Farmer's Club Programme Overview
Agriculture is the backbone of the Indian Economy as nearly 60% of the population of the country depends on agriculture and it contributes 18% to the GDP. Tenth Five Year Plan and National Agriculture Policy documents envisage a growth level of 4% in Agriculture as against the average growth of less than 2% in the last 50 years. The last decade commencing from 1990s was marked by post-Green Revolution fatigue and plateauing yield levels in many parts of the country. For sustained 4% growth in agriculture there is need to improve productivity and cut down on costs by improving efficiency.
There is, therefore, an urgent need to provide package of initiatives for transfer of technology, improving input use efficiency, promoting investments in agriculture both in private and in public sectors and creating a favourable and enabling economic environment. The emerging needs in agriculture sector now are adoption of location specific skill and knowledge based technologies, promote greater value addition to agriculture produce, forge new partnerships between public institutions, technology users and the corporate sector, harness IT more effectively to realise financial sustainability and compete in the international market. For transmitting the latest agriculture techniques to the Farmers’ field, orienting them to establish better relationship with banks, adoption of latest post-harvest handling technology, value addition, etc. and enjoy the benefits of collective bargaining power both for procuring inputs and select their produce the Farmers’ Club Programme is an appropriate and most suitable strategy initiated by NABARD & BBVS. "Mission Development in rural areas through credit, technology transfer, awareness and capacity building" The broad functions of the Farmers’ Clubs as envisaged are as follows :
The broad objective of setting up Farmers’ Clubs would be to achieve prosperity for the farmers with overall agricultural development in its area of operation by facilitating credit counselling, technology counselling and market counselling. Over the years, the vision of Farmers’ Clubs has undergone a change and the role expected to be played by Farmers Clubs have been enlarged to enable them to facilitate transfer of technology, propagation of seed village concept, strengthen agricultural extension services, undertake collective purchase and distribution of inputs, production and marketing, capacity building of members, to act as Business Facilitators (BFs)/Business Correspondents (BCs) for banks, formation of Self Help Groups (SHGs), Joint Liability Groups (JLGs), Producers Groups/Companies, Federations of Farmers’ Clubs, undertake community related works, and assume the role of a leader. Back to Farmer's Club Main Page |
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