1) The document discusses the importance of skill development for farmers in India to improve agricultural productivity and management. It argues that training should be recognized as a fourth functional area of agriculture, along with teaching, research, and extension. 2) Krishi Vigyan Kendras (Farm Science Centers) were established to provide vocational training to farmers and extension workers to impart the latest agricultural knowledge and skills. Training programs focus on "learning by doing" and are tailored to local needs and resources. 3) However, more specialized skill-oriented training is needed to develop trained groups for particular agricultural areas and technologies, in order to boost high-tech scientific agriculture and commercial crop production.

1. Inculcate Scientific Skills among medium and Small Farmers for Agricultural Growth
R P Singh, Associate Director Extension
G B Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar
Improved management holds the key to getting the best return from all inputs.
The human factor obviously is the most important one for bringing about a larger
return from modest inputs like new technology, infrastructure, bio physical
conditions and socio economic factors. Agriculture being an extensive and
complex sector of economy, its management can not be construed in the
restricted sense of merely a pattern of official machinery. It cannot also be
studied in isolation of other sectors which influence agricultural development,
directly or indirectly. We have seen that, since Nineteenth Century, gradual
refinement has come in identifying the functional areas or process of
management. But the buck does not stop here. One can see that there are seven
more functional areas have been added in basic management processes
(POSTCoRB; Planning, Organization, Staffing, Directing, Co ordination, Reporting
and Budgeting.) viz. Monitoring, Evaluation, Decision- making, , Human relations,
Linkage (R&D), Communication and supervision. Any organization can be studied
on these processes which are relevant for the management of individual affairs.
Likely, it is the time to include skill development in the agricultural extension
management by which the efficiency of use of resources could be improved and
make it judicious. In the 12th Five Year Plan, Government of India has initiated a
long sighted scheme of Skill Development Initiative Programme for 50 million
people in plan period and 9 million people for 2013-14 annual budgets for labour
under National Skill Development Corporation. Like this scheme, any new scheme
can revolutionalize the agriculture sector in copping the second green revolution.
In the past we have talked of three functional areas in agriculture almost
like a slogan, viz. Teaching, Research and Extension of agricultural institution. We
have ignored perhaps unwittingly a basic function called ‘Training’. Training is
different from education or Extension- A very political area for the human
resources development. Training is the professional or practical side of education
oriented to specific jobs, projects, skills, actions and results. Through varied
training courses and programmes at all levels from the farmer to politicians, we
could reach the masses, whereas the arena of education we deal with it’s mostly
classes- the elites. Therefore training should be recognized as fourth functional
area as a policy and should be adequately supported in terms of investments and
infrastructures.

2. If one look at the expenditure on Agriculture in annual budget of
Government of India, 2013-14, a decisive shift to high-value agriculture is
indicating. Provision is made for 22% hike in the planned budgetary allocation and
allotted Rs. 27049 Crore. But in complete budget there is no budget allocation for
agricultural farmers/labours for their skill development. Now a days, it is required
essentially for the boost of agriculture as agriculture is scientific and high-tech.
Krishi Vigyan Kendras
Skills and knowledge are the driving forces of economic growth and social
development for any country. Countries with higher and better levels of skills
adjust more effectively to the challenges and opportunities of world of work. The
Second Education Commission (1964-66) under the chairmanship of Dr. D. S.
Kothari, recommended for the establishment of agricultural polytechnics to
provide vocational education in agriculture to school dropouts and other rural
youths. After careful deliberation by the Ministry of Education, Ministry of
Agriculture and the Planning Commission and as a follow up of the
recommendation, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) appointed a
committee under the Chairmanship of Dr. Mohan Singh Mehta of Seva Mandir,
Udaypur in 1973 for formulating the institutional design of Krishi Vigyan Kendras
(KVK) for providing vocational training in agriculture.
The basic principles enunciated by the Mehta Committee (1973) include:
1. The Kendra will impart learning through work-experience and hence will be
concerned with technical literacy, the acquisition of which does not
necessarily require the ability to read and write.
2. The Kendra will impart training only to those extension workers who are
employed and to the practising farmers and fishermen. In other words, the
Kendra will cater to the needs of those who are already employed or those
who wish to be self-employed.
3. There will be no uniform syllabus for the Kendras. The syllabus and
programme of each Kendra will be flexible in nature and tailored according
to the felt needs, natural resources and potential for agricultural growth in
that particular area.
Krishi Vigyan Kendras (Farm Science Centre), an innovative science based
institutions, were thus established mainly to impart vocational training to the
farmers and field level extension workers. The concept of vocational training in

3. agriculture through KVK grew substantially due to greater demand for improved
agricultural technology by the farmers. They not only required knowledge and
understanding of the intricacy of technologies, but also progressively more and
more skills in various complex agricultural operations for adoption on their farms.
The effectiveness of the KVK was further enhanced by adding the activities
related to on-farm testing and Front-Line Demonstration on major agricultural
technologies in order to make the training of farmers location specific, need
based and resource-oriented.
The training programmes were designed to impart the latest knowledge to the
farmers through work experience by applying the principles of ‘Teaching by
Doing’ and ‘Learning by Doing’. The prime goal of KVK is to impart training as per
needs and requirements in agriculture and allied enterprises to all farmers, farm
women and farm youths including school drop-outs in the rural area. No formal
certificate or diploma is awarded, irrespective of duration of the courses to avoid
the rush for jobs instead of self employment. While designing the courses, the
concept of farming system as well as farming situation are taken into account to
ensure that the enterprises in which they are trained are commercially and
ecologically viable, sustainable and profitable. Such vocational trainings help them
to sustain themselves through self-employment and to make them self-reliant
economically and thus discourages them to migrate to the urban areas.
KVKs provide training not only in agriculture and allied vocations but also in other
income-generating activities that may supplement the income of farm families.
The methods employed in training could be formal and non-formal or a
combination of both, depending upon the needs but emphasis remains to be on
work-experience, as suggested by Mohan Singh Mehta Committee Report that
“the programme should be operated as a plan of continuing education both in the
technical and general sense.”
But the specialized skill oriented trainings are not being conducted to
prepare group of trained people for particular areas. There are several
technological available for the enhancement of agriculture production and
making it high-tech. there is time’s requirement to identify skills for scientific
agriculture production of specialized commercial crops.