Agricultural Management vs. General Management
Authored by Dharmanand Rao M
A student of the Post Graduate Programme in Agri-Business Management (PGPABM)
National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE),
Hyderabad. (Rated #4 among the best sectoral Business Schools in India
(Outlook-MDRA survey September 2001).

The ongoing structural changes in the economy have resulted in major shifts in the Indian agricultural scenario. The primacy of subsistence orientation is yielding place to commercialization, opening up vast opportunities for value addition, packing and exports of agricultural products, with strikingly high levels of technology. The policies of globalization have taken Indian agriculture into the global village, opening up unprecedented opportunities as well as great challenges where a general management graduate cannot but an Agri-Business management graduate.

The environment needed to mould an agricultural graduate into an Agri-Business techno manager is far more competitive and abrasive than what is needed to make a general stream manager.

With only little focus on development of managerial skills in the undergraduate curriculum, young agricultural graduates find it difficult to function effectively as managers in Agri-Business firms, which have emerged as their most prospective employers, the Post Graduate Programme in Agri-Business Management (PGPABM), is a response to this situation. The top institutes offering PGPABM courses are National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE), Hyderabad; IIM Ahmedabad; GB Pant Agricultural University amongst others.

The programme aims at enabling only meritorious agricultural graduates acquire the critical competencies for functioning as Agri-Business managers.

One may note from the ET survey on Business confidence administered to the crème de la crème of corporate India during the present recession that most sectors are likely to suffer, barring a few exceptions; if you want to place any bets the agricultural sector may be the best choice.

Agriculture sector remains unshaken whenever called for and in the wake of coming food revolution, the agricultural scholars feel simply proud of not only nurturing rural markets but the entire Nation by being versatile erudite.

Jai Kisan Jai Hind.