Farmers’ Information Needs
Dr. Chinmoy Kumar Sarma
Agriculture remains the largest sector of Indian Economy as a source of livelihood and almost half of the workforce in India still remains dependent on agriculture. Therefore, progress in agriculture sector will decide the condition of low income group in our country. During last few decades, agricultural strategy in the country has been focussing primarily on raising agricultural output and improving food and nutrition and our country has witnessed a 45 per cent increase in food production per person which has made India food self-sufficient at aggregate level.
However, farming itself turned out to be non-profit making overtime as the strategies did not clearly recognise the need to raise farmers’ income. There is always disparity between farmers’ income and income of those working in nonfarm sectors. The low and highly fluctuating level of farm income as well as increasing disparity between income of a farmer and non-agricultural worker has been forcing the cultivators especially the younger section to shift from agriculture to non agriculture sector.
To secure future of agriculture and to improve livelihood of half of India’s population, adequate attention needs to be given to raise agricultural income. Raising crop productivity through efficient utilization of resources, reducing cultivation costs and post-harvest losses, value addition to agricultural produces and reform in agriculture marketing are among the focus areas of the central government to double farmer incomes by 2022. NITI Aayog has also called for substantive investment in irrigation, seeds & fertilisers and new technology coupled with a shift into high-value commodities such as horticulture, poultry and dairying to double incomes. Adding value to farm produce via food processing, risk mitigation through crop insurance and disaster relief, and promotion of allied activities such as horticulture and animal husbandry will be the other areas of intervention.
Agriculture in Assam is mainly characterized by mono-cropping with low input low output, subsistence systems of farming practised primarily under rain-fed condition. When compared to national average, output per hectare, which is a common measure of agricultural productivity, remains low for most of the crops. Reasons include low and faulty input uses, poor access to modern technology and no real technological breakthrough in recent times. Land and water resource base for an average farm holding has declined over the last few decades and there are gaps in yield potential and average yields of most commodities.
There was clear evidence of technology fatigue, run-down delivery systems in credit, extension and marketing services and of insufficient agricultural planning at district and lower levels (Planning Commission, 2011). Like rest of the country, Assam is extremely vulnerable to climate change as the state has high reliance on agriculture that is likely to only increase because of its growing population. De-regulation of trade which has opened up the global market, has added new challenges to the farmers and forces the farmers to compete on quality and prices on several products not only in the export market, but also in domestic markets.
Perhaps, agricultural extension is the only service at the ground level that can provide information as well as knowledge support to farmers and other intermediaries who are supporting farmers. Strong extension system is the key to the desired change to meet the present day challenges in agriculture. As small and marginal farmers dominate agriculture in the state, there is an increasing need for stronger intermediaries that can facilitate information access for diverse farming communities. Agricultural extension is now seen as playing a wider role by developing human and social capital, enhancing skills and knowledge for production and processing, facilitating access to markets and trade, organizing farmers and producer groups, and working with farmers toward sustainable natural resource management practices (Swanson 2008).
Extension in today’s Indian context, includes all those agencies in the public, private, NGO and community based initiatives that provide a range of agricultural advisory services and facilitate technology application, transfer and management. Agricultural extension faces great challenges as farmers’ income is to be doubled by 2022-23 on the existing farm land. Despite a wide range of reform and initiatives in agricultural extension in India, the coverage of, access to, and quality of information provided to marginal and poor farmers is uneven. The gap between technology developed/released and the technology disseminated/adopted is wide.
As per a study by NSSO, 2014, 59% of the farm households received no assistance from either government or private extension services and of the 40.6% households who received extension assistance, only 11% of the services came from physical government machineries. That such a large proportion of the farming population does not use any extension service indicates the poor organizational performance of the public extension. Even today, hardly one third of the technology developed by the research system has reached the farming community and the technology adoption/application at field level is even less than whatever technology has made reach to the farmers. Moreover, although, the pluralistic extension system prevails in the country with public sector, private sector and third sector, all the sectors tend to work in isolation from each other. The biggest challenge with extension is how to transform and strengthen pluralistic agricultural extension to work together for increasing farm income and improving rural livelihoods.
Innovative extension approach must be worked on how to make agriculture more profitable to provide livelihood security to farmers. In present scenario a transformation is required from technology driven extension system to market driven system. The new extension approaches for livelihood security of the farmers are required to address the problems in agricultural and enhancing their scientific knowledge, skill, abilities to function efficiently in the given framework to improve productivity and income for better living. Addressing many of the complex issues in agriculture requires solutions which are beyond the decision making capacities of individual farmers.
Collective decisions on resource use and marketing would necessitate forming new forms of collaboration and this is particularly important as this sector is dominated by small farmers. While a production led strategy was the sole focus of extension earlier, this needs to be expanded to include a market led strategy to deal with the new challenges. But to play this role effectively, extension should expand its mandate beyond disseminating information on technologies so that it can better respond to the evolving demands for support and services of farmers. This includes, organizing user/producer groups, better linking of farmers to input and output markets, reducing the vulnerability and enhancing the voice of the rural poor, development of micro-enterprises, engaging in research planning and technology selection, enable changes in policies and linking producers to a range of other support and service networks.
If extension is to remain relevant, agricultural extension should also support and address relevant areas beyond the farm, such as storage, processing, market access and trade, agribusiness management and entrepreneurship, natural resource management, and issues related to women. About 90% of our farming community is small and marginal with less resources and weak access to information about improved technology enhances the relevance of ICTs for Agricultural Development. With the phenomenal growth in information and communication technology, the extension methodology has to be modified.
The growth and spread of information and communication technology in recent years provide a viable alternative to overcome physical barriers. In recent years the growth of information and communication technology will help to provide the most suitable and required package of practices on different aspects of sustainable agricultural development. So use of IT application in agriculture will bring remarkable change in the attitude and knowledge level of user. This approach will strengthen the extension system for better dissemination of technology.