Agriculture in India - Poverty Eradication
Thatchinamoorthy.C
Ph.D., Research Scholar
Agricultural Extension
“India lives in its Villages” Rural was backbone of our country. Agriculture, with its allied sectors, is unquestionably the largest livelihood provider in India, more so in the vast rural areas. It also contributes a significant figure to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Sustainable agriculture, in terms of food security, rural employment, and environmentally sustainable technologies such as soil conservation, sustainable natural resource management and biodiversity protection, are essential for holistic rural development. Tamil Nadu has historically been an agricultural state, while its advances in other fields launched the state into competition with other areas. The State’s total population grew from 62.41 million in 2001 to 72.15 million in 2011, the decadal growth being 11.6 percent. Nearly 70 per cent of the country population likes in rural areas report from latest census. Unemployment and poverty are inextricably linked in that one can’t be decoupled from the other. Unemployment is the major cause of poverty. Unemployment leads to loss of income, self reliance, skill and self-confidence, psychological and physical health, worker motivation and increases in ailment, morbidity and mortality.
Agriculture is very important for Indian economy and society both. It is the means of livelihood for half of the population. According to the Socio-Economic and Caste Census, SECC in 2011, out of 24.39 crore households in the country, 17.9 million households live in villages and are mostly dependent on agriculture. Agriculture is the principal source of livelihood for about 48 per cent of the population of the country. It caters to the food security of the nation besides generating exportable surpluses. As per 2011 Agricultural Census, number of agricultural workers in the country were 26.3 crore comprising 11.87 crore of cultivators and 14.43 crore of agricultural labourers.
Our agricultural farming system move to sustainability, It is refers to appropriate use of natural resources, protection of bio-diversity and environmentally compliant technologies with a view to ensuring the food and nutrition security of the growing population. And, inclusiveness implies the need to provide equal opportunities for all categories of agricultural households including the agricultural landless labour and the small and marginal farmers to grow and earn net family incomes at levels much higher than they do now. India’s agriculture sector has been undergoing a structural change with respect to its farm size, cropping pattern and share in the national Gross Value Added (GVA).
The global population is projected to be nine billion by 2050 which need to be almost doubled to meet the global food and nutritional security demand. Agrarian distress manifests itself as low income of farmers (evidenced by high percentage living below poverty line) farmer’s suicide which is not only unfortunate, but is also an avoidable event only if appropriate and timely interventions are made. It is in the above context, that Government of India in its budget 2016-17 declared its commitment to doubling income of the farmers over the period of 6 years (2016-17 to 2021-2022).
Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has set the goal of “Doubling the Farmers income” by 2022. This is the second time after independence when there is going to be a big transformation in the system in respect to agriculture and farmers. The country struggling with food shortage in the sixties was made self-reliant through the Green Revolution and now the Prime Minister is striving to double the income of the debt ridden farmers and raise their living standards. The Prime Minister’s goal of doubling the income of farmers by 2022 is commendable and full of challenges but not impossible. To bringing focus on ensuring small and marginal farmer income by the technology transfer through agricultural extension, it tries to creating a conducive awareness that supports doubling farmer income and poverty eradication.
Agricultural extension is more than only information dissemination; it extends beyond collection and sharing of research outcomes or farmers local knowledge with producers. It is an advisory service that entails human interaction. It is about knowledge brokering, which involves mediation between a wide ranges of actors within the agricultural innovation system. Despite all these tested and workable models and approaches. The sector is still in crisis. With the emergence of new ICTs, development partners should not make the mistake of thinking that ICTs could act as the new model of extension, nor be used to by-pass the extension officer and placed directly in farmers’ hands just because the extension has become dysfunctional.
Extension service delivery must shift from its current comfortable top-down approach to a knowledge sharing and facilitated learning approach. In this case, extension workers regard their clients as partners in developing new skills, generating innovations and learning about sustainability, rather than assuming the farmers to be mere recipients of externally generated scientific knowledge which may or may not be suited to their livelihoods and farming contexts. In all their extension engagements -be they production, food security or livelihood related- extension agents must be grounded thoroughly in both technical and ‘soft’ (e.g. participatory, learning, and communication) skills to promote environmentally sustainable livelihoods among farmers. Extension support should also encourage rural communities to institutionalize local governing bodies, mechanisms and rules to protect the invaluable natural resources upon which much of their sustenance depends. A single comprehensive policy must be established addressing food security, biodiversity conservation and extension, whereby both food security and conservation objectives are enshrined within extension service delivery.
Agricultural extension focusing on enhancing sustainable agricultural practices through the named instruments, biodiversity conservation, increased agricultural production, increased income, and improved social capital and human capital can be achieved. Thus, it is vital that agricultural extension remains an integral tool of any government to address biodiversity conservation at the rural environment level. Whatever approach or combination of approaches used – technology transfer, advisory, facilitation, or learning – agricultural extension programmes should be re-examined and adjusted so that they are made to contribute to poverty eradication.
Mr. Thatchinamoorthy C