Last Mile Delivery of Conservation Agriculture in India: Business Models, Capacity Needs and Government Programmes Singh Rajbir11, Pratibha M.2, Chaudhari S.K.3, Singh A.K.4 1ICAR-Agricultural Technology Application Research Institute, Ludhiana, Punjab 2Principal Scientist, ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad, Telangana 3Deputy Director General (NRM), ICAR, KAB-II, New Delhi 4Deputy Director General (Agri. Ext.), ICAR, KAB-I, New Delhi *Corresponding author, Email: Rajbir.Singh3@icar.gov.in
Online published on 22 March, 2022. Abstract The rice-wheat system in the north-western India produces huge amount of crop residue, which is being burnt by the farmers leading to environmental pollution. It presents huge opportunity for adoption of conservation agriculture in the region. Zero and minimum tillage seeders, like Happy Seeder, have been developed for sowing wheat, which helps resolve many associated issues viz. residue management, cost of cultivation, irrigation water and herbicide usage. But, conservation practices do not appeal to the farmers, owing to lack of immediate visible response. Therefore, they require multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder participatory approach based tools and techniques for last mile delivery, which involve capacity development, exposure visits, policy support and legislations, effective monitoring and tracking systems etc. The key constraint of the mind-set of farmers towards tillage should be targeted through awareness and capacity building programmes in popularizing conservation practices. Moreover, developing business models of machinery banks for effective and efficient adoption among farmers was emphasized by promoting entrepreneurship development of rural youth. A systematic pathway was developed for promoting conservation agriculture through frequent farmer-scientist-industry meets, involving rural youth, providing timely advisory services, establishing active bi-directional link between research and farmers and policy advocacy. This capacity building process comprised five inter-related stages ranging from dialogues amongst the stakeholders, capacity needs assessment, formulation of strategy to its final delivery and monitoring & evaluation at every stage. Likewise, with the Government support, different machines like Happy Seeder, Super Straw Management System, multi-crop seeders, mulchers/choppers, zero till drills, rotary slashes etc. were provided to the farmers at reasonable cost. Further, to promote conservation agriculture, efforts should be made to provide scale appropriate machinery, development of model technology hubs and scalable and sustainable business models, realizing multiplier effect of farmer-to-farmer extension, building partnerships, skilling manpower and harnessing information and communication technologies to the fullest. Top Keywords Happy seeder, rice-wheat system, zero tillage, weed management, machinery. Top |