For better crop sale, marketing training plans for young farmers

The state agriculture marketing department has fixed a target of providing training to 1,003 youth in the next one year. Each of the youth has to undergo the training for 90 days and to make the training programme a success, training programmes are being organised in two blocks of a district at a time.

Recently, the training programme took place with youth from two blocks, each in Birbhum and Hooghly.

Tapan Dasgupta, the state agriculture marketing minister, said that it is the duty of the state government to make the youth from the farmers’ families competent enough so that they can go ahead for new ventures to fetch more profit out of the cultivation in their lands.

“The erstwhile Left Front government had never thought of taking such initiative to develop the skill 

of youth from the rural parts of the state. It will not only help the youth in getting a means of income, but the most important aspect of the training programme is that they can market their own produce in a better way,” he said.

Farmers do not get the right price for the crops yielded by them. This had been a long standing problem in West Bengal. The picture has changed after the change of guard in the state after the government took several steps to help farmers sell their products directly, either to the state-run shops or in open market.

But training of the youth on marketing of goods will help them learn how to sell agricultural products at a good price, if not at a premium. 

Moreover, the training programme will make them self-sufficient in deciding the right market for a particular product and they can also make “need-based investment”.

As a result the chances of incurring losses will get minimised. At the same time, the agriculture marketing department is also taking steps of setting up markets in the rural areas where there will be shops selling all sorts of items including garments, handloom and handicrafts items, grocery, fertiliser, vegetables and goods required in everyday life under one roof.

There will also be ATM counters in the markets. Setting up of such markets will boost the economy in villages. The reason being the markets will be situated in such a location that besides the local people, tourists will also be visiting. The work has started to develop the first of its kind of market at 

Balagarh in Hooghly.