Hyderabad: NIRDPR, SFI tackle rural unemployment

HYDERABAD: The National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRDP) and Syngenta Foundation India (SFI) are tackling unemployment among rural youth and focusing on improving the plight of farmers in rural India through an Agri Entrepreneurship (AE) model. The AE model aims to optimise all processes, from the selection of an AE leading up to their day-to-day business activities and farmer interactions. 

The model is currently active across seven States and, as of October 2018, over 580 AEs are associated with SFI serving over 75,000 farmers. It is going to be scaled up to different parts of the country. State Rural Livelihood Missions are showing keen interest to transform SHG women as AEs.

The AE initiative aims to develop a cadre of rural youth Agri Entrepreneurs who work with 200-300 farmers in a cluster of 2-3villages.

They act as a one-stop resource provider for agriculture needs of small producers and bring together services such as credit and market linkages, access to high quality input, and crop advisory for a group of farmers. The AE for each cluster is chosen from one of the villages in the cluster and derives their revenue by providing these services to the farmers.