AGRIPRENEURSHIP: A BASE FOR RISK MITIGATION IN AGRICULTURE; AN INQUEST WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO KALAHANDI DISTRICT OF ODISHA

Abstract

Agriculture being the main stay of rural livelihood in Kalahandi District of Odisha.  In the arena of modernization in agriculture, where cropping diversification, technological adaption, operational skills sets, market linkage and extension is felt to be vital. Scanty infrastructure and lack of skills, credit, insurance, irrigation in agriculture, availing govt schemes is observed to be emerging challenges for farmers. Risk is a dominant feature in Agriculture which put its impact on Farmers livelihood as well as on economy. Sustainability Gaps is one of the predominate problem, where farmers face problems of pre production, production, post harvest and marketing. The sustainability gap can be overcome by providing proper extension facility, awareness, and coordination mechanism from the system and bottom to top approach. Though even after having huge potential in Agriculture, Acceptability to Agriculture for the present generation seems to be at a neglected situation.  Migration to urban centres is felt to be a source of livelihood generation, which in a long run seems to be an unsustainable scene. For sustainable development in agriculture sector, “Agripreneur” is the need of the hour who acts as a Risk Moderator. The present paper is an attempt to identify the gap in Farmer and system and to review How “Agripreneur” through an integrated approach helps in moderating the risk of farmers.