Training of Young Member of Farm Families
Since the Financial Year 2013-14, the Institute undertakes one fully residential skill development training programme exclusively for the young members of the Small and Marginal Farm Families with special thrust upon the SC and ST communities of different districts of West Bengal for ensuring them better livelihood opportunities by means of imparting training in a planned manner for boosting their employability by way of making a techno-economically viable rural based agro-farming with special emphasis on organic principles and related food processing for retaining ecological balance to make the weaker section of the people for its adoption as a means of either direct employment or involvement for monetarily rewarding through entrepreneurship development. Furthermore, each trainees attended the training programme were provided with a stipend per month with a view to minimize the financial hardship the families of these trainees may have faced.
Objective: The objectives of this training program are as follow:
To equip the trainees with Market-driven production mechanisms.
provide knowledge on post-harvest management and value addition of the farm produce.
To form trained and skilled Producers? Groups after successful completion of the courses, who can be linked to different market intervention programs conducted by Department of Agricultural Marketing..
To enhance their knowledge on application of computer and ICT instruments in fields of agriculture and agricultural marketing.
To enhance knowledge of the farmers on marketing of agricultural produces and
To change their mindset towards market-oriented production and increase quality and volume of their produce.
Selection of Trainees: Done by District Magistrates of respective districts. One coordinating officer representing Department of Agricultural Marketing for the selected district as nominated by the Government help District Magistrates to shortlist the candidates from the selected blocks of the districts. Candidates are the young representative members of farm families, who are having a minimum educational qualification of standard VIII pass, with special thrust upon the SC and ST communities.
Implementation of the Training Program: As this Institute does not have any permanent faculty for conducting classes, Training Providers are selected though inviting Expression of Interest or any other method the Government thinks fit for, mainly for taking care of the following broad sectors of the training:
Development of Training Materials for smooth implementation of Training Program for Young Members of Farm Families.
Imparting training by providing faculties, who are specialist in the concerned sector.
Arranging and conducting study tours for practical oriented works as a part of the training program, among which, hand on training and practical orientation at their own farm is mandatory.
The Training Provider has to extend all post training support to the successful trainees for developing marketing chain in agribusiness and agro processing activities and making it sustainable through entrepreneurship development.
The Training Providers also extend all post training assistance for the next one years after completion of the training program which includes mandatory support like formation of Groups/association/company involving the successful trainees for developing marketing chain in agribusiness and desirable supports like Industry tie-ups and / or and agro processing activities and making it sustainable through entrepreneurship development.
Total 120 classes of 1 hour and 30 minutes each is proposed to be conducted in the theory part, which mainly cover the following broad areas:
Modern Pre-harvest technologies
Market led production - demand driven commodity mapping
Post-Harvest Management
Value addition
Modern marketing methods
Computer management and its application in agriculture and agricultural marketing