There should be focussed effort to remove the hurdles in entrepreneurship development in agriculture and allied sectors, observed by Dr. K. Nirmal Babu, Director, ICAR- Indian Institute of Spices Research, Kozhikode in his inaugural addressduring the 21 days’ ICAR sponsored winter school on “Enhancing Farm Income through Entrepreneurship Development in Fishing and Fish Processing”held at ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Technology, Cochin on 5th January, 2018.He said, there areinnumerable challenges faced by agri-preneurs starting from raw material arrangement to finance and marketing. Scale of business, marketing issues, ethical concerns, food safety issues must be considered while initiating business in agriculture to enhance farmer’s income. 

 

Presiding the programme Dr. C.N. Ravishankar, Director ICAR-CIFT stressed that incubation process is important to support the emerging entrepreneurs as commercialisation of technologies developed at research institutes needs lot of complementary support services starting from preparation of detailed project reports.  He highlighted the role of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) for dissemination of appropriate technologies to the prospective entrepreneurs. 

 

Dr. A.K. Mohanty, Head, Extension, Information and Statistics Division of ICAR-CIFT and Course Director (WS) gave a brief overview of the 21 days Winter School (5-25 January, 2018) in which he told that the course has been designed to generate a pool of skilled human resources that can facilitate entrepreneurship development among various stakeholders in fisheries. Dr. Suseela Mathew, Head, Biochemistry & Nutrition Division welcomed the audience and Dr. Sajeev. M.V., Senior Scientist (Extension) and Course Coordinator delivered vote of thanks. Twenty-one scientists from SAUs, ICAR institutes and KVKs covering 10 different states of the country namely J&K, Punjab,Maharashtra, Gujarat, Sikkim, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala are undergoing this 21 days Winter School.