Eradicating extreme poverty: what is the role of agriculture?
Poverty is one of the major problem & drawback in under-developing countries. To overcome it, we have to adopt Agriculture as a major occupation of the rural society. Agriculture is a very wide sector which is inter-linked with various sectors like: Rural development, Food Industries, Chemical Industries, Processing Industries, Leather Industries, and Textile Industries etc. All of these together play an important role in Eradicating extreme poverty in various aspects.
1) Farmers have to adopt GOOD AGRICULTURE PRACTICES:- Which efficiently produce sufficient (Food security), Safe (Food safety) and nutritious food (Quality food) which also reduces the input cost and increases the crop production per unit area, which ultimately leads to higher net income of farmer. Examples:- Composting, Mulching, Organic Fertilizers, Application of fertilizer at optimum time, optimum dose, optimum depth, Prevent soil salinity by limiting water inputs to excess needs. Green manuring with Sunhemp & cowpea, avoid water logging, Avoid feeding animals with waste matter, Avoid use of excess chemicals and hormones to plants & animal food chain etc.
2) Family Farming: It is very old concept but very effective approach in agriculture. Adopting this approach a farmer is capable of self sustainable & self sufficient to feed his family for year round, by which ultimately the poverty is prevented to major extent. Examples:- Growing of (Cereals + Pulses + Oilseeds + Fruits + Vegetables + Fibre + Fodder)
3) Government sector & NGO'S should promote and encourage the Rural Employment Guarantee programs in agriculture sector:- Which should give a minimum of 100 days daily wages in a year to farming community so that they earn money for their daily needs along with farming, which will be promising in Eradicating extreme poverty.
4) Farmers should Practice Integrated Farming System approach: It play an vital role in minimizing the risk of crop failure due to aberrant weather conditions. Cultivation of crops along with different components like Agro-Forestry, Dairy Farming, Goat/Sheep Farming, Poultry Farming, Aquaculture, Duck Farming, Sericulture and Honey Bee Farming will be a great source of generating continuous income per unit area, which will be a prominent in Eradicating extreme poverty.
5) Promote, Encourage the cottage & small scale industries in rural areas:- Which is a huge income generating source in rural areas for eradicating extreme poverty. Examples of Small Scale industries in village level: Bamboo hand crafts, Sericulture (Silk Production), Small Scale Textile industries, Small Scale Fruit pulp manufacturing, dehydrated & frozen vegetables manufacturing, Pickle industry, Dry fruit processing industry, cheese making, Paneer making, ghee & butter making, Ice-cream making, Spices & condiments processing industry, manufacturing Soaps & detergents, manufacturing herbal hair oil, manufacturing handmade chocolates, cookies & biscuits, manufacturing, candles & waxes manufacturing, Pulses processing industries, Disposable plates manufacturing, wooden furniture, Arboriculture etc.
6) Government & NGO'S should encourage & carry out rural development activates to farmers like Capacity building activates :- Training Programs, Awareness Programs, Brain Storming Sessions, Farmers-Scientists Interactions, GroupMeetings. Examples:- a) Food and Nutritional Security, b) Basic health & hygiene, c) Educating to children’s especially girl child, d) Drinking pure & safe water, e) Basic medicine & remedies for common diseases, f) Sanitation & Proper disposal of waste materials etc.
7) Government sector & Agriculture Universities should encourage & promote to Integrated Technology Knowledge in agriculture sector:- Which is a new aspect and bright full future to innovative youth farmers for adapting new practices for more crop production & getting higher net profit.
8) Climate Resilient Agriculture Practices are adopted to reduce the impact of climate change on agriculture crop production by various measures like: a) Rain water harvesting. b) Development of Micro catchment Area (15-20 sqm) for water harvesting. c) Runoff collection. d) Contour bunding, Graded bunding, compartmental bunding for preventing runoff. e) Inter-cropping & mixed cropping. f) Mulching with crop residues to avoid Evapo-Transpiration losses. g) Spraying of Anti-Transpirants. h) Practicing Broad-Bed-Furrow irrigation & Furrow irrigated raised bed systems for water conservation. i) Planting Shelter-belts / wind break trees species around the field on bunds to prevent the high speed, hot & desiccating winds which destroy the crops to maximum extents. j) Prevent wind and water erosion & Plant the erosion restricting crops like Vitever grass. k) Practice Minimum tillage, Zero tillage & conservation tillage for moisture conservation in dry land areas.
9) New approaches should be encouraged by government sectors in rural areas for farmer benefits. Example: Seed Bank, Fodder Bank & Farm Machineries Bank or Custom hiring centre. a) Seed Bank: - It will supply a good quality, Disease free seeds to farmers on every season on need based with low cost, which will reduce the cost of (seed input) as well as transportation cost for purchasing seed form market. b) Fodder bank: - It will supply a good quality fodder at low cost to farmers whose are involved in dairy farming, goat farming etc. It will play a prominent role in milk production & very high income generation assets to farmers which will ultimately eradicating extreme poverty of a farmer.
10) Organic Farming & Sustainable agriculture:- Farmer should give more scope towards organic farming for getting higher income with by minimizing the input cost. It also have many advantages over conventional farming like ; Maintain soil fertility, Soil health, Increase organic matter content of soil, Reduce compaction, Increase soil flora & fauna, Increase soil microbial activity, Increase nutrient use efficiency, Increase water holding capacity, Increase ground water table, Prevent soil pollution, Produce Pesticides residue free food, Environmental safe, Maintain Eco-System and Diversity, Ultimately all these reduces the cost of production and increase the Net income of the farmers, which leads to Eradicating extreme poverty.
11) Farmers should practice LEISA:- (Low External Input Sustainable Agriculture) to minimize the input cost & maximize the income per unit area.
12) Practice Integrated Nutrient Management, Integrated Pest Management, Integrated Disease Management, and Integrated Weed Management etc. This will be reducing the input cost of plant protection measures and increase the income of farmer per unit area.
13) Watershed Development approach should be promoted in the rural areas, which will be more prominent beneficial impact on agriculture sector for eradicating extreme poverty of a farmer in rural areas by: a) Water security for Agriculture & other daily uses. b) Increase cropping intensity. c) Multiple cropping can be possible d) Life saving irrigation is easily possible for getting higher crop production. e) Employment generation to farm labor for constructions.
14) Eradicating extreme poverty women play an important role in the argiculture:- Women's are the backbone of the development of rural and national economies. They comprise 43% of the world’s agricultural labor force, and carry out various farm opperations in agriculture sector like: Sowing, Transplanting, hand weeding, harvesing, threshing, winowing and packaging etc. Along with this It is extremely important to recognize the role that rural women play and the contribution that they make in networks and cooperatives, giving them greater political and financial support and involving them in the training and conducting of development programs that enhance women's role in agricultural production.
Sr. Mithare Prasad