Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 26: Vice Chancellor SKUAST-Jammu, Prof J P Sharma today released a book on “Agribusiness Development Planning and Management”, authored and edited by Dr Anil Bhat, Assistant Professor, Agricultural Economics and Prof Jyoti Kachroo Head, Division of Agricultural Economics and ABM.
Padma Shree Bharat Bhushan Tyagi, Padma Shree Sultan Singh and Statutory officers of the University were also present during the book release function.
The Vice-Chancellor, while releasing the book, advocated that Agribusiness and entrepreneurship are playing an important role in the elevation of the agricultural sector and its various stakeholders. He further said that there is immense potential of agribusiness startups in the areas of establishment of cold storages, cold chain facilities, medicinal and aromatic plants, post harvest management, organic farming, packaging, branding and marketing of niche crops.
Editor of the book, Dr Anil Bhat said that the book is quite valuable for the researchers, policy makers and administrators in generating awareness about the emergence of agribusiness markets for the farmers in India. He hoped that the book would prove to be a big storehouse of knowledge and help young entrepreneurs and farmers to think outside the box and come up with unique creative ideas for establishment of their agribusiness start ups.
Twenty five book chapters on different themes related to agribusiness have been contributed by different authors at national level.
Prof Jyoti Kachroo, Editor of the book, gave a detailed report about the work mentioned in the book and emphasized that now the time is to look agriculture as a business study and courses in agriculture must be designed to nurture the next generation of agri-business technocrats, entrepreneurs and researchers.
The book was released during valedictory function of two- days long Innovative Farmers Conference on “Farmer Led Innovations for Enhancing Farm Income”.
The innovative conference was attended by five Padma Shree awardee and more than 120 National awardee farmers from different States of India.