Context: Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu has called for measures to prevent agro brain drain and attract educated youth to take up farming as a profession. He opined that the future of Indian agriculture lies in the hands of technology-driven farming practices, powered by well- informed and modern-minded farmers.  Inaugurating the National Dialogue on Indian Agriculture Towards 2030 through video conference, Mr Naidu said, agriculture is the pillar of India’s ecology, culture and civilisation. He also called for changing focus from food security to nutrition security. The Vice President stressed on the need to reduce agri-input costs and called for promoting organic farming in a big way. Emphasizing the need to move away from chemical farming, he said, organic farming is beneficial for all stakeholders including the farmers, the consumers and the environment. He called for making organic agriculture a mass movement not only for a ‘wealthy nation’ but also a ‘healthy nation’. 
Key highlight of Vice President's speech

• The importance of agriculture and allied activities in our economy is also evident from the fact that India has the largest livestock population of around 535.78 million, which constitutes around 31% of the world population. We are first in milk production and further aim to raise it to 330 million tons by 2024.
• Welfare of our farmers is at the core of all the agricultural policies and programs framed by this government. I congratulate the initiative you have taken to hold this dialogue. I am sure that this erudite gathering of agricultural experts, farmers, scientists, academics and civil society members will examine the problems and challenges that Indian agriculture faces and will make suitable recommendations on how to overcome them and move forward.

Key Challenges

• Foremost among these is the challenge of food security and better nutrition for our growing population. In fact, the time has come to switch the focus of our approach from ‘food security’ to ‘nutrition security’.
• Secondly, we need to address the challenge of sustainability of our natural resources—land, water, forests and so on. This calls for a heightened focus on technologies that increase water use efficiency, and also promote organic farming in a big way. It is pertinent to point out that the organic food segment in India is expected to grow at 10% during 2015-25 and is estimated to reach Rs. 75,000 crore by 2025. It bears no repetition that organic farming is beneficial for all—the farmers, the consumers and the environment. This has been proven beyond any shadow of doubt.
• The third area of focus is the challenge of resilience in the face of the grave impacts of climate change expected in the next few years and decades. This needs to be addressed with an increasing sense of urgency and awareness.
• Lastly, the farmer and the farm-worker at the heart of the agricultural landscape deserve all total, undivided attention. It is our moral responsibility to ensure that we give him a bright future that recognises the blood and sweat of our annadata which constitutes Indian agriculture.
• Another problem facing Indian agriculture is the increasing lack of interest in farming among educated youth. Changing socio-economic milieu, increasing agri-input costs and diminishing returns have turned agriculture into a less preferred profession among the youth.

Key Solutions

• To turn the farmers into ‘agri-entrepreneurs’, efforts should be made to establish strong lab–farm links and farmer–industry interaction should be promoted. Creation of ‘Business Incubation Centres’ would also be a step in the right direction for aspiring farmers in this field.
• Farmers need to be encouraged to take up allied activities like poultry, dairy, fisheries, aquaculture, pisciculture, sericulture, apiculture and horticulture to have income in case of a failed crop. The Indian food processing industry has immense potential and needs to be fully tapped.
• The agricultural universities and Krishi Vignan Kendras need to adopt a pro-active approach in bringing the latest research and innovation to the farmers. The lab-to-land concept has to be effectively implemented.
• There is a need for coordinated action in team India sprit by both the Centre and the States to make agriculture profitable. 
• As farmers are unorganized and voiceless, the 4 Ps–Parliament, political leaders, policymakers and press must pro-actively adopt a positive bias towards agriculture.

Road Ahead

• Agriculture has great deal of scope India is on right trajectory as far as technology and talent is concerned, all we need to do is get a few right policies in place and gives farmer right kind of impetus with that we are going to see agriculture going back to its glory days.
• Implementing all these measures and encouraging agripreneurs will prevent agro brain drain and will hopefully attract youth to take up farming as a profession. In the wake of the pandemic, the world is looking towards India. We need to seize the opportunity and give special impetus to agriculture to not only sustain self-sufficiency but also export to other countries and further strengthen India’s economy.