TOPIC : REINVENTING AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SYSTEM IN INDIA: THE ROAD AHEAD

THE CONTEXT: Indian agriculture is confronting serious issues such as a huge yield gap, a multitude of smallholders, imbalances with respect to input use and declining natural-resource productivity. Extension systems in India, which have an important role to play in addressing these concerns, are constrained by financial, infrastructural, and human resource limitations. This article explains in detail about the role of agricultural extension services in increasing the overall agriculture productivity.

WHAT IS AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICES?

  • Agricultural extension can be defined as the “delivery of information inputs to farmers to increase agricultural productivity” and also it is the application of scientific research and knowledge to agricultural practices through farmer education.
  • According to The Committee for Doubling Farmers’ Income, “Agricultural Extension is an empowering system of sharing information, knowledge, technology, skills, risk & farm management practices, across agricultural sub-sectors, all along the agricultural value chain, to enable the farmers to realise higher net income from their enterprise on a sustainable basis”
  • The field of ‘extension’ now encompasses a wider range of communication and learning activities organized for rural people by educators from different disciplines, including agriculture, agricultural marketing, health, and business studies.

PURPOSE OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICES

  • The basic purpose of the extension services is the overall development of the rural people.
  • To bring about desirable changes in the human behavior, which includes change in knowledge, skill and attitude.
  • The dissemination of useful and practical information relating to agriculture, including improved seeds, fertilizers, implements, pesticides, improved cultural practices, dairying, poultry nutrition etc.
  • In India there is variability of rainfall due to which there is always exist the possibility of crop failure and loss of yield thus to minimize it, there is an important role of agriculture extension services.
  • To make the people aware that agriculture is a profit table profession.
  • To create an environment for rural people so that they can show their talent, leadership and efficiency.
  • To provide appropriate solution of the farmer’s problems.
  • To bring the scientist closer to the farmers.

MAIN ELEMENTS OF AGRICULTURE EXTENSION SERVICES

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

1. Extension services provide knowledge and information to the farmers that they do not have. For example:

  • Knowledge about the cause of the damage to a particular crop.
  • The general principles of pest control or the ways in which manure and compost are broken down to provide plant nutrients.

2. The application of such knowledge often means that the farmer has to acquire new skills of various kinds for example:

  • Technical skills to operate unfamiliar equipment.
  • Organizational skills to manage a group project.
  • The skill to assess the economic aspects of technical advice given.
  • Farm management skills for keeping records and allocating the use of farm resources and equipment.

TECHNICAL ADVICE AND INFORMATION

  • Extension provides advice and information to assist farmers in making decisions and generally enable them to take action.
  • This can be information about prices and markets, for example, or about the availability of credit and inputs.

FARMERS’ ORGANIZATION

  • To represent the interest of farmers and to give them a means for taking collective action. Extension, therefore, should be concerned with helping to set up, structure and develop organizations of local farmers.
  • This should be a joint venture and any such organization should only be set up in consultation with the farmers.
  • In the future, these organizations will make it easier for extension services to work with local farmers, and will also serve as a channel for disseminating information and knowledge.

MOTIVATION AND SELF-CONFIDENCE

  • One of the main constraints to development that many farmers face is isolation, and a feeling that there is little they can do to change their lives.
  • Some farmers will have spent all their lives struggling in difficult circumstances to provide for their families with little support or encouragement.

TYPES OF AGRICULTURE EXTENSION

  1. Technology transfer Services– Transfer of advice, knowledge and information.
  2. Advisory Services– Advice to farmers in relation to specific problems faced by them.
  3. Facilitation Services–Support farmers to outline their own problems and develop their own solutions.

WHO PROVIDE THE AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICES?

In India, Agricultural Extension is provided by:

  • Public sector bodies such as Ministries of Agriculture or Rural Development,
  • The private sector (e.g., consulting firms, seed and other input companies, and buyers of produce)
  • Non-profit entities such as NGOs,
  • Commodity boards or farmer-based organizations.

AGRICULTURE EXTENSION SERVICES BY PUBLIC SECTOR

  • Presently, the Public extension system predominantly handles the Extension Services and Public extension system in India.
  • They include State Agriculture departments, Agriculture Universities, ICAR Organisations, KVKs, ATMs, and several other Central and State Government organisations.
  • Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA)

In 1998, the Indian Government, with the support of World Bank, introduced the Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA) under the Innovation in Technology Dissemination (ITD) component of the National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP)

  • Its mandate is to have linkage with all the line departments, research organizations, non-governmental organizations and agencies associated with agricultural development in the district.
  • Research and Extension units, Departments of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Horticulture and Fisheries etc. as the constituent members of ATMA.
  • ATMA-KVK (Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs)) linkage need to be strengthened further by creating functional inter-dependence as KVKs has very important role to play in frontline extension system.

National Mission on Agriculture Extension and Technology (NMAET)

The National Mission on Agriculture Extension and Technology (NMAET) aims to make the system farmer-driven and accountable by restructuring and strengthening existing agriculture extension programmes to enable the delivery of technology and to improve the current agronomic practices of farmers

AGRICULTURE EXTENSION SERVICES BY PRIVATE SECTOR

  • Private Extension Services cover seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, machinery, credit, insurance, contract farming, export, advisory etc and many private players like progressive farmers, farmers’ organisations (CIGs, FPOs), including cooperatives are direct stakeholders under this system.
  • Other private sector involvement is through agri-entrepreneurs, input dealers, agri-business companies, NGOs, private banks, private media including TV, radio, print media, internet, donor agencies, consultancy firms etc.

CHALLENGES IN AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION SERVICES IN INDIA

ADVICE NOT RELEVANT IN NATURE

  • The major problem reported by those who had access to extension services was the practical relevance of the advice.
  • In India, Agricultural Extension has largely been focusing on production aspects, whereas farmers’ requirement today is more market related.

LACK OF TRAINED AND CAPABLE HUMAN RESOURCE

  • The capa­city development of agricultural extension professionals on technical and collaboration aspects is one of the important issues of the ongoing extension reforms to serve the farming community efficiently and effectively.

MISINFORMATION AND INFLUENCE OF PRIVATE INPUT DEALERS

  • Public extension provides advisory services, whereas input supply is controlled by private sector, this duality in delivery of services also creates confusion, despite right advice by public extension, farmers purchase wrong inputs influenced by aggressive sale by private input dealers.

REGIONAL DISPARITY IN EXTENSION EXPENDITURE

  • Regional variation in extension expenditure is an issue of concern. Dry regions, accounting for about 60% of the total agricultural land, received only 23% of the total funding as of 2013. On the other hand, the irrigated regions accounted for about 24% of the agricultural land, and were allotted 35% of the extension budget.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION SOURCES

  • The small farmers and socially backward farmers have access to fewer information sources compared to their counterparts.Smallholder farmers still rely mainly on local sources of information.

THE WAY FORWARD

SUSTAINABILITY

  • The focus of agricultural extension has been on increasing yield with much less attention paid to ecosystem health and natural resource conservation.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT

  • Extension needs to identify the potential for entrepreneurship development across the value chain and help forge forward and backward linkages.
  • Assessing the entrepreneurial intention of farmers and capacity building for entrepreneurship development need to be undertaken.

INNOVATIVE WAYS

  • Innovations like block chain technology, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and geographical information systems need to be manoeuvred for improving production, productivity and returns in a sustainable manner.

ENGENDERING EXTENSION SERVICES

  • Extension services remain dominated by men, and the needs of women farmers, as well as households headed by women, are excluded systematically from accessing many extension services

ROLE OF PUBLIC SECTOR

  • While private and non-governmental institutions should be encouraged, public extension has to be strengthened to cater to the scale and diversity of agriculture in India.

THE CONCLUSION: Thus, the extension system needs to be futuristic and evolve strategies to suit emerging technology platforms. In this context, both the public and private sectors need to be promoted through different institutional mechanisms, so as to achieve inclusiveness and geographical coverage.

QUESTIONS FOR MAINS EXAMINATION:

Q1. Despite several measures to reduce the vulnerability of farmers in India, the farm sector and farmers continue to suffer losses Elaborate and also discuss the role of agriculture extension services in doubling the income of Indian farmers.

Q2. What do you mean by agriculture extension services? How will extension services help in increasing the overall agricultural productivity?