaluru. The tertiary sector, encompassing services such as agri-business centres, workshops, retail outlets, and input-output agencies, absorbs fewer than twenty per cent of rural workers. Consequently, rural areas remain heavily reliant on low-skilled agricultural labour, with limited avenues for skill-based or value-added employment.
Urban employment patterns present a stark contrast. In cities, the tertiary sector dominates, employing nearly sixty per cent of the workforce, while the secondary sector accounts for approximately thirty-four per cent. The primary sector is negligible in urban employment, limited to peri-urban agriculture and agro-processing activities. Urban services include transport, hospitality, retail, information technology, personal services, and informal trade. However, many of these jobs are low-paid and informal, lacking social security, benefits, and long-term stability. This imbalance contributes to urban underemployment, particularly among migrants and low-skilled workers.
Gender disparities in employment are particularly pronounced in both rural and urban contexts. In rural regions, women play a crucial role in agriculture, often performing the majority of transplanting, weeding, harvesting, and post-harvest processing tasks. Men typically undertake mechanised operations such as ploughing, irrigation, and the use of farm machinery. Despite their substantial contribution, rural women’s work is often undervalued, underpaid, and frequently unpaid within family-based farms. In secondary and tertiary employment, male dominance is even stronger, particularly in skilled, salaried, or formal positions. Women face significant barriers to entry, including limited access to education, vocational training, mobility constraints, and credit facilities. This gender disparity highlights the urgent need for targeted skill development, reskilling, and empowerment programmes for rural women, enabling them to access better employment opportunities and contribute meaningfully to the local economy.
Uneven development and investment
Investment patterns in India reveal a significant urban bias, which directly influences employment distribution and rural economic development. Capital expenditure in the form of industrial parks, food processing hubs, storage facilities, and fixed assets is concentrated predominantly in urban and peri-urban regions. For example, areas surrounding Bengaluru, Tumkuru, Kolar, Chittoor, and Tirupati have received substantial industrial investment, whereas rural agri-business hubs remain underdeveloped. This unequal allocation of resources limits the potential for rural industrialisation and curtails the creation of meaningful, skill-based employment opportunities in villages. Consequently, rural labour remains heavily reliant on low-productivity agriculture and informal work.
Infrastructure development, particularly roads, connectivity, and transport, has improved significantly over the past decade. Highway expansion, rural road construction, and enhanced logistics have reduced travel time and increased access to markets and services. While these developments provide critical support for economic activity, infrastructure alone is insufficient to generate employment. Without parallel investments in industries, agro-processing units, storage facilities, and service centres, improved connectivity may inadvertently facilitate temporary migration to urban areas rather than encourage permanent rural employment.
Water use and other resources also highlight urban-rural disparities. Urban consumption is substantially higher due to industrial, domestic, and service sector demands, whereas rural usage remains comparatively low. This difference underlines the importance of investing not just in physical infrastructure but also in resource management and value addition in rural areas. Strategic investments in food parks, cold chains, agro-processing facilities, and rural enterprise development are essential to harness the rural workforce effectively and provide competitive, income-generating opportunities.
The government has initiated several programmes to address these gaps, including agricultural infrastructure funds, Atma Nirbhar Bharat schemes, and support for rural enterprises. However, investment in rural areas still lags behind urban development, creating a persistent imbalance. This urban-centric investment pattern exacerbates rural-urban migration, limits local income generation, and reduces the attractiveness of rural employment. Policy interventions must therefore focus on redirecting resources toward rural value chains, skill development, and post-harvest processing to create sustainable, long-term employment opportunities.
Employment–growth disconnect
A significant challenge facing India’s rural and urban employment landscape is the phenomenon of jobless growth. While India’s Gross Domestic Product has experienced robust growth, averaging around 7.5 per cent in recent years, this increase has not translated proportionally into employment creation. This disconnect is particularly evident in agriculture and allied sectors, where productivity has improved due to technological advancements, but labour absorption has not increased correspondingly. Automation, mechanisation, digital platforms, and artificial intelligence have reduced reliance on unskilled or semi-skilled labour, contributing to underemployment and income stagnation for rural workers.
In agriculture, technological innovations such as high-yield seeds, mechanised machinery, improved irrigation systems, and scientific cultivation practices have significantly boosted output. India produces over 350 million metric tonnes of agricultural and horticultural products annually. Despite these record outputs, the majority of rural workers remain underemployed or engaged in low-income activities. Employment guarantee schemes such as MGNREGA provide temporary relief, but they do not offer long-term skill enhancement or sustainable income growth. Consequently, rural households face persistent economic vulnerability despite the apparent growth in agricultural production.
Urban employment is similarly affected by technological transformation. Traditional low-skilled jobs are increasingly being replaced by automation and digital systems. Even in service industries, routine tasks such as accounting, clerical work, and delivery services are being automated or platform-based, reducing opportunities for entry-level workers. The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence and digital platforms in financial services, logistics, and retail is reshaping the employment landscape, creating demand for highly skilled labour while displacing many low-skilled urban and rural workers. This dual pressure of technological advancement and jobless growth highlights the urgent need for skill development and reorientation of the workforce to meet the evolving demands of the labour market.
Seasonal and disguised unemployment persists as another challenge. Agricultural labour demand fluctuates with cropping cycles, resulting in high employment during peak periods and scarcity in off-seasons. Casual wage labourers, often employed for infrastructure or road construction under government schemes, face income uncertainty and limited skill development. Without systematic reskilling, end-skilling, and upskilling initiatives, these workers remain trapped in low-productivity employment. To harness the full potential of technological progress, rural labour must be trained to operate machinery, manage agro-processing units, and engage in value-added agricultural services. This approach would ensure that employment growth keeps pace with economic growth and prevents the expansion of income inequality.
Integrated employment strategies
Addressing the challenges of rural and urban employment requires a comprehensive set of policy interventions, focused not only on income support but also on skill development, value addition, and sustainable job creation. One of the most effective strategies involves enhancing the skill sets of the rural workforce through structured end-skilling, reskilling, and upskilling programmes. These initiatives aim to equip workers with the technical knowledge and practical abilities required in modern agriculture, agro-processing, industrial activities, and service sectors. By transforming the workforce into a pool of skilled labour, rural areas can attract investment, increase productivity, and offer competitive wages, reducing the incentive for migration to urban centres.
Education reform plays a critical role in this context. Traditional schooling must be complemented by vocational and technical training that aligns with local employment opportunities. Programmes offering diplomas in agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, and agro-processing can empower rural youth to take up productive roles in both primary and secondary sectors. Furthermore, digital literacy, mechanisation training, and entrepreneurship education enable workers to establish small-scale enterprises, manage farms efficiently, and engage in value-added production. Such education reforms ensure that graduates are not only literate but also employable, capable of contributing meaningfully to local economies rather than seeking low-paid urban jobs.
Financial support and infrastructural development are equally vital. Access to microfinance, crop loans, and business credit allows rural entrepreneurs to invest in machinery, cold storage, processing units, and service centres. The government’s Atma Nirbhar Bharat initiatives and agricultural infrastructure funds are steps in this direction, but a greater emphasis on equitable investment in rural areas is necessary. Investment in food parks, agro-processing facilities, storage warehouses, and logistics infrastructure can significantly enhance rural income by promoting value addition and facilitating market linkages. These investments also create skilled employment opportunities, reducing disguised unemployment and increasing the overall standard of living.
Empowering women in rural employment is another essential dimension. Women constitute a significant portion of the agricultural workforce but often remain underpaid or unpaid. Targeted programmes must focus on improving women’s access to education, vocational training, credit, and mobility. Skill development initiatives tailored to women, such as training in agri-business management, dairy and poultry production, handicrafts, and small-scale service enterprises, can enhance household incomes and reduce gender disparities in employment. Ensuring that women are meaningfully integrated into both formal and informal sectors strengthens the rural economy and contributes to inclusive growth. Nowadays, many women are getting into agriculture, and there is no distinction between the genders. The number of women candidates is outnumbering the men nowadays. Their scores are very high. They have a huge demand in other countries like Australia and the USA. Agriculture is the best choice for our future generation.
Policy design must also address urban-rural disparities. Rural areas require investment not only in physical infrastructure but also in social and economic amenities. Creating urban-like facilities such as quality education, healthcare, digital connectivity, recreational spaces, and transport services in villages can make rural employment more attractive. Without these amenities, even high wages may fail to retain skilled labour in rural areas, as individuals aspire to lifestyles and opportunities typically found in urban centres. Circular migration will persist unless rural communities provide both income and quality of life that meet contemporary expectations.
Finally, monitoring and evaluation of employment programmes are essential to ensure efficacy. Employment guarantee schemes, self-employment loans, vocational training programmes, and infrastructure projects must be assessed periodically for their impact on income, skill development, and job retention. Data-driven policies can identify gaps, optimise resource allocation, and target interventions where they are most needed. By integrating skill development, financial support, infrastructure investment, gender empowerment, and urban-standard amenities, India can create a sustainable and productive rural workforce, reduce urban congestion, and ensure inclusive economic growth.
Essential marketing skill
Marketing the farmers’ produce assumes great importance in agriculture. The farmers cannot market all the produce that they get from their fields. So they have to go for processing or value addition to market them. So, marketing is the most essential skill required for agriculture. The high demand for jobs in the agriculture sector is for marketing. Some middlemen intervene and assure to sell the products for a huge percentage as commission, and the farmer gets very little. People show interest in pushing the input into the rural area, but there is a lack of apathy to move the output from the rural area. We have an FPO market project coming up and will be discussing this.
Developing entrepreneurial mindset
The primary factors include land, labour, capital, technology, and entrepreneurship, and we see that farmers have land, small or big, labour is available, capital is infused through Atma Nirbhar and so many other schemes. Technology is already playing a huge role in IIHR and ICAR. It is the entrepreneurship and lack of interest that are missing. People are ready to go for mediocre jobs rather than go for entrepreneurship, even in ACABC centres. We have to improve entrepreneurship. There is a lack of motivation among the people, even if we give them loans. There is a big urban bias in their behaviour. If a person can invest about Rs. 5 crores, he can get the license from IIHR. He can help in microbial consortia or multiply the varieties. We are training the FPOs and farmers. Many engineers are working in IIHR who are our entrepreneurs who prepare microbial inoculum and multiply them. To grow in agriculture, the five factors, land, labour, capital, technology, and entrepreneurship, are needed. The emerging trend is value addition and supply chain, apart from output marketing. A B.Sc Agri graduate will be absorbed in a lower cadre job only. He can continue his education to become an agriculture officer in the agriculture department or the horticulture department. He can also work in Banks. If he writes the Agriculture Research Service exam, he can become a scientist. If he plans to go up in life, he needs a post-graduation or Ph. D. But the jobs are placed in rural areas mostly, and people are not willing to shift to rural areas.....................
Contact details
Dr V K Jayaraghavendra Rao
Rtd. Principal Scientist, ICAR-IIHR(Indian Institute of Horticultural Research), Bangalore
M: 94400 34845
E: v.rao241@gmail.com
Some facts about agriculture labour
Dr V K Jayaraghavendra Rao, Retd Principal Scientist, ICAR-IIHR (Indian Institute of Horticultural Research), Bangalore shares an overview of agriculture employment.
Employment opportunities in agriculture remain a crucial determinant of India’s economic development, social stability, and livelihood security. Although agriculture’s contribution to the national Gross Domestic Product has steadily declined to approximately thirteen to fourteen per cent, it continues to employ a substantial portion of the population, particularly in rural regions. The persistent dependence on agriculture, despite its lower productivity compared to other sectors, has resulted in multiple challenges, including disguised unemployment, underemployment, low wages, seasonal labour fluctuations, and significant rural-to-urban migration. Addressing these issues requires not only policy interventions but also a systemic understanding of employment patterns and sectoral dynamics.
Over the past decade, the Indian government has introduced several programmes aimed at generating employment and improving income security in rural areas. Among these, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has played a prominent role in offering a safety net to rural households by guaranteeing a minimum of 100 days of wage employment annually. Complementary initiatives, such as Atma Nirbhar Bharat measures, agri-business infrastructure funds, and targeted rural investment schemes, have aimed to promote self-employment and stimulate local economic activity. These programmes have contributed to a noticeable shift in employment trends, with rural areas experiencing an increase of approximately thirty-two million workers over recent years, while urban employment has simultaneously declined by roughly 2.8 per cent. This contrasting trend indicates that rural areas, though still underdeveloped in terms of income and industrial activity, are becoming relatively more attractive as employment hubs compared to cities facing saturation and high cost of living.
One of the fundamental implications of rising rural employment is the potential reduction in urban migration and the associated pressures on city infrastructure. Cities like Bengaluru, Chennai, and Coimbatore illustrate the pattern of temporary migration, where workers from surrounding villages migrate to urban centres for short-term employment as taxi drivers, delivery personnel, street vendors, domestic helpers, and casual labourers. Many of these individuals engage in circular migration, returning periodically to their villages while maintaining their urban work connections. This temporary urban migration reflects the insufficient attractiveness of rural employment, despite government initiatives and growing opportunities, highlighting a gap between rural income potential and worker aspirations.
Sectoral and gender dynamics
Rural employment in India is largely concentrated in the primary sector, primarily agriculture, where nearly 60 per cent of the workforce is engaged. Despite this high concentration, the sector contributes only around thirteen to fourteen per cent of the country’s GDP, highlighting the low productivity of agricultural labour. The majority of these workers are unskilled or semi-skilled, performing tasks such as ploughing, transplanting, weeding, irrigation, harvesting, and post-harvest handling. A significant proportion of rural employment is therefore characterised by disguised unemployment, where more labour is employed than is actually required for agricultural production. This results in low wage levels, underutilisation of labour, and seasonal unemployment, particularly during non-cropping periods.
In the secondary sector, which includes small-scale manufacturing, agro-processing, rice mills, and other industrial activities, only about 20 per cent of the rural workforce is employed. These activities, though more productive than primary agriculture, are limited in scale and geographically concentrated in a few peri-urban industrial hubs such as Tumakuru, Kolar, Chittoor, and areas surrounding Bengaluru. The tertiary sector, encompassing services such as agri-business centres, workshops, retail outlets, and input-output agencies, absorbs fewer than twenty per cent of rural workers. Consequently, rural areas remain heavily reliant on low-skilled agricultural labour, with limited avenues for skill-based or value-added employment.
Urban employment patterns present a stark contrast. In cities, the tertiary sector dominates, employing nearly sixty per cent of the workforce, while the secondary sector accounts for approximately thirty-four per cent. The primary sector is negligible in urban employment, limited to peri-urban agriculture and agro-processing activities. Urban services include transport, hospitality, retail, information technology, personal services, and informal trade. However, many of these jobs are low-paid and informal, lacking social security, benefits, and long-term stability. This imbalance contributes to urban underemployment, particularly among migrants and low-skilled workers.
Gender disparities in employment are particularly pronounced in both rural and urban contexts. In rural regions, women play a crucial role in agriculture, often performing the majority of transplanting, weeding, harvesting, and post-harvest processing tasks. Men typically undertake mechanised operations such as ploughing, irrigation, and the use of farm machinery. Despite their substantial contribution, rural women’s work is often undervalued, underpaid, and frequently unpaid within family-based farms. In secondary and tertiary employment, male dominance is even stronger, particularly in skilled, salaried, or formal positions. Women face significant barriers to entry, including limited access to education, vocational training, mobility constraints, and credit facilities. This gender disparity highlights the urgent need for targeted skill development, reskilling, and empowerment programmes for rural women, enabling them to access better employment opportunities and contribute meaningfully to the local economy.
Uneven development and investment
Investment patterns in India reveal a significant urban bias, which directly influences employment distribution and rural economic development. Capital expenditure in the form of industrial parks, food processing hubs, storage facilities, and fixed assets is concentrated predominantly in urban and peri-urban regions. For example, areas surrounding Bengaluru, Tumkuru, Kolar, Chittoor, and Tirupati have received substantial industrial investment, whereas rural agri-business hubs remain underdeveloped. This unequal allocation of resources limits the potential for rural industrialisation and curtails the creation of meaningful, skill-based employment opportunities in villages. Consequently, rural labour remains heavily reliant on low-productivity agriculture and informal work.
Infrastructure development, particularly roads, connectivity, and transport, has improved significantly over the past decade. Highway expansion, rural road construction, and enhanced logistics have reduced travel time and increased access to markets and services. While these developments provide critical support for economic activity, infrastructure alone is insufficient to generate employment. Without parallel investments in industries, agro-processing units, storage facilities, and service centres, improved connectivity may inadvertently facilitate temporary migration to urban areas rather than encourage permanent rural employment.
Water use and other resources also highlight urban-rural disparities. Urban consumption is substantially higher due to industrial, domestic, and service sector demands, whereas rural usage remains comparatively low. This difference underlines the importance of investing not just in physical infrastructure but also in resource management and value addition in rural areas. Strategic investments in food parks, cold chains, agro-processing facilities, and rural enterprise development are essential to harness the rural workforce effectively and provide competitive, income-generating opportunities.
The government has initiated several programmes to address these gaps, including agricultural infrastructure funds, Atma Nirbhar Bharat schemes, and support for rural enterprises. However, investment in rural areas still lags behind urban development, creating a persistent imbalance. This urban-centric investment pattern exacerbates rural-urban migration, limits local income generation, and reduces the attractiveness of rural employment. Policy interventions must therefore focus on redirecting resources toward rural value chains, skill development, and post-harvest processing to create sustainable, long-term employment opportunities.
Employment–growth disconnect
A significant challenge facing India’s rural and urban employment landscape is the phenomenon of jobless growth. While India’s Gross Domestic Product has experienced robust growth, averaging around 7.5 per cent in recent years, this increase has not translated proportionally into employment creation. This disconnect is particularly evident in agriculture and allied sectors, where productivity has improved due to technological advancements, but labour absorption has not increased correspondingly. Automation, mechanisation, digital platforms, and artificial intelligence have reduced reliance on unskilled or semi-skilled labour, contributing to underemployment and income stagnation for rural workers.
In agriculture, technological innovations such as high-yield seeds, mechanised machinery, improved irrigation systems, and scientific cultivation practices have significantly boosted output. India produces over 350 million metric tonnes of agricultural and horticultural products annually. Despite these record outputs, the majority of rural workers remain underemployed or engaged in low-income activities. Employment guarantee schemes such as MGNREGA provide temporary relief, but they do not offer long-term skill enhancement or sustainable income growth. Consequently, rural households face persistent economic vulnerability despite the apparent growth in agricultural production.
Urban employment is similarly affected by technological transformation. Traditional low-skilled jobs are increasingly being replaced by automation and digital systems. Even in service industries, routine tasks such as accounting, clerical work, and delivery services are being automated or platform-based, reducing opportunities for entry-level workers. The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence and digital platforms in financial services, logistics, and retail is reshaping the employment landscape, creating demand for highly skilled labour while displacing many low-skilled urban and rural workers. This dual pressure of technological advancement and jobless growth highlights the urgent need for skill development and reorientation of the workforce to meet the evolving demands of the labour market.
Seasonal and disguised unemployment persists as another challenge. Agricultural labour demand fluctuates with cropping cycles, resulting in high employment during peak periods and scarcity in off-seasons. Casual wage labourers, often employed for infrastructure or road construction under government schemes, face income uncertainty and limited skill development. Without systematic reskilling, end-skilling, and upskilling initiatives, these workers remain trapped in low-productivity employment. To harness the full potential of technological progress, rural labour must be trained to operate machinery, manage agro-processing units, and engage in value-added agricultural services. This approach would ensure that employment growth keeps pace with economic growth and prevents the expansion of income inequality.
Integrated employment strategies
Addressing the challenges of rural and urban employment requires a comprehensive set of policy interventions, focused not only on income support but also on skill development, value addition, and sustainable job creation. One of the most effective strategies involves enhancing the skill sets of the rural workforce through structured end-skilling, reskilling, and upskilling programmes. These initiatives aim to equip workers with the technical knowledge and practical abilities required in modern agriculture, agro-processing, industrial activities, and service sectors. By transforming the workforce into a pool of skilled labour, rural areas can attract investment, increase productivity, and offer competitive wages, reducing the incentive for migration to urban centres.
Education reform plays a critical role in this context. Traditional schooling must be complemented by vocational and technical training that aligns with local employment opportunities. Programmes offering diplomas in agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, and agro-processing can empower rural youth to take up productive roles in both primary and secondary sectors. Furthermore, digital literacy, mechanisation training, and entrepreneurship education enable workers to establish small-scale enterprises, manage farms efficiently, and engage in value-added production. Such education reforms ensure that graduates are not only literate but also employable, capable of contributing meaningfully to local economies rather than seeking low-paid urban jobs.
Financial support and infrastructural development are equally vital. Access to microfinance, crop loans, and business credit allows rural entrepreneurs to invest in machinery, cold storage, processing units, and service centres. The government’s Atma Nirbhar Bharat initiatives and agricultural infrastructure funds are steps in this direction, but a greater emphasis on equitable investment in rural areas is necessary. Investment in food parks, agro-processing facilities, storage warehouses, and logistics infrastructure can significantly enhance rural income by promoting value addition and facilitating market linkages. These investments also create skilled employment opportunities, reducing disguised unemployment and increasing the overall standard of living.
Empowering women in rural employment is another essential dimension. Women constitute a significant portion of the agricultural workforce but often remain underpaid or unpaid. Targeted programmes must focus on improving women’s access to education, vocational training, credit, and mobility. Skill development initiatives tailored to women, such as training in agri-business management, dairy and poultry production, handicrafts, and small-scale service enterprises, can enhance household incomes and reduce gender disparities in employment. Ensuring that women are meaningfully integrated into both formal and informal sectors strengthens the rural economy and contributes to inclusive growth. Nowadays, many women are getting into agriculture, and there is no distinction between the genders. The number of women candidates is outnumbering the men nowadays. Their scores are very high. They have a huge demand in other countries like Australia and the USA. Agriculture is the best choice for our future generation.
Policy design must also address urban-rural disparities. Rural areas require investment not only in physical infrastructure but also in social and economic amenities. Creating urban-like facilities such as quality education, healthcare, digital connectivity, recreational spaces, and transport services in villages can make rural employment more attractive. Without these amenities, even high wages may fail to retain skilled labour in rural areas, as individuals aspire to lifestyles and opportunities typically found in urban centres. Circular migration will persist unless rural communities provide both income and quality of life that meet contemporary expectations.
Finally, monitoring and evaluation of employment programmes are essential to ensure efficacy. Employment guarantee schemes, self-employment loans, vocational training programmes, and infrastructure projects must be assessed periodically for their impact on income, skill development, and job retention. Data-driven policies can identify gaps, optimise resource allocation, and target interventions where they are most needed. By integrating skill development, financial support, infrastructure investment, gender empowerment, and urban-standard amenities, India can create a sustainable and productive rural workforce, reduce urban congestion, and ensure inclusive economic growth.
Essential marketing skill
Marketing the farmers’ produce assumes great importance in agriculture. The farmers cannot market all the produce that they get from their fields. So they have to go for processing or value addition to market them. So, marketing is the most essential skill required for agriculture. The high demand for jobs in the agriculture sector is for marketing. Some middlemen intervene and assure to sell the products for a huge percentage as commission, and the farmer gets very little. People show interest in pushing the input into the rural area, but there is a lack of apathy to move the output from the rural area. We have an FPO market project coming up and will be discussing this.
Developing entrepreneurial mindset
The primary factors include land, labour, capital, technology, and entrepreneurship, and we see that farmers have land, small or big, labour is available, capital is infused through Atma Nirbhar and so many other schemes. Technology is already playing a huge role in IIHR and ICAR. It is the entrepreneurship and lack of interest that are missing. People are ready to go for mediocre jobs rather than go for entrepreneurship, even in ACABC centres. We have to improve entrepreneurship. There is a lack of motivation among the people, even if we give them loans. There is a big urban bias in their behaviour. If a person can invest about Rs. 5 crores, he can get the license from IIHR. He can help in microbial consortia or multiply the varieties. We are training the FPOs and farmers. Many engineers are working in IIHR who are our entrepreneurs who prepare microbial inoculum and multiply them. To grow in agriculture, the five factors, land, labour, capital, technology, and entrepreneurship, are needed. The emerging trend is value addition and supply chain, apart from output marketing. A B.Sc Agri graduate will be absorbed in a lower cadre job only. He can continue his education to become an agriculture officer in the agriculture department or the horticulture department. He can also work in Banks. If he writes the Agriculture Research Service exam, he can become a scientist. If he plans to go up in life, he needs a post-graduation or Ph. D. But the jobs are placed in rural areas mostly, and people are not willing to shift to rural areas.....................
Contact details
Dr V K Jayaraghavendra Rao
Rtd. Principal Scientist, ICAR-IIHR(Indian Institute of Horticultural Research), Bangalore
M: 94400 34845
E: v.rao241@gmail.com