Technical skills and training were provided to unemployed rural youth for gainful employment in local villages. Under a certification programme, crop nutrition and agri-solution company, Tata Chemicals Ltd trained 20 farm technicians recently.
“As mechanisation caught up with rising demand, lack of trained manpower at local level surfaced. Without adequately skilled and locally available manpower it is not possible to address the gap in agriculture productivity and food production,” said Mr. R. Mukundan, Managing Director, Tata Chemicals Ltd.
National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (NIAM) was the academic partner for evaluating and certifying technicians.
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The ‘Farm Technician Certification Program’ is a year long classroom plus on-the-job training, which seeks to instil the fundamentals of operating high tech farm equipments like rotavator, laser leveller, seed cum ferti drill, reaper etc. blended with theoretical lessons on land levelling, deep ploughing, crop sowing, nutrition and protection to rural youth who were unable to pursue education due to certain reasons, according to a release.
The company partnered with farm equipment manufacturers John Deere to impart technical training in farm equipments for the programme.