Agri-business management goes global

With an eye on establishing a global brand, institutes offering the post-graduate programme in Agri-Business Management (PGP-ABM) have now begun establishing linkages with their international agri-business management colleges.

The College of Agri-business Management (CABM), for instance, which is affiliated to the G B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Uttaranchal, is in advanced talks with the University of Illinois to offer a dual MBA programme in Agri-business Management from the next academic year.

The college is also in talks with Iowa State University, University of Manitoba-Canada and the Cornell University.

IIM-Lucknow, which has seen four batches of PGP-ABM pass out from the institute so far, too is in advanced talks with the University of Tennessee, University of South Carolina and Purdue University in the US to sign up for a possible collaboration in areas like faculty and student exchange and research projects.

The institute has also received interest from the Royal Agricultural College, UK. The institute plans to hold an international conference on Agri-business management in August this year for which it has received sponsorship interest from GTZ, an international co-operation enterprise for sustainable development.

Co-ordinators of PGP-ABMs say while they will retain the rural immersion and grassroots' development initiative programmes, they would be encouraging students to take up student exchange programmes to international universities to understand the exposure to the sector abroad.

This year, for the first time, two students from IIM-Lucknow will be going to Italy in June on the basis of papers they had submitted to the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association (IFAMA).

Last year, a student from Ahmedabad had gone to a university in France and two French students had spent a semester at the institute.

An increasing number of international agriculture, food processing and related companies now want to hire students with an agro background for their operations in India. This is providing a further boost to the plans of ABM institutes.

Officials of IIM-Ahmedabad, for instance, have had discussions with at least two major international companies dealing in the agro sector recently who have expressed interest in the institute's graduating PGP-ABM batch of 2008.

Further, premier ABM institutes including IIM-Ahmedabad, IIM-Lucknow, National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE), Hyderabad, College of Agribusiness Management - G.B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology Uttaranchal, National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (NIAM) Jaipur, Institute of Agri Business Management (IABM) Bikaner and others have recorded a new high in their final placements for the batch of 2007.

Recruiters this year included ICICI Prudential, Infosys, Nestle, Mahindra and Mahindra, RPG Retail, Standard Chartered, Aditya Birla, Godrej Agrovet, Pantaloons, Marico and Rabo Bank among others.

V.P.S. Arora, Dean, CABM opines that the agro industry needs at least 1000 specialised graduates every year. This is making institutes like IIM-Lucknow think of increasing their student intake.

In most of the ABM colleges, student intake is around 30-35 but placement co-ordinators say that a number of recruiters have to go empty handed since students get placed by day two or three at the most.

"While the PG programmes in management draw better packages for students, the differences are coming down rapidly in terms of average salaries. We have had close to 20 per cent increase in average packages offered and better profiles as compared to last year," says Pradyumana Khokle, Chairperson, PGP-ABM, IIM-Ahmedabad.

He adds that even as some people complain about the IIMs not serving the society, students graduating from the PGP-ABM were directly involved in grassroots development.

PG course in emergency care

The Emergency Management Research Institute (EMRI) and US-based Stanford School of Medicine have launched a two-year postgraduate programme in emergency care (EMT-A) in Hyderabad. The programme will begin on July 16, this year.

EMRI is a not-for-profit organisation founded and funded by Satyam Computers chairman, B Ramalinga Raju, and his brothers to provide emergency services in a timely manner to individuals in need of emergency, be it medical, police or fire. It runs a network of ambulances and paramedicalstaff in Andhra Pradesh for this purpose saving, according to the organisation, '50 lives every day'.

Under the agreement, the physicians of Stanford will develop an educational curriculum and train 150 paramedics and 30 advancedclinical educators free-of-cost over a two-year period at the EMRI campus at Kompelli, about 20 km from here.

According to EMRI chief executive officer, Venkat Changavalli, graduates in lifesciences, nursing and physiotherapy or an equivalent qualification would be admitted to the two-year intensive residential course.

The course would cost about Rs 2 lakh, which includes the two-year fee, boarding and lodging. At present, EMRI servicesare available in 19 districts of Andhra Pradesh catering to the needs of 65 million people.