Serving Nation through Farming: A Scope of Jai Jawan Kisan

The armed forces of India are among the largest in the world, with more than a million personnel employed in its various arms and cadres and majority retire as an Ex Service Man (ESM) in the late 30s or early 40s and when released from service, they still have major responsibilities towards family. Jai Jawan Kisan (JJK) is an opportunity for those ESM who wants to take a new employment opportunities in farming as agripreneur, by starting their own startup in agri and allied sector. In this context, to understand how the opinion of respondents joining JJK program, impacts intention to take agriculture as occupation post retirement and Aspiration towards farming was studied. Descriptive research design was used for the study and data was collected at MANAGE, Hyderabad from 70 respondents by using simple random sample with questionnaire and SPSS software was used to analyse correlation among three variables i.e Intentional, Aspiration and Opinion. The result concluded that the intention to engage in farming was found to be significant with opinion of JJK training at 0.01 level. Whereas, Aspiration was non-significant because little they have awareness regarding the opportunities available in farming as career option. More efforts need to be taken to give a global recognition and include more training programmes and course where these retiring young Jawans can get more exposure to secondary career options available in farming besides just being a farmer and earn subsequently like other profession. The present study paves path for further study to develop secondary career options in agriculture for the young defence personnel post retirement.