Therefore, there is need to enhance the technical expertise, managerial capabilities and access to timely information to enable smallholder farmers to strengthen their livelihoods amid the fast-evolving global economic landscape.
Climate change and scarcity of arable land might lead future agriculture to respond to production needs even under more extreme environments. It will necessitate adoption of technology, scientific innovation and sustainable practices to create more sustainable, accessible and resilient agricultural systems.
In Assam, agriculture remains the largest sector as a source of livelihood, generating employment opportunities to more than 53 per cent of the total workforce group directly or indirectly and therefore, development in agriculture and allied sector will not only decide the condition of low-income group in the state but also state’s poverty condition.
Efforts have been made to improve the farmers’ income, however, there has always been apprehension that farming is becoming non-profit making overtime, affecting interest of the people on farming due to low and highly fluctuating farm income and is obliging more and more farmers, particularly younger age group section to search alternative opportunities instead of farming as there is always disparity between farmers’ income and income of those working in nonfarm sectors.
Participation and retaining youth in agricultural sector can give solution to the problem of unemployment in our country. But the question is how youth are motivated to take up agriculture as a profession and whether the agriculture sector has enough prospects to support a respectable livelihood.
Many a times, traditional form of agricultural system diverts interest of the younger section from farming to other nonfarm activities. Output per hectare, which is a common measure/scale of agricultural productivity, remains low in the state for most of the crops while compared with national averages. This is attributed to low and faulty input uses, lesser access to modern technology and no sound and real technological breakthrough in recent times.
In present scenario, the trend of consumption data highlighted the rising in per capita intake of fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs, meat while, per capita cereals intake remained stagnant or decline in some cases. So diversification in agricultural sector is the need of the hour. Shifting or inclination towards lower to higher value supplies/essentials offers an important avenue to enhance productivity, incomes and wages. Diversification towards high value crops offers a great scope to improve farm income.
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. Historically, people have developed ways by themselvesto cope with climate variability which has become embedded in their lifestyles and traditions.
However, traditional coping and adaptation practices developed in response to normal climatic variations are becoming less effective against the increasing scale and intensity of the changing hazards. To address these issues, there are needs for new information and new ideas and the role of extension is very clear. Various climate smart technologies in respect of situation specific varieties, water management, nutrient management, carbon pumping etc. are being generated by Assam Agricultural University which will be critical in near future.
Small and marginal farmers play crucial role in Indian economy by contributing 51 per cent of total agricultural output with 46 per cent of operational land holding and there has been continuous decline in operational land holding size in India with each successive generation.
Today, small and marginal farmers are facing various challenges and in most of the cases, they are just surviving in a situation where they have no or very limited access to new technology, credit, input, farm machineries, market etc. The main reason of suffering of farm communities is realised due to the existing gap between scientific know-how and field level do-how. Now, it becomes imperative to enable our farmers with access to improved technologies, required amenities and more number of markets to produce higher and better-quality commodities.
Agricultural extensions plays a vital role in bridging the knowledge gap between research institutions and farmers by providing a range of advisory services and facilitate expertise application, transmission and management in the farmer’s field.
Perhaps, agricultural extension is the only service at the ground level that can provide essential knowledge, guidance, information as well as assistance to the farmers and the stakeholders; however, the exposure and access to information which were disseminated to marginal and underprivileged farmers are uneven and patchy. In real situation a huge gap exists between the technology developed/released and the technology dissemination/adoption.
At present time also, hardly one third of the technology developed at the research organizations has reached the farming community and the statistics of adoption/application of such technology at field level is even less than that. Less adoption of many of our recommended agricultural technologies in the field is mainly because scientific findings are not always translated into practical, context-specific solutions and researchers often don’t understand farmers’ real-world challenges.
Sometimes, technologies are complex in nature and inputs are not readily available in nearby areas. Inadequate number of extension workers and inefficient technology dissemination process at field level has also widened the knowledge gap.
Many a time, broad technological recommendations make vary little sense as there is huge variation in the natural resource base, farming systems and socio-economic conditions of farmers. So, there is need of proper coordination of researchers, extension personnel and farmers to identify the problems and researchable issues for generating need based technologies as well as dissemination of feasible technology.
The extension system which prevails in our country is mainly pluralistic with theparticipation of public sector, private sector and third sector;however, all the sectors tend to work in isolation from each other.Now, farmers need a wide range of support covering technical, organizational, marketing and entrepreneurial aspects and without an integrated approach, new knowledge can’t be applied in practice.
All the sectors should work in coordination to complement each other as the objectives are same.Extension system should expand its mandate beyond disseminating information on technologies which includes organizing farmers’ producer groups, better linking of farmers to input and outputmarkets, reducing the vulnerability to stress, development of micro-enterprises, involvement in research planning and technology selection and linking producers to a range of other support and service networks.
There is need to strengthen extension system with modernize services which are farmer-friendly and bridging the knowledge gap requires moving beyond just disseminating information to creating interactive learning environments that value farmers’ local knowledge.
The advancement in information and communication technology sectors in recent years provides a feasible alternative to overcome existing physical barriers in extension system.
In recent years the growth of such technologies helps to disseminate and spread the information on the most suitable and required package of practices on different aspects of sustainable agricultural development. Digital tools like Kisan Call Centres, e-Choupal, and social media can be utilized for localized information dissemination in local languages.
Dr. Chinmoy Kumar Sarma, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, Assam, Mobile- 9957130225
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