AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS OF SYNGENTA FOUNDATION INDIA : AN EVALUATION STUDY

A Consultancy Assignment For Syngenta Foundation India

Dr. Dibyendu Sen

Consultant

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
At the outset, I wish to put on record my sincere gratitude to the Syngenta Foundation India and in particular its Adviser, Dr. P.R. Das Gupta, for engaging me as a Consultant and providing the opportunity of conducting an evaluation study on Agriculture Development Projects of Syngenta Foundation India. I am also thankful to him for briefing me with the backgrounds, objectives and basic features of the individual projects before the commencement of this study. The logistics support, facilitation and useful assistance in various other forms provided by the Foundation and its project partners, are also greatly appreciated. I am particularly thankful to all project people who tried their level best to make my field visits and stay as comfortable as possible, as the study was carried out in the middle of summer. While conducting the fieldwork of the study for understanding the ground realities in respect of various aspects of the Agricultural Development project, I would like to mention the valuable help I received from quite a few people from each of the centres at Chandrapur, Jawhar, Kalahandi and Bankura. Among them, the names which deserve special mention are, Mr. Sharad Dobole, Agricultural Extension Manager, Chandrapur Centre, Mr. Amol Pawar, Project Officer, Jawhar Centre, Mr. Ashok Pattnaik, Chief Executive, KARRTABYA and Mr. Jishaya Tandia, Agricultural Extension Coordinator, Kalahandi Centre and Dr. Kalpana Sur, Coordinator and Mr Avijit Nayak, Consultant, Bankura Project and their colleagues who took a lot of pains in facilitating the field work across various villages under their centres. Logistic and other facilities provided by the project staff members ensured my smooth movement and helped me carry out my studies freely and smoothly. I express my appreciation for such excellent facilitation. Finally, I thank all the farmers whom I interviewed and the members of their farming families; the self-help groups and the functionaries of the development agencies who through their valuable opinion and views, have enriched my understanding of the relevant project components and their impacts on the livelihood security of the target groups.

Dibyendu Sen Consultant EB 1/12 Deshbandhunagar Kolkata 700 059 August 31, 2008

CONTENTS
Chapter Executive Summary I. Background i. The Challenges of Achieving Four Percent Annual Growth Rate in Agriculture ii. Syngenta Foundation Indias Response to Addressing the Challenge iii. Evaluation and its Objectives Methodology Results and Discussion Agricultural Development Project, Chandrapur, Maharashtra 1) Project Background 2) Technology-led Interventions 3) Extension Management Strategy 4) Support Interventions 5) Impact of Interventions 6) Spread Effects 7) Strengths and Weaknesses 8) A Few Action Points Agricultural Development Project, Jawhar, Maharashtra 1) Project Background 2) Technology-led Interventions 3) Extension Management Strategy 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) Support Interventions Impact of Interventions Spread Effects Strengths and Weaknesses A Few Action Points Particulars Page I VII 1 2 4 6

II. III.

9 10 13 20 21 26 26 28 28 29 31 35 36 40 41 42 43 44 45 49 51 55 55 56
Contents Contd.

Agricultural Development Project, Kalahandi, Orissa 1) Project Background 2) Technology-led Interventions 3) Extension Management Strategy 4) Support Interventions 5) Impact of Interventions 6) Spread Effects 7) Strengths and Weaknesses 8) A Few Action Points

Chapter

Particulars Agricultural Development Project, Bankura, West Bengal 1) Project Background 2) Technology-led Interventions 3) Extension Management Strategy 4) Support Interventions 5) Impact of Interventions 6) Spread Effects 7) Strengths and Weaknesses 8) A Few Action Points

Page 56 57 59 62 65 68 69 70 71 i-xi xii-xxii

IV

Concluding remarks & recommendations Appendix I SFI interventions : Inter-Project Comparative Account Appendix II SWOT Analysis & Task Dimensions

EVALUATION OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS OF SYNGENTA FOUNDATION INDIA EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Background Syngenta Foundation India (SFI) was established in India in 2005. Its mission is to increase opportunities and choices for poor rural communities in economically backward areas towards improving their livelihood through sustainable innovations in agriculture. For fulfilling this mission, SFI launched agricultural development projects at four locations in three states viz, Maharashtra (Chandrapur and Jawhar), Orissa (Kalahandi) and West Bengal (Bankura). In each of these locations SFI, in collaboration with local NGOs, took up programs of action woven around a set of interventions as depicted in table 1.
Table 1: Individual Components in the Intervention Domain and their Categories Sl No 1. Categories Technology led interventions Individual Components

2.

3.

Introduction of improved method of paddy cultivation through hybrid paddy varieties and SRI method Facilitating paddy seed production and their distribution Popularization of hybrid vegetable cultivation through seedling raising and distribution Popularization of horticultural crops like fruits and vegetables Introduction of new crop varieties and their cultivation techniques Extension led Farmers training programs interventions Sensitization workshop on hybrid paddy cultivation Farmers meetings / workshops Farm & Home visits by experts Office call by the farmers Trials / demonstrations on recommended crops Method demonstration (farm equipment) Farmers tours Harvest Hungama hybrid vs. local paddy Library-cum-information centre Support / Supplementing water holding capacity of available water bodies for using Institution such resource towards augmenting agricultural production led Construction of low-cost green house interventions Production/Supply of seeds of improved varieties Supply of planting materials (fruits & vegetables) Supply of farm equipment (Row marker; Kono Weeder) Setting up of agricultural consultation / information centres Establishment of self help groups

Evaluation and its objectives All these interventions having been implemented since 2006, there was a felt need to evaluate the project in these four centres. Hence, the present evaluation study was launched with the following objectives. Objectives The objectives of such evaluation was to compare the program of activities of the four centres in respect of (i) inventory of technological interventions and their relevance; (ii) extension management strategy; (iii) support / institutional interventions;(iv) impact I

of adoption of technologies by the target clients; (v) spread effect of such adoption; (vi) strengths as well as weaknesses of the centres; and (vii) recommendation of actions warranted for increasing program effectiveness. Methodology For the purpose of the evaluation study, out of 146 villages covering all the four centres, 34 were selected on the basis of performance rating by the centre in charge, distance from the HQ as well as year of initiation. Primary data collected through interviews as well as case studies employing PRA, were from targeted farmers as well as other farmers in the vicinity; centre level personnel in charge of program implementation, representatives of the relevant line departments, input dealers. The secondary sources of data, on the other hand were various reports, records and office files, relevant to the project implementation. Results and discussions Results obtained from the analysis of the data collected in respect of program implementation by the four centres are presented according to the major performance criteria drawn in the line of the specific objectives of the evaluation study 1. Technology intervention 1.1. Intervention domain Technological options identified by all the centres for carrying out the interventions revolved around primarily two sets paddy based technologies and vegetable based technologies, with a very few independent centre specific technological options, which did not constitute major focus in the centres scheme of activities. 1.2. Technology relevance Paddy was endemic to all the centres (except Anandwan farm under Chandrapur centre) and paddy-based technologies were generally relevant in all the centres. Among paddy-based technologies, cultivation of high yielding varieties was uniformly practiced whereas hybrid varieties and application of SRI technique were mostly new to the farming systems across the centres. In case of SRI, for small-scale application, it was found relevant mostly by the small farmers. However, for bigger scale application requiring employment of hired labour, the technology was considered not so feasible. Vegetable farming on the other hand was a new practice in almost all the centres, except in Kalahandi, where Mali, a backward community was traditionally involved in vegetable cultivation. However, profitability of vegetable farming with the use of hybrids and high yielding varieties of seeds and seedlings, under some form of irrigation, mostly during rabi, gave the practicing farmers in all the centres viable opportunities of using their lands, otherwise left fallow. 2. Extension management 2.1. Extension approach Two basic extension approaches were followed across the centres in administering the interventions. Chandrapur centre as the lone exception, adopted a dual strategy of developing the very large farms at the disposal of the partner organization, on scientific lines and organizing at the same time village based extension activities. Under the second approach, all the three other centres, in collaboration with their respective partner organizations were engaged in village based outreach activities only.

II

2.2. Extension organization Chandrapur and Jawhar centres had been placed with team of extension personnel recruited by the SFI. In Kalahandi and Bankura on the other hand, the partner NGO recruited the teams. Qualification of these in charges of Chandrapur, Jawhar, Kalahandi and Bankura were M.Sc. (Ag) in Extension education, B.Sc. (Ag), Diploma in Agriculture and M.Sc. (Ag) in Agricultural Botany and Ph.D. in Agriculture, respectively. The Chandrapur team of Agricultural Extension Manager with his background experience of organizing sale of agricultural inputs, assisted by four field supervisors, was primarily managing three farms under MSS. Jawhar centre on the other hand, headed by one Project Officer (was involved in organizing sale of agricultural chemicals) and assisted by three field supervisors was carrying out outreach activities in 18 villages spread over four clusters. Kalahandi had an Agricultural Coordinator with his professional experience of working for an NGO and before that mainly as Supervisor in tea garden in Assam was to manage extension activities in 53 villages with the help of only two field organizers (one recruited only in April 2008). The Bankura centre, headed by coordinator had her professional experience of working in University and also one reputed NGO involved in rural development was being assisted by one part time coordinator (with M.Sc. in Agriculture, experienced with working in rural development project of another well known NGO) and two field assistants and one Agricultural Supervisor (re-designated as field assistant from 2008-09) and was required to carry out extension activities in 21 villages. 2.3. Concentration of efforts Chandrapur concentrated primarily on development of the farms belonging to MSS for bringing more area under multiple cropping and thereby increasing production and productivity of land. In the village-based programs of action, the main focus was on motivating targeted farmers to accept technological options already demonstrated in the farms. Coverage of Jawhar centre was reaching out clientele in 18 villages more vertically rather than horizontally over large area. Kalahandi centre on the other hand spread its coverage in 53 villages (distance range of 3-62 km) distributed across four blocks, with least number of field assistants (only one during the reporting time of 2006-08). Bankura centre on the other hand, starting with 43 villages (located at a distance range of 415kms), reduced the number to 21, distributed across four clusters (two tribal and rest non-tribal). Thus it was attempting more of vertical rather than horizontal reach. 2.4. Clientele base In Chandrapur centre attempt was made to reach 46 farmers in 18 villages, adjoining the two farms Somnath and Mulgavan. However, the major client in this case remained the MSS and its farms at Somnath, Anandwan and Mulgavan. In Jawhar a total of 115 farmers from 18 villages, distributed across four clusters were reached by three field supervisors, thereby taking the number of farmers per field supervisor on average to 40. In Kalahandi in contrast, 288 farmers were being reached across 53 villages, distributed over four blocks with only one field supervisor (at the point of reporting). In Bankura, the total number of clientele stood at 126 and 5 SHGs (92 members), distributed across only one block. Average number of farmers per field assistant worked out to be 63 along with 2-3 SHGs. 2.5. Capacity building intervention: training Training happened to be the major capacity building intervention in all the centres. Paddy and vegetable related topics occupied major part of these training III

programs in all the centres, understandably so, in view of these being the primary focus of the technological options identified. Post training follow-up was done in all the centres with lone exception of Chandrapur for which the personnel can hardly be blamed, as they were primarily responsible for development and management of farms under MSS. In Jawhar, Kalahandi and Bankura 70, 56 and 12 percent of the farmers attending the trainings were reported to have accepted the ideas. However, such acceptance might not necessarily be in respect of whole package, but might have remained restricted to a few ideas only. While in Chandrapur, most of the trainings were conducted at Somnath, in other centres, the venue was mostly, the centre HQ. Training facilities in none of the centres was good and in most of the cases the room was being used for some other purposes when training was not being held. Lecture-cum-discussion was the mostly used training method. Only in Chandrapur and Bankura, these could be supplemented with live demonstrations, in view of farms being attached to the training centre. The other two did not have any farm of their own. 2.6. Capacity building intervention: extension methods Demonstration was the most important extension method utilized by all the centres to drive home their respective messages, which again primarily revolved around paddy and vegetable. In Chandrapur and Jawhar main focus of these demonstrations was on paddy, whereas Kalahandi and Bankura mixed them almost equally. Kalahandi centre was found to have used highest number of demonstration as well as distribution of seed packets, involving 102 and 129 farmers, even though they had least number of extension personnel. This raised questions regarding proper supervision as well as follow-up in respect of these methods. In conducting demonstrations none of the centres had followed essential steps for getting effective results. This indicated the need for organizing training programs for the extension personnel on various job related aspects, like technical details of the technological options, training methodology as well as extension methods. 2.7. Knowledge and skill level of extension personnel As already described, in respect of qualification and experience, in charges of all the three centres, namely, Chandrapur, Jawhar and Bankura were adequately equipped. Their assistants in Chandrapur and Jawhar were also technically qualified, with all of them having diploma in agriculture. However, Kalahandi centre lacked in this regard. Moreover, the number also was working against them. In course of interaction with the farmers in respect of technical issues (mostly plant protection related issues) the extension coordinator of Kalahandi was found to be faltering. This was but natural, keeping in view the qualification as well as experience level of the personnel in question. 3. Support interventions Series of support interventions were made by all the centres among the farmers for facilitating absorption of the technological options. Chandrapur centres main focus of such intervention was however, the farms of MSS, more particularly, the one at Somnath. The most significant among the interventions was additional water resource development. Besides, a number of equipment and gadgets like tractors, trolley, plough, seed-drill, etc were also supplied to the Somnath farm. A briquetting machine was installed in Somnath farm for enabling interested farmers to prepare mixed fertilizer (40:60 DAP-Urea) at a cost of Re.1 per kg of material. IV

In other three centres, however, the support interventions were made at the farmers level. Common among such interventions were supply of seeds and seedlings of paddy, vegetable and fruits (very limited), kitchen garden kits, poly houses, agricultural equipment, like Kono weeder and marker etc. Besides these interventions, a number of centre specific interventions were also made. Supply of 5 HP diesel engines on loan for pumping of water for irrigation (Jawhar), re-excavation of existing tanks, dug wells, land shaping and supply of ducklings and grain bins for maintaining community grain banks (Bankura) are a few noteworthy among them. 4. Institutional intervention Five Self help Groups were formed in tribal villages with membership of 92 women, as a project intervention by the Bankura centre for inculcating spirit of savings as well as income generation. Vegetable farming on degraded vested lands as well as managing community grain banks was the group activities. However, for sustainability and further increase in effectiveness of these self help groups, backward and forward linkages need to be established. 5. Impact of interventions 5.1. Area brought under cultivation / recommended technological options Out of the effective area of 750 and 200 acres in Somnath and Anandwan farms respectively, as a result of the project interventions an average area of 493.8 and 192.5 acres could be developed during the period of 2005-08. Various crops were being grown in the lands thus developed. In case of area brought under paddy based technological options in farmers fields in Jawhar, Kalahandi and Bankura centres, the achievements were 18.65, 91.5 and 42.3 acres respectively. Out of these achievements, area devoted to hybrid vis--vis SRI was uniformly low in all the three centres. In spite of its superiority in many regard, the SRI technology was yet to be picked up, probably due to its various problems of relevance to the characteristics of the farming systems as already described. The net effect was that in case of paddy based technologies, most of the farmers had chosen to go with the various high yielding varieties. On the contrary, vegetables, mostly grown across the centres on subsistence basis, scored much ahead of paddy based technological options when it came to the question of area brought under recommended technological options. 19.75, 215.6 and 69.3 acres of lands operated by the farmers were brought under vegetable based technological options in Jawhar, Kalahandi and Bankura centres respectively during the period 2005-08. Farmers practicing such technological options were essentially going for commercial vegetable farming, most of which was carried out in rabi season. 5.2. Changes in cropping pattern As a result of the project interventions, changes in cropping pattern took place in the targeted operational areas. In Chandrapur, more particularly in Somnath farm, consequent to the irrigation development, crop rationalization took place. Areas under less remunerative crops gave way in favour of more remunerative ones. In Jawhar and Bankura, two basically rainfed centres the traditional cropping pattern was replaced with paddy and vegetable crops. In Kalahandi however, in view of irrigation availability through Indravati irrigation project, farmers were already taking two to three crops of paddy. With the introduction of vegetable based technological options, which mainly

centered around hybrid or high yielding varieties of different vegetable crops, there was changes in the cropping pattern with gradual increase in area under such options. 5.3. Technology adoption Adoption of technologies in respect of all the crops being grown in Somnath was total. In farmers fields, in line with the three other centres, improved / high yielding paddy varieties were adopted more than the hybrid varieties or cultivation technique like SRI. Vegetable farming found much more popularity as compared to the paddy based technologies among the farmers in all the centres. Here also, the triggering factors were supply of quality seeds and seedlings of vegetable, supported by availability of some form of irrigation water. Higher extent of profitability of vegetable arming also was another motivating factor. 5.4. Production /productivity Productivity of all major crops grown under the new cropping pattern in Somnath farm increased as a result of the project level interventions. However, in Anandwan, barring soybean and wheat, all other crops recorded decline in productivity. In farmers fields in the three other centres, paddy yield increase (111 to 200 percent) was much less lucrative as compared to vegetables, which fetched more returns and moreover these being cash crops, it was very gratifying for the practicing farmers and contributed to swelling in number of vegetable growers over the years. 5.5. Farm income In farmers fields in Jawhar, Kalahandi and Bankura among the paddy based technological options, application of SRI in hybrid / high yielding varieties yielded income which was 127-260 percent more than the income received from cultivation without SRI. However, income received from vegetable farming was much more attractive, because of the practice being altogether new in centres like Jawhar and Bankura. In Kalahandi on the other hand, the income increase from vegetable farming in the post intervention phase was much higher than the pre-intervention period. 6. Spread effects In order to ensure spread of the technological options among rest of the farming communities in the operational area, the experiences gained so far needed to be explored further. Among the paddy based technological options, for ensuring spread of hybrid paddy as well as System of Rice Intensification (SRI) technique, more intensive extension and communication efforts should be employed. For further expansion of vegetable farming among the farming communities in the operational area, support interventions like rain water harvesting and other conservation oriented measures needed to be employed for facilitating protective irrigation towards further expansion of vegetable farming. Besides all other support services, like supply of seeds, seedlings and other planting materials along with capacity building interventions for enhancing knowledge and skills of farmers regarding various technological dimensions of paddy and vegetable farming needed to be continued.

VI

7. Action points Summary analysis of the results in respect of the major dimensions of the project interventions as discussed above, has led to recommending a few action points for increasing the effectiveness of the programs further. These are presented below. Least area increase under SRI need for more intensive extension intervention. Vegetable farming more readily accepted need for stepping up promotion. Capacity building of extension personnel by providing tailor-made training. Rainwater harvesting intervention to be taken up on a wider scale. Quality seeds and planting materials reach out to more farmers. Follow-up closely benefits from use of seeds & planting materials. Chandrapur centre need for redefining objectives and role of SFI in the project. Concentrating on a centre for training in vocational agriculture and extension education seems appropriate.

Linkages with other development agencies facilitating convergence of schemes with similar objectives, for the benefit of greater number of targeted farmers. Formation of farmers groups for marketing of fresh produce, viz., vegetables, enabling them to increase their take-home earnings. Self-help groups (SHG) closer attention to these and increased utilization of their potential strengths are recommended together with backward and forward linkages. Technology transfer strengthening of support and greater supervision needed, especially in projects solely run by extension personnel of partner organizations.

VII

EVALUATION OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS OF SYNGENTA FOUNDATION INDIA CHAPTER I BACKGROUND The challenge of achieving four per cent annual growth rate in agriculture at the national level Agriculture is the single largest productive sector in the Indian economy with 24 percent of its share to the GDP (Gross Domestic Product). It provides employment to two-thirds of the total workforce. With a weight of 57% in the consumer price index, food prices are closely linked with inflation and any adverse shock on agriculture could have cumulative effects on the economy. The cause of present upward trend in the rate of inflation in the country, unprecedented in the recent past, can be traced in the sharp deceleration in the growth rate of agriculture to the GDP, slipping from 3.62 percent during 1984 - 85 to 1995 - 96 to less than 2 percent in the period from 1995 - 96 to 2004 05. Agricultural growth also has a direct impact on poverty eradication, as the whole question of food security is dependent upon availability of enough buffer stock of food grains. In this respect, the prevailing scenario is not so encouraging. During the tenth plan period per capita annual production of cereals was 174 kg (2004-07), which was less than 192 kg (1991-95) obtained during ninth plan. During the same period, per capita annual pulse production also came down from 15 kg to 12 kg. This means that per capita food grains production is now at 1970s levels. This raises valid concerns on food security. In order to address such concern, it is necessary to ensure that during the eleventh plan period the food grains production increases at the rate of at least 2 percent per annum with the overall agricultural growth rate of 4 percent per annum (Planning Commission, 2006). It is estimated that the requirement of food stock to feed Indias projected population of 1.4 billion in 2030 will be 114 million tonnes of rice, 83 million tonnes of wheat, 13 million tonnes of maize, 106 million tonnes of fruits, and 193 million tonnes of vegetables (TERI 2005). This is an enormous challenge given the limited availability of land and water resources. Coupled with this, the skewed distribution of land in favour of small holders in India has complicated the problem even more. In per capita terms, agricultural land availability in India has declined from 0.48 ha in 1951 to 0.15 ha in 2000 (FAI 2004). Indian agriculture is characterized by small landholdings with the majority of farmers practicing subsistence agriculture. Only 25 percent of the farmers produce 60 percent of the total agricultural output of the country (TERI 2005). Seventy-eight per cent of landholdings are less than 2 ha, 59 percent are less than 1 ha, and only 1.6 percent are large holdings of more than 10 ha. There has been a steady increase in the gross cultivated area, from 132 M ha to 192 M ha, in the past 50 years due to the increase in cropping intensity, from 111 percent to 135 percent over the same period. Such increases in cropping intensity were witnessed primarily in the irrigated areas of the country, which constituted 40 percent of the total agricultural land. However, the remaining 60 per cent of the agricultural land being rainfed and coping with the vagaries of monsoon, is generally unable to contribute significantly to any increases. With the yields of food crops in the irrigated areas already reaching a plateau, and scope of major expansion of area under irrigation being limited, any growth in output of food grains has to take place through significant increases in productivity in rainfed areas. Moreover, keeping in view the fact that more than two-thirds of the holdings being small farmer owned, it is imperative that such effort of increasing productivity will have to be small-farm oriented. Because, in the near future, absorption of such huge number of tiny land-holders in the

industrial centre is a distant possibility, if not impossible. The declining share of agriculture in the total GDP without adequate shift of population dependent on agriculture has worsened the already adverse per capita farm income to per capita non-farm income ratio. A major problem confronting the rural areas is the lack of employment opportunities. During 1993-94 1999-2000, the growth of jobs in the farm sector was only 0.2%. Productivity increase in small farms will essentially be labour intensive and hence will contribute to employment generation in rural areas. (National Commission on Farmers, 2006) In order to set right the declining trend of agricultural growth rate, coupled with growing unemployment in the rural areas, the eleventh plan envisages achievement of the target of 4 percent growth rate in agriculture through increased investment (2.5%) and higher area under fruits and vegetables (1.0%), with greater use of fertilizers and other inputs contributing the rest. The most significant factor will need to be public investment, including bridging of yield gaps. This would need to average at least 4% of agricultural GDP during the eleventh plan, and requires that public investment increase at a minimum of 12% per annum in real terms from its 2006-07 level. Various expert groups set up to suggest measures for improving eleventh plan strategy were unequivocal in expressing the views that the plan should not confine itself only to the 4 percent growth target but must also address the longer-run issues converging on: getting technology moving and ensuring access of farmers to them; increasing investment in agriculture and rationalize subsidies; diversification though crucial for income growth, but food security should not be lost sight of; inclusiveness requires that the poor get better access to land, credit and skills

Addressing these issues towards achievement of 4 percent growth target will require concerted action on several fronts, like technology, irrigation, natural resource management and watershed development, rationalization of subsidies, strengthening of inputs and other support services including credit, extension, diversification and food security, besides tackling equity issues in various forms gender equity, setting right regional imbalance etc. In all these respects, stakeholders of various hues need to come forward. However, the states need to take responsibility for holistic planning of agriculture with active participation of all these stakeholders. Syngenta Foundation Indias (SFI) response to addressing the challenge The Syngenta Foundation India (SFI) was established in 2005 with a view to promote sustainable agriculture by way of facilitating resource poor farmers in applying improved production technologies for increasing farm productivity and earning better returns. In order to achieve such objective, the SFI, through its selective rural services organized in some of its project areas, aimed at assisting small farmers to acquire entrepreneurial skills in relevant technological options towards realizing their potential. The mission of the Syngenta Foundation India (SFI) towards attainment of such goals has been to increase opportunities and choices for poor rural communities in economically backward areas for improving their livelihood through sustainable innovations in agriculture. This is in conformity with most of the issues and action points 2

identified by the eleventh plan working groups towards attainment of 4 percent growth target in agriculture. For fulfilling the mission by way of attaining the objective of helping small farmers in acquiring entrepreneurial skills in respect of various production technologies, the SFI launched an agricultural development project in four locations in three states, namely, Maharashtra (Chandrapur and Jawhar), Orissa (Kalahandi) and West Bengal (Bankura). In each of these locations, the SFI, in collaboration with local NGOs, took up programs of action woven around a set of interventions. These interventions aimed at facilitating absorption of technological options by members of these resource poor farming communities by way of showing them the possibilities of increasing productivity as well as farm income by following improved technologies and recommended practices, over what they could achieve through traditional practices. The interventions, from the point of view of the nature of support provided to the technology utilization system, can be categorized into: (1) technology led interventions; (2) extension led interventions vis-vis extension management strategy and (3) support/institution led interventions. Table 1 provides an account of these three categories of interventions and their individual components. It is worthwhile to mention at this point that all the abovementioned interventions were interlinked and most of the extension and support/institution led interventions were focused on paddy and vegetable based technological options. Chandrapur centre, the oldest among the four, was launched in 2004 in partnership with Maharogi Sewa Samiti (MSS) having its headquarters at Anandwan. The activities of the center focused mainly on raising agricultural income of the MSS, an internationally renowned organization for rehabilitation of cured leprosy patients. Farming was taken up as one of the various vocations for facilitating such rehabilitation of these persons. The interventions were mainly aimed at facilitating the agricultural production endeavour in different campuses of MSS, located at Somnath, Anandwan and Mulgavan. Farmer level interventions, though attempted, were of relatively lesser priority for the project management. The other three centres, namely, Jawhar, Kalahandi and Bankura took up the respective interventions in collaboration with various NGOs at local level. Each of these centres was initiated in 2006-07. While at Jawhar, the Syngenta Foundation India placed a person under its payroll to implement, monitor and evaluate the program of interventions; the concerned NGOs in other two centers undertook the activities with the help of personnel recruited by them with the help of the project fund. Evaluation and its objectives All these interventions having been implemented since 2006, there was a felt need to evaluate these four projects. Hence, the present evaluation study was launched with the following objectives. Overall objective The overall objective of such evaluation was to compare the program of activities of the four centres in respect of their results achieved in influencing the targeted farm families in adopting the various technological options and the extent of increase in productivity as well as farm income.

Table 1: Individual Components in the Intervention Domain and their Categories Sl. No. 1. Categories Individual Components

Technology Introduction of improved method of paddy cultivation through hybrid led paddy varieties and SRI method interventions Facilitating paddy seed production and their distribution Popularization of hybrid vegetable cultivation through seedling raising and distribution Popularization of horticultural crops like fruits and vegetables Introduction of new crop varieties and their cultivation techniques

2.

Extension Farmers training programs led Sensitization workshop on hybrid paddy cultivation interventions Farmers meetings / workshops Farm & Home visits by experts Office call by the farmers Trials / demonstrations on recommended crops Method demonstration (farm equipment) Farmers tours Harvest Hungama hybrid vs. local paddy Library-cum-information centre

3.

Support / Supplementing water holding capacity of available water bodies for Institution using such resource towards augmenting agricultural production led Construction of low-cost green house interventions Production/Supply of seeds of improved varieties Supply of planting materials (fruits & vegetables) Supply of farm equipment (Row marker; Kono Weeder) Setting up of agricultural consultation / information centres Establishment of self help groups

Specific objectives 1. To prepare inventory of technological interventions of each centre and analyse their relevance in respect of the technology utilization systems priorities as well as resource potential. 2. To ascertain the extension management strategy adopted towards influencing the target clientele in adopting the technological options in their respective situations. 3. To assess the appropriateness as well as adequacy of various support / institutional interventions towards facilitating adoption of the various technological innovations by the targeted clientele of each centre. 4

4. To assess the impact of each centre in respect of adoption of the concerned technological options in bringing about increase in productivity of the farm enterprises as well as farm income of the target clientele. 5. To assess the spread effect of adoption of various technological options by the target clientele in and around the concerned village(s) under each centre. 6. To identify the strengths as well as weaknesses in the light of the findings in respect of each centre. 7. To recommend action points for increasing effectiveness of the centre and necessary interventions required on the part of Syngenta Foundation India in facilitating their implementation.

CHAPTER II METHODOLOGY (i) Selection of Study Area For the purpose of conducting the evaluation study, representative villages were selected from among the total universe of villages covered under the project activities in each center. An account of centre and year wise status of villages covered under the project is presented in table 2. Table 2: Year Wise Number of Villages Covered Under the Project during 2006-08 Centre 2005-06 Chandrapur Jawhar Kalahandi Bankura 5 Number of Villages 2006-07 Continued with same 5 3 19 23 2007-08 18 15 34 19 Total 23 18 53 42

As the villages were gradually incorporated by the centres into the project over the years starting from their year of initiation, while selecting the study villages, care was taken to include villages from each year of their incorporation. Besides the year of incorporation, the other criterion used for selection of study villages was the extent of participation of the villagers in the programs of interventions of the respective centers. Table 3: Centre Wise List of Study Villages Selected Center Sub-Center Anandwan Mulgavan Jawhar Kalahandi Bankura Villages Selected Maroda, Chikhali, Bhaujali and Yasgaon Chinora & Temurda Gawara & Pandarbani Dabhose, Phanaspada, Mahalepada, Borasepada, Shiroshi, Talyachepada, Poyshet & Koulale Kulihari, Karli, Budel, Bargaon, Mohibar, Chhoriagarh, Gadiajore & Rainguda. Khata, Borjuri, Ramkanali, Hanspahari, Amole, Bhaktabad, Jambedia II, Sidara, Belbuni & Suabasa Chandrapur Somnath

The centre-in-charge variously referred to as extension manager / project officer / extension coordinator at different project centres, were asked to rate the villages brought under the purview of the project into good, average and poor as per their experiences in securing the villagers participation in the major programs of interventions. Accordingly, a total of 34 villages were selected as study villages for the purpose of collecting primary data about various aspects of program implementation. The last criterion was the distance of the villages from the center headquarters. Thus, a few 6

villages placed farthest from the center headquarter were also included in the list. Table 3 presents the names of these 34 selected villages from the four centres. It may however be mentioned that in case of Chandrapur, the number of villages selected per sub-centre was lesser in view of the centres major mandate being development of the farms of MSS, the participating NGO on scientific lines and enable them to produce more. (ii) Selection of respondents Respondents for the evaluation study were selected in a purposive way to meet the information requirements as per the specific objectives spelt out in the earlier chapter. The sources of information were of two major categories primary and secondary. Primary sources of information or data were again categorized into: (i) farmers targeted with project level interventions by various centres; (ii) other farmers in the vicinity; (iii) centre level personnel in the helm of the affairs for implementation of the interventions; (iv) representatives of the relevant line departments; (v)input dealers. The secondary sources of data, on the other hand were various reports, records and office files, relevant to the project implementation. (iii) Delineation of variables In order to delineate the variables to be considered for facilitating the evaluation study, each of the specific objectives (considered as dimensions of evaluation) was taken into consideration for identifying exact information requirement to find out answers leading to the objective. After having identified such information requirements for all the specific objectives, they were grouped into variables based on their inter-linkage. Table 4 provides an account of the variables thus delineated. (iv) Data Collection and Analysis Keeping in view the overall objective of the study to compare the program of activities of the four centres in respect of their results achieved in influencing the targeted farm families in adopting the various technological options and the extent of increase in productivity as well as farm income, a data collection framework was developed for collection of information. While evolving such data collection framework, besides the interventions, annual reports of various centres were also taken into consideration to elicit the kind of information required for verifying the intended achievements in course of project implementation. Primary data were collected through interviewing the concerned sources by following Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). In course of such information gathering, both qualitative as well as quantitative dimensions of the impact of various project interventions were aimed at. Secondary data were however mostly quantitative in nature. In order to identify successful outcome of various interventions, case study method was utilized for drawing learning experiences and using them in future endeavours of the centres in continuing the project interventions. Data thus gathered in respect of mode of implementation as well as impact of various interventions and their implications in respect of future endeavours of the centres were analyzed by employing suitable techniques.

Table 4: List of variables delineated for the evaluation study Sl. No. 1. 2. Dimensions Technology intervention Extension management Variables * Intervention domain * Technology relevance * Extension approach * Extension organization * Partner organization * Concentration of efforts * Clientele base * Capacity building interventions * Knowledge & skill level of extension personnel 3. Support / institutional * Inventory of support interventions intervention * Support intervention : mode * Inventory of institutional intervention * Institutional intervention : mode 4. Impact of interventions * Area brought under cultivation / recommended technological options * Changes in cropping pattern * Technology adoption * Changes in production / productivity * Changes in farm income * Employment opportunities * Food security / nutritional security

CHAPTER III RESULTS & DISCUSSION The Agricultural Development Project of Syngenta Foundation India is being implemented by all the four centres independent to each other. Hence, for presentation of the results obtained from data collected and inferences drawn are presented separately, according to the specific objectives of the evaluation study. However, after centre wise presentation of results, an attempt has been made to draw an inter-center comparative account of the findings in relation to the salient performance indicators.

Agricultural Development Project in Chandrapur District, Maharashtra

Project background The project at Chandrapur centre happens to be the first attempt of Syngenta Foundation India to provide sustainable and viable options in agriculture for the benefit of farming communities in general and poor in particular inhabiting the economically backward areas. The project was initiated in 2004, in partnership with an internationally known non-government organization, the Maharogi Sewa Samiti (MSS), headquartered at Anandwan, located in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra state. Maharogi Sewa Samiti was set up way back in 1951 by now legendary Baba Amte, an advocate by profession from Wardha district in Maharashtra for rehabilitation of poor lepers, generally ostracized by the society and driven out from their houses. An area of 50 acres of wasteland was initially obtained from the Maharashtra government for this purpose at Anandwan, where the socially ostracized lepers, mainly from rural areas, were rehabilitated by way of providing shelter, food and medicine. However, even after being cured, most of these lepers were continued to be disowned by their near and dears. Hence, it was felt necessary to provide them with some vocation of their own, basically to give them a sense of dignity and regain their lost confidence by showing them that they were still capable of doing socially productive work. While creating such vocational opportunities for them, it was found that most of them being rural people were only capable of taking up to farming. In view of this, as a part of rehabilitation of the cured lepers, the MSS started practicing agriculture by way of engaging them in bringing the wastelands under cultivation in their own traditional way. Gradually the size of lepers needing rehabilitation started to swell and the 50 acres of land could be expanded to 415 acres through convincing the state government for providing more land for the purpose. Besides agriculture, it was felt necessary to incorporate other types of vocation for widening the opportunities for the lepers. Thus dairy, goatery, poultry all land based vocations, various craft based vocations handloom, powerloom, handicrafts, carpentry, blacksmithy etc were added. By now, credibility of the MSS as a pioneering philanthropic organization had been established and to meet the ever-increasing demand from the hapless lepers from different corners of the country, it started looking for more and more land. As a result, in 1964 they got 1250 acres of degraded forest land in Somnath at a distance of about more than 100 km from Anandwan. This campus was fully devoted to agriculture towards rehabilitation of the cured lepers. Effective area out of 1250 acres was only 750 acres and around 500 acres could actually be brought under cultivation. The strategy adopted by the organization was to grow rice, wheat and vegetables required for the inmates of MSS for the whole year from the land and also create a buffer stock of cereals for the next year. During 1996-98 Sir Dorabjee Tata Charitable Trust came forward to help MSS to create

water-harvesting structure for the Somnath unit to enable them to bring some areas of cultivable land under irrigation. Paddy became the focus of such irrigation facility, firstly because of its importance in the food basket and secondly the major labour force the cured lepers being skilled in its cultivation. Gradually, Somnath became the granary for MSS, while Anandwan which too produced some food, concentrated more on skill and human resource development work for the lepers as well as other physically challenged and poor rural youth. School for blind, training school for handicapped and skill trainingcum-production centers for vocations like, handicraft, weaving, carpet making, carpentry, blacksmithy etc were opened. As major food requirement of the ever-increasing inmates were to be met from their farms, the MSS authority was continuously looking forward for means of increasing productivity of the farms in general, but more particularly the one in Somnath. Help from agencies were being sought for funds as well as technology towards achieving such goal. The Syngenta Foundation India launched its agriculture development project for promoting sustainable agriculture through facilitating resource poor farmers in increasing farm productivity and thereby earning better returns through application of improved production technologies. Chandrapur became the first center in India where this project was launched in 2004-05. Attempt was made to increase productivity through facilitating water resource development and application of suitable technological options in the farms of MSS in general but Somnath in particular. Though an organization like MSS was the primary target, through this effort it could benefit the socially ostracized poor lepers coming from rural areas. In addition, the application of technological options in Somnath farm also was used towards motivating farmers from surrounding villages through training and demonstrations. A series of interventions were made through the centre in the farms under MSS as well as at individual farmers level towards achieving the project objective. These interventions could be categorized into three as stated in table 1 earlier. Attempt was made to evaluate effectiveness of these interventions in the present study as per specific objectives laid down earlier. The following paragraphs provide an account of the results obtained out of such efforts. Technology-led interventions A series of technological options were identified for facilitating their absorption in the farming systems targeted by the centre. The target farming systems in case of the Chandrapur centre were, firstly, the Somnath and Anandwan farms of MSS and secondly, the farmers reached through training programs conducted as well as those who took part in carrying out demonstrations on technologies identified. It may be mentioned at this stage that at Mulgavan, another upcoming unit of MSS, farm level interventions were yet to be made and hence only farmer level interventions were brought under the purview of the evaluation study. Results of evaluation under technology led interventions are being presented under: (i) inventory of technological options taken for the farms and farmer level application; (ii) relevance of these technological options under major farming systems of the area paddy and vegetable based farming systems. (i) Technology Inventory A series of options was identified primarily for facilitating productivity increase in the two farms Anandwan and Somnath, through technological intervention. Table 4

10

presents an account of the major among them which were integrated with the other categories of interventions. Table 5: Major Options Chosen for Technology Intervention in Chandrapur Centre Sl. No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Technological Options Cultivation technique of high yielding and hybrid paddy varieties Paddy cultivation through Systematic Rice Improvement Technique (SRI) Seed treatment technique of paddy Weed control technique through herbicide application in paddy field Technique of paddy seed production at farmers level Techniques of operating bullock drawn and tractor drawn seed drill Techniques of hybrid vegetable cultivation (Kharif and Rabi) Vermi-composting technique Ridge and furrow technique of soybean cultivation Fruit cultivation technique

From table 4 it was evident that the Chandrapur centre mainly concentrated on facilitating productivity increase through paddy based technological options in both farms under MSS as well as farmers fields. This was because Somnath, the major focus of all kinds of intervention in Chandrapur centre, was endemic to paddy growing. It will be seen later that overwhelming proportion of Somnath farm was grown with paddy. Anandwan unit on the other hand was concentrating more on introducing soybean in the cropping schedule. In order to facilitate such process, ridge and furrow technique of soybean cultivation was chosen mainly in the Anandwan farm. In farmers fields attempt was being made to introduce soybean in the cropping system. Hybrid vegetable cultivation technique was the other category of technological option chosen for both Somnath as well as Anandwan which was supported by another option, namely, vermi-compost technique. Vegetable formed very important component in the cropping schedule in both the farms, more importantly in Somnath. Fruit cultivation technique, although was made another category of technological option, in real terms it could become hardly of any significance in terms of cropping schedule in either of the two farms. (ii) Technology Relevance: Paddy Based Farming System Having identified the major technological options, it was logical to understand their relevance in respect of the needs and priorities of the target clientele as well as their compatibility with the agro-ecological characteristics. Paddy being endemic to Somnath area, it was quite logical that any attempt of increasing productivity of the target clientele, be it the MSS farm or farmers in the surrounding villages, would have to focus primarily on technologies related to the crop. Thus, paddy based technological options were incorporated in the farm plans by design. The crop mainly met the consumption requirements of the inmates of the MSS in both these centers.

Introduction of paddy based technological options was also in consonance with irrigation resource development, one of the major support interventions in Somnath. Thus, cultivation techniques of high yielding or hybrid paddy varieties or technique of SRI in kharif as well as rabi became relevant. Both the farms being under operation of trained labour force and all factors of production under control, application of newer 11 option like SRI or any other advanced agronomic practices posed little problem While paddy based technological options were perfectly in harmony with the agro-ecological as well as infrastructural conditions of Somnath farm, in farmers fields in surrounding villages hybrid & HYV were relevant universally only in kharif (in suitable lands). However, in rabi, depending upon assured availability of irrigation water until the grain formation stage, the farmers decided to grow paddy. In case of SRI method, the farmers (big or small) were practicing it only in small pieces of land. The big farmers, dependent on hired labour force for transplanting operation were unequivocal in asserting that the technological sophistication (like transplanting with 1-2 plants per hill of 10-12 days of age in the seedbed) was not feasible to adopt in larger scale under such scenario. In Anandwan however, paddy was not so important in the cropping schedule. With soybean in kharif and wheat in rabi being the main crops, paddy based technological options, occupying lions share in the technological options identified for carrying out the interventions, did not match with the requirement of the area. Only ridge and furrow technique of soybean cultivation was of relevance to the demands of the situation. In Mulgavan on the other hand, no technological intervention was visible, except introduction of groundnut as a crop in the cropping schedule, that too in a limited scale. The crop was introduced in the existing cropping schedule of cotton soybean paddy vegetable. Thus, from the nature of technological interventions, it was evident that Somnath was the major focus of the project at Chandrapur centre. This was quite relevant from the point of view of the participating NGOs scheme of things. Farmer level interventions were also centered on the requirements of the farming community around Somnath. (iii) Technology Relevance: Vegetable Based Farming System Vegetable farming was being practiced at both the farms under MSS and also at farmers level in the surroundings of Somnath, Anandwan as well as Mulgavan. Such practice was followed either for purely consumption or for consumption as well as commercial purposes. The technological intervention in case of vegetable growing was most commonly found to be in the form of supply of seeds of hybrids and other improved varieties. Besides, package of practices for growing these vegetables, especially plant protection technology, were also provided through such interventions. Vegetables of various kinds were being grown in Somnath as well as Chandrapur farms for consumption as well as commercial purposes. After meeting the consumption requirements of the inmates in both Anandwan as well as Somnath, considerable amount of surplus vegetable could be sold in the market (about Rs.8-10 lakh annually), contributing to the income of MSS. During 2007-08 total sale of vegetables from Somnath and Anandwan together reached an all time high of Rs.13 lakh In farmers fields, surrounding all the units of MSS, vegetable growing was found to be preferred option subject to availability of suitable land, irrigation as well as labour. Kharif vegetable cultivation, though profitable, land availability was found to be mostly a constraint. During August November, although vegetable cultivation was less yielding,

12

it fetched good price as compared to winter, when yield was more but fetched lesser price. Labour availability also became a contributing factor for farmers decision making regarding growing of vegetable in their farming system. This was especially relevant in the context of labour migration to neighbouring states immediately after transplanting of paddy was over. This created problem of labour availability for vegetable cultivation. Thus, vegetable production technology was very much relevant in the farming systems of the MSS farms as well as farmers in the surrounding villages. While the factors of production leading to growing of vegetable crops in the concerned MSS farms being mostly assured, in farmers fields, relevance of vegetable farming was conditioned by the favourable interplay of a few governing factors as stated above. Extension management strategy The agriculture development project of the Syngenta Foundation India was basically aiming at facilitating production increase in the resource poor areas of the concerned districts through technological interventions, the absorption of which were supported by series of extension and support / institutional interventions. Thus, the major task before the implementing centers was to organize effective transfer of technological options among the target clientele by way of adopting appropriate extension management strategy and support services, so as to enable them to absorb the options and benefit from increased production and income. Extension management strategy encompasses whole gamut of change agency related issues like extension approach, the organizational arrangements, capacity building efforts, capacity of the change agents to reach out effectively among the clientele groups etc. Thus, the results obtained in respect of the extension management related variables are presented in the following paragraphs. (i) Extension Approach Primary effort of the agriculture development project in Chandrapur centre was to bring vast tract of degraded, undulating forest land under the possession of MSS, the partner organization, to productive utilization through levelling, water harvesting and improved agronomic practices etc. The results of application of these technology led interventions were then utilized to bring about changes in knowledge and skills of farmers from the surrounding villages by way of organizing various extension interventions. This was done by way of using the farms thus brought under productive utilization through application of various technological options as demonstration centres before the farming population of the neighbouring villages and train them through the principle of seeing is believing. The trained farmers were then used for reaching the rest of the farming population in the target villages with the proven technologies appropriate to the agroecological conditions and thereby facilitate their economic development. The major extension approach was to facilitate changes among the members of farming community in the surrounding villages through the demonstrative impact created as a result of application of various technological options in facilitating increased production / productivity and farm income of the target clientele the MSS. (ii) Extension Organization In order to implement the programs of action, a strong extension organization was needed which would take charge of packaging the technological options into understandable messages, identify the clientele base, organize capacity building as well as

13

support interventions for facilitating absorption of technologies, maintain continuous liaison with the client system, follow up and monitor effects of all these activities towards achievement of objectives. For effectively undertaking all these activities, a suitably structured extension organization with technically competent extension personnel was of supreme importance. There was provision of creating such structure out of the project fund. It was thus felt appropriate to bring the extension organization under the purview of present evaluation study. The extension organizational set up consisted of one Agricultural Extension Manager as the leader of the team, organizing the extension activities, spread over three centers across Chandrapur district. He was being assisted by four Field Supervisors, two for Somnath (with effective farm area of about 500 acres); one for Anandwan the HQ of the MSS (with effective farm area of about 250 acres) and one for Mulgavan (with farm area of about 90 acres) centers. Besides the management of farms, the team also organized extension activities in selected villages surrounding each of the three centres. The Extension Manager was operating from Mul, the Taluka head quarter, about 15 km away from Somnath. With both the farms at Somnath and Anandwan being operational, during the crop seasons the team remained tied up with the management of farms. The village-level extension activities were to be integrated with the crop production programs in the farms. Moreover, the required expertise for these two distinctly different sets of activities also was in variance. While farm management related works required managerial and technical skills, the extension activities demanded more of motivational skills, besides technical knowledge on the part of the members of the extension team. The distance between the farms made the task of the Extension Manager more daunting. Quite understandably, the focus of the extension activities was mostly concentrated on Somnath. While the Agricultural Extension Manager was M.Sc. (Ag) in Extension Education, all the four Field Supervisors were having diploma in Agriculture as their professional qualification. The Extension Manager, before joining the project in 2005 had been working in the arena of marketing of agricultural inputs (seeds) in corporate sector. Thus, the Extension Manager was having adequate professional qualification as well as experience to take care of apparently divergent types of responsibilities. The Field Supervisors also were technically qualified to carry out the responsibilities assigned to them. (iii) Partner organization The idea behind taking a partner organization at local level as collaborator in the agricultural development project by SFI in all the four centres was to gradually prepare the partner to take the drivers seat and SFI to gradually withdraw from this role. SFI contemplated to take the role of facilitator. In this context, the partner organizations role was brought into the purview of the present evaluation study. As stated earlier, the Maharogi Sewa Samiti (MSS), the partner organization, was an internationally acclaimed NGO for its path breaking work towards rehabilitation of lepers, otherwise ostracized by the society. The organizations felt need for efficiently managing its vast tract of otherwise degraded land for production of food for fulfilling the consumption needs of large number of inmates had already been met to a large extent with the help of project interventions. While contemplating to continue the association with Syngenta Foundation India, the organization was now looking forward for support from SFI for making the farms far more efficient and sophisticated with introduction of state of the art technologies. A few of the important items in such wish list were : (i) in

14

view of ever increasing labour problem (with increasing number of inmates getting incapacitated due to old age) more of mechanization of all the farms; (ii) supply of caterpillars for taking up land levelling work in Mulgavan; (iii) for increasing irrigation water use efficiency, incorporation of drip irrigation systems, particularly at Somnath and Anandwan; (iv) diversified use of land in the farm of Somnath for growing orchards, biofuels and other tree crops for energy plantation in the lands not put under field crops; (v) comprehensive watershed development plan for Anandwan farm (preparatory works already initiated); (vi) opening of an agriculture school for teaching of vocational agriculture to be upgraded in due course to diploma course in agriculture. The Maharogi Sewa Samiti had its inherent strength of self-employment & entrepreneurship development among illiterates and neo-literates; cured lepers and physically challenged villagers through organization of capacity building interventions. The Anandwan unit of the organization was a live demonstration of how to evolve these kinds of client groups into productive members of the society through capacity building efforts in various vocational areas and thereby helping them to regain self esteem. This point of strength of MSS and its network of trained army of rural youth in different vocational areas could be gainfully utilized and hence was worth exploring. However, in respect of role being played by the MSS in the partnership transaction process, they were still playing as demanding child rather than responsible adult. While the entire gamut of farm development activities in Somnath was being planned and managed by the Extension Manager (on pay roll of SFI) and his team, at Anandwan an undercurrent of tension appeared to be operating in the environment of subtle tussle of old versus new ideas. (iv) Concentration of efforts Towards organizing extension support in any given area, one of the most essential initial steps is to delineate the support base in such a way that the people can be regularly reached and after establishing the base, the extension effort becomes visible to others, so as to attract them in the network. For this to happen, one of the most important factors is to look for concentration of efforts in clusters formed within easy reach of the available human resource base of the extension agency. The centres concentration was primarily on introducing scientific management for the farms at various units of MSS to enable them to bring more and more areas under multiple cropping, thereby increasing production potential. The village-based programs were drawn to utilize the demonstrative effects of the scientific management practices among the farmers. However, as stated while discussing the results in respect of extension organization that the team of extension personnel, led by the Extension Manager was required to perform two distinctly different sets of activities for which skill requirements also were in variance. In order to set right the anomaly, it was necessary to place two different groups of personnel with clearly spelt out responsibilities in the spheres of farm management and extension management. Need for such division of responsibilities was echoed by the present Secretary as well as another member of the governing body of MSS in course of discussion with the present consultant. While the Secretary informed about the decision of the MSS to recruit two Farm Managers for the Somnath and Anandwan farms, the member of the governing body at Somnath expressed the need for setting up of a separate extension unit to take charge of the task of extension management. (v) Clientele base

The Chandrapur centre of the MSS had two sets of client base the farms under MSS, especially Somnath and Anandwan (with Mulgavan still in formative stage) on one hand and the selected farmers in the surrounding villages of the three farms. As discussed earlier, due to the twin responsibilities of divergent type and farm management being an all pervasive activity from the point of view of involvement of the personnel in the cropping season, village level extension management received low priority. In village based program the centre created a clientele base of 46 farmers in 18 villages in 2007-08 surrounding the two of its centers, namely, Somnath and Mulgavan. However, the data regarding the number of farmers as well as villages covered around the Anandwan unit could not be obtained. The number of farmers forming the client base in Somnath was 32 out of 46, registering an increase of 640% over a period of three years from 2005-08. A client base of 14 farmers was formed only in 2007-08 in Mulgavan. (vi) Capacity building interventions As stated earlier, village level extension management related activities carried out by the Chandrapur project was primarily centered around carrying out training programs and utilization of various extension methods in which demonstration took the centre stage. These demonstrations were conducted by way of utilizing the farm based application of different technological options. These interventions were made to motivate and develop capability among the targeted farmers to be able to absorb the options in their respective situations. For evaluating the effectiveness of extension management related activities, it was thought proper to analyze the nature and extent of training and extension methods utilized. Training Training happened to be the major capacity building intervention made by the centre for changing knowledge and skill level of the farmers regarding the concerned technologies. Table 6 provides an account of training programs conducted in Chandrapur centre during 2005-08. Majority of such trainings were conducted in Somnath centre and topics were highly varied in nature. Emphasis was however on topics related to paddy (including SRI), vegetable, soybean, pest management etc. All the trainings were of one days duration. Training was an end in itself and there was no follow-up about post training application of the technologies highlighted in these programs. This was probably due to the secondary focus on village- based activities in the project. However, the phenomenon of conducting most of the training programs for one days duration, irrespective of information load, needed review. In case of the farmers inability to spare more than one day at a stretch, the training programs needed to be practice specific to any particular crop with information load appropriate to the timeframe. Among the training methods, besides lecture-cum-discussion, field demonstration was the mostly used one. Such demonstrations were the ones conducted in the MSS farms, mostly in Somnath campus. The demonstrations were conducted on various techniques related to crops like paddy (mostly SRI related), vegetables and soybean cultivation. Training infrastructure (training hall, seating arrangement, black board, kitchen etc.) in the Somnath campus was of very modest nature. Hall with seating facilities on durries with a black board was there. The kitchen attached to the guest house served the purpose of food during training. As stated earlier, a good part of the trainings conducted was field demonstration, for which the farms developed on scientific lines in various centres were adequately utilized.

16

Table 6: Training Programs Conducted at Chandrapur Centre Year Title of Training Program Focus No. of Farmers Attending 25 25 70 50 80 40 100 110 15 169 41

2005 2005 2005 2005 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2007

Nursery Management in Paddy Scientific Ways of Paddy Transplanting Scientific Ways of Vegetable Cultivation and Young Plant raising Pest Management in Vegetables Workshop on SRI Scientific Soybean Cultivation Scientific Agriculture Cultivation of Groundnut, Turmeric & Paddy; IPM, SRI Scientific Vegetable Cultivation Pest Management in Soybean, Paddy and Vegetables

Paddy Paddy Vegetable Vegetable Paddy Soybean General Multiple and Unrelated Vegetable Multiple and Unrelated

Organic farming - biofertilizers, composts, Organic Farming including vermicompost, green manuring and Medicinal Plants and cultivation of medicinal plants Ridge and furrow method of Soybean Cultivation Soybean and Cotton Cultivation and Use of Bio-Fertilizers Farm Mechanization. SRI and Scientific Production Ways of Paddy Soybean Soybean & Cotton Farm Mechanization Paddy Vegetable Vegetable Energy Plantation Paddy Soybean

2007 2007 2007 2007 2007 2007 2007 2008 2008

46 205 62 32 63 77 89 74 67 1440

Advance practices in vegetable cultivation. Pest Control in Paddy and Vegetable Use of Biomass as Fuel SRI and Scientific Method of Paddy Production. Ridge and Furrow Method of Soybean Cultivation. TOTAL

However, training was an end in itself and there was no follow-up about post training application of the technologies highlighted in at least some of these programs. This was probably due to the secondary focus on village- based activities in the project 17

Use of Extension Methods

In order to motivate farmers towards acceptance of various technological options in their respective situations, different kinds of extension methods are utilized by the extension workers to enable the target client (in this case the farmers of the surrounding villages) to pass through the decision making process from initial awareness about the technology to its final acceptance and lastly confirmation of such action. Thus, extension methods also play capacity building role as the clients progressively learn about the technologies, manifested through changes at their levels of knowledge, skills and attitude. In this way, the extension methods act as tools in the hands of the extension workers. Various types of extension methods in the form of interventions were used in the project by different centres, which were presented in table 1 of this report. It was thought appropriate to analyze the utilization pattern of the Chandrapur centre in its capacity building endeavour. Inter unit field visits were arranged for farmers for showing them the technological possibilities, put to practical application in the farms of Somnath as well as Anandwan. 32 demonstrations on paddy cultivation with SRI and 2 on soybean cultivation were conducted in farmers fields. Besides, booklets were printed in Marathi vernacular for providing details regarding vegetable cultivation, SRI and Soybean cultivation techniques. However, demonstration was the mostly utilized extension method. Among the various types of extension methods, demonstrations intensity of influence in bringing about changes in the target client is considered to be quite high. Demonstrations are conducted in farmers fields and because of his/her personal involvement in various stages of field level application of the practices, constituting the technological option, experiencing the results of such application and evaluation of the merits and demerits of the technology, the method is said to provide maximum learning opportunity to the clients. However, for harnessing maximum possible benefit from this all powerful extension methods, its proper utilization would be necessary. In this regard, the mode of conducting the demonstrations at Chandrapur centre was carefully analyzed. It was found that demonstrations at farmers fields were conducted with a few shortcomings (1) no control plot was ever used in any of these demonstrations for facilitating comparison between the recommended and the local practice. Even comparisons of the results of recommended practice were seldom drawn with those of the neighbouring farmers plots growing same crop; (2) demonstrations were hardly conducted under the supervision of the extension personnel. Such supervision was necessary so that every vital step of application of technology could be monitored and guided; (3) very few of the demonstrations of application of new technologies were located by the road side nor there were any sign-boards depicting essential information about these, and (4) no meetings were conducted at the demonstration sites at critical stages of crop maturity. The latter was vital for the dissemination of the recommended technologies among the non-users. However, such omissions were noticed in all the four centers implementing the project. . (vii) Knowledge and skill level of extension personnel In order to organize any transfer of technology oriented program like the agricultural development project, adequate knowledge and skill of extension personnel not only in the technology related areas, but also in issues like, extension, 18

communication, motivation as well as public and human relations is of supreme importance. Technical knowledge and skill will make the extension worker repository of information useful for the vocation of the farmers and increase his/her problem solving ability. Knowledge and skill in the areas of extension and communication will make him/her good communicator and skills in motivation and human and public relations will increase the ability of the extension personnel adjust the program of action according to the human dimensions changing from person to person, community to community. The combination of all these areas of knowledge and skills will make the extension personnel an effective change agent. Keeping in view the importance of knowledge and skills, attempt was made to understand such dimensions in respect of the team of extension personnel in the project and the apparent impact thereof in the realm of making it a real good team of change agent. The project activities in the centre being led by a professionally qualified coordinator with sufficient experience of working with the farmers in relation to their technical problems in the field, could lead his team effectively in carrying out the main task organizing the farms of MSS. Significantly upward trend in respect of income from many of the principal crops like paddy (149%), wheat (658%), soybean (8257%), turmeric (272.3%) and chilly (360.4%) were recorded since the initiation of the project. Activities Village level activities, though not the main thrust of the project, also had shown considerable improvement in terms of area under recommended technologies in respect of paddy (740%) and vegetable (325%) crops since inception of project activities. However, in absolute term the increase in area under recommended technology use in case of paddy was from 5 acres to 37 acres, whereas in vegetable it was from 4 acres to 13 acres. These data pertains to only Somnath unit. The increase in number of farmers brought under the purview of such technology use was from 5 to 32 in case of paddy and from 11 to 32 in case of vegetable. Thus, in real term the per capita increase in area under recommended technologies in farmers fields was from 1 acre to 1.1 acre in case of padd y, whereas in vegetable it was from 14.5 to 16.2 decimals over a period of three years. This indicated that the spread effect of the technology transfer endeavour of the project activities in the Chandrapur center (Somnath in particular) was not so impressive. Thus, in the ultimate analysis, it appeared that in respect of technical competence the team of extension personnel had demonstrated its mettle in considerably increasing the farm income in Somnath as well as Anandwan. However, in terms of per capita area increase in respect of recommended technology application in farmers fields the achievement was not so impressive. Such phenomenon might have been influenced by inadequate and inappropriate application of extension methods as well as lack of followup of training programs on the part of the extension team. Moreover, the team of extension personnel was found working in total isolation from the relevant line departments of Government of Maharashtra, indicating possible inadequacy in respect of its public relations skill. Together, these hinted towards a gap in the communication efforts and skills of the extension team although it had proved its competence in bringing the technologies to the project area. This weakness may have prevented the extension team in fulfilling its obligations as an agent of change. However, these were not tested conclusively in the present evaluation study and thus need to be considered as indicative features. 19

Support interventions For facilitation of absorption of technological options in any given utilization system, especially under resource poor condition, support interventions play very important enabling role. Even if it is assumed that technologies are most appropriate and the extension interventions are playing perfectly in transmitting messages concerning such technologies and motivating the recipients in the technology utilization system, under inadequate support (mostly consisting of physical and infrastructure facilities) condition, it becomes difficult, if not impossible for the recipients to adopt the technology in his/her situation. In such situations, support interventions help in removing the barriers and enable the recipients to accept the technology. As the project was designed to be implemented mainly in the stressed areas and among the resource-poor clients system, there were provisions built into it to support interventions based on the specific local needs of each centre. Accordingly, a series of such interventions were made at MSS farms as well as farmers level by the Chandrapur center. (i) Irrigation infrastructure At the MSS level, the most significant support intervention was creation of additional water resources contributing to the increased area under crop as well as productivity. Table 7 provides details of the various irrigation infrastructures created since the launching of the project. Table 7: Details of irrigation infrastructure created at MSS farms Infrastructure particulars Preproject Pond/ reservoir i. Capacity (vol.) ii. Command area Deepening of ponds i. Capacity ii. Additional command area Drip irrigation system 22 Water bodies Nil Capacity of source and its coverage area Somnath Anandwan Project period PreProject 2004 08 project period 2004 08 1. Trupti Sadan Reservoir 7 Water Nil 48 lakh litres; 50 acres bodies 2.Shram Niketan Reservoir (94 lakh litres) 75 acres Deepening of water bodies Nil Nil nos 7 and 8, to assure steady supply of water to nullah system supporting Trupti Sadan reservoir Nil Nil 2 acres

Nil

In this respect significant development has been made at Somnath farm. Starting with 22 water bodies most of which dried up long before summer, the project created additional irrigation capacity by two building two reservoirs for transit storage of water from the main nallah. These reservoirs viz, Trupti Sadan and Shram Niketan have a combined capacity of 14.2 million litres and a command area of up to 125 acres. At Anandwan, a drip system was installed for demonstrating the efficient way of irrigating fruits and select vegetable crops like tomato. The impacts of these interventions are presented and discussed later. 20

(ii) Agricultural implements Among the agricultural implements available at Somnath centre some of which provided under the project, the important ones were, tractors (6 nos), trolley (1 no), plough, seed drills, Kono weeder (15 nos) and marker (5 nos). All these equipment and implements, contributed towards increased levels of mechanization of Somnath farm. (iii) Briquetting machine At Somnath centre, a new machine was installed for preparing fertilizer briquettes using DAP and Urea in 40:60 ratio. The use of briquettes was promoted at Somnath farm as well as among neighbouring farmers as this was a more efficient way of fertilizer application in puddled rice fields. A nominal service charge @ Re 1/- per kg was charged from farmers who brought their own fertilizers for briquetting. In farmers field based programs in two of the three units, namely, Somnath and Mulgavan, besides supplying improved seeds and complex fertilizers, markers (5) and Kono weeders (20) were also provided to facilitate the demonstrations on paddy (SRI) and soybean. SFI had spent for all the MSS and farmers level support interventions. The expenditure was booked under the project. At MSS level, construction of the farm ponds as well as deepening of water bodies were made under expert guidance, appointed on consultancy basis. Impact of Interventions With the above mentioned interventions being implemented in the two farms Somnath and Anandwan and the villages surrounding them for the last three years and in the villages around Mulgavan farm (still being developed) for last one year, their emerging impact were brought under the purview of the present evaluation study. The impact was studied in respect of : (i) area brought under cultivation / recommended technological options; (ii) changes in cropping pattern; (iii) technology adoption; (iv) production / productivity; (v) farm income; (vi) livelihood dimension : employment; (vii) livelihood dimension: food and nutritional security. (i) Area brought under cultivation / recommended technological options At MSS Farms As stated earlier, out of the total land holding of 1250 acres in Somnath and 450 acres in Anandwan, only around 500 and 200 acres respectively could be brought under Table 8: Area brought under cultivation at MSS farms, during the project period MSS Farm 2004-05 Somnath Anandwan 512.2 NA Area brought under cultivation (in acres) 2005-06 508.0 202.5 2006-07 465 132.5 2007-08 490.0 242.5 Average 493.8 192.5

effective use so far. However, as both the farms were basically rainfed, depending upon the annual precipitation, area actually brought under cultivation during the project period varied from year to year. Table 8 provides the actual as well as the average area brought under cultivation in both the farms during the project period. 21

In Somnath out of 750 acres of effective area, an average of 493.8 acres during 2004-08 could be brought under cultivation. In Anandwan, the average area brought under cultivation during 2005-08 was 192.5 acres out of effective area of 200 acres. (ii) Changes in copping pattern Consequent to irrigation development vis--vis technology infusion, crop rationalization took place. Areas under less remunerative crops were adjusted by way of increasing area under more remunerative crops. From Table 9, the pattern of such adjustments in cropping pattern made in both Somnath and Anandwan over the project period will be clear. Thus in Somnath, area under soybean (460%) as well as gram (167%) were considerably increased by way of drastically reducing the areas under linseed, green gram, Lathyrus, coriander, red gram (pigeonpea), onion, garlic, maize, mustard, jowar and safflower etc. While the last named crops together constituted 24.20% of land surface, they contributed only 9.74% of the total farm income during 2004-05. In view of such poor performance, areas under these crops were gradually reduced over the years and in 2007-08, as a group, the area under these crops came to only 4.9% and the corresponding income level came down to 2.03% of the total. Finally, in 2007-08, 95.1% of the farm area in Somnath was put under paddy (56.78%), soybean (10.22%), wheat (14.44%), Gram (11.11%), chilly (1.11%) & turmeric (1.44%) with these crops together contributing 97.97% of the farm income. At Anandwan on the other hand, in the cropping schedule, new crops like gram and red gram were introduced in 2006-07 and sunflower was gradually being withdrawn from 11.11% in 2005-06 to 4.95% during 2007-08. The area thus released from sunflower was being put under soybean, gram and red gram. Soybean area had been continuously increasing from 110 acres (48.89%) in 2005-06 to 138 acres (56.91%) during 200708.The rise in contribution of soybean to the farm income of Anandwan had been far more spectacular. From 48.89% in 2005-06, the income from soybean went up to 71.54% of the total farm income of Anandwan in 2007-08. (iii) Technology Adoption Among the various kinds of support interventions, irrigation development was by far the most important in Somnath. With assured irrigation and support received from the technically qualified team of project personnel, all the recommended technological options were applied in the farm under their technical control. Thus, adoption of technologies in respect of all the crops being grown in Somnath was total. Similar was the picture in Anandwan, the HQ of MSS, where agriculture, though not the focus, received adequate emphasis. In both the centers, the farms were being professionally managed with all possible technology application. The results would be evident through increased productivity vis--vis income. In the farmers fields, major focus was placed on SRI technique of paddy production technology. The superiority of the technique (lower seed rate, lesser water requirement, higher number of tillers as well as higher productivity etc), though accepted, in practice was being tried in small scale. Small farmers, using family labours, mainly got convinced. However, bigger farmers, dependent on contract labour, faced problems in motivating them in devoting caution and care and thereby more time needed towards uprooting and transplanting of very tender seedlings (10-12 days old). Besides, uncertain

22

Table 9: Area vis--vis income from various crops grown in Somnath (2004 08)
Farm Crops 2004-05 Area Income (acre) (Rs lakh) 270 20.74 (52.68) (80.64) 65 0.81 (12.68) (3.15) 10 0.07 (1.95) (0.27) 30 0.70 (5.85) (2.72) 11 0.42 (2.15) (1.63) 2.5 0.47 (0.49) (1.85) 388.5 23.21 (75.70) (90.26) 124.00 2.51 (24.30) (9.74) 512.5 NA NA NA NA NA 25.72 2.90 (27.46) 0.66 (6.25) 7.00 (66.29) 2.90 (27.46) 0.66 (6.25) 10.56 (100) 10.56 2005-06 Area Income (acre) (Rs lakh) 280 25.67 (57.38) (82.09) 50 1.11 (10.24) (3.55) 11 0.19 (2.25) (0.61) 35 1.26 (7.17) (4.03) 13 0.50 (2.66) (1.60) 3.5 0.85 (0.72) (2.72) 392.5 29.58 (77.28) (94.6) 95.50 1.69 (17.30) (5.40) 488.00 85 (37.78) Nil Nil 3 (1.33) 2 (0.89) 110 (48.89) 85 (37.78) Nil Nil 3 (1.33) 2 (0.89) 200.00 (88.89) 25 (11.11) 225 31.27 2.55 (22.39) Nil Nil 0.23 (2.02) 0.09 (0.79) 6.60 (57.94) 2.55 (22.39) Nil Nil 0.23 (2.02) 0.09 (0.79) 9.47 (83.14) 1.92 (16.86) 11.39 2006-07 Area Income (acre) (Rs lakh) 247 22.84 (58.11) (71.98) 55 2.90 (12.94) (9.14) 5 0.52 (1.18) (1.64) 34 1.15 (8.00) (3.62) 3.5 1.39 (0.82) (4.38) 7 1.20 (1.65) (3.78) 351.5 30.00 (82.70) (94.54) 73.50 1.73 (17.30) (5.46) 425.00 65 (27.96) 5 (2.15) 5 (2.15) 3.5 (1.50) 2 (0.86) 120 (51.61) 65 (27.96) 5 (2.15) 5 (2.15) 3.5 (1.50) 2 (0.86) 200.5 (86.23) 32 (13.76) 232.5 31.73 2.86 (18.77) 0.09 (0.59) 0.09 (0.59) 1.15 (7.54) 0.14 (0.92) 9.44 (61.94) 2.86 (18.77) 0.09 (0.59) 0.09 (0.59) 1.15 (7.54) 0.14 (0.92) 13.77 (90.35) 1.47 (9.65) 15.24 2007-08 Area Income (acre) (Rs lakh) 255.5 30.25 (56.78) (64.84) 65 5.33 (14.44) (11.42) 46 5.78 (10.22) (12.39) 50 1.52 (11.11) (3.26) 5 1.55 (1.11) (3.32) 6.5 1.28 (1.44) (2.74) 428 45.71 (95.10) (97.97) 22.00 0.94 (4.90) (2.03) 450.00 75 (30.93) 5 (2.06) 5 (2.06) 3.5 (1.44) 4 (1.65) 138 (56.91) 75 (30.93) 5 (2.06) 5 (2.06) 3.5 (1.44) 4 (1.65) 230.5 (95.05) 12 (4.95) 242.5 46.65 4.49 (21.66) 0.12 (0.58) 0.19 (0.92) 0.11 (0.53) 0.55 (2.65) 14.83 (71.54) 4.49 (21.66) 0.12 (0.58) 0.19 (0.92) 0.11 (0.53) 0.55 (2.65) 19.29 97.88) 0.44 (2.12) 20.73

Somnath

Rice Wheat Soybean Gram Chilli Turmeric Sub-total Sub-total other crops Grand total Wheat Gram Red gram Chilli Onion

Anandwan

Soybean Wheat Gram Red gram Chilli Onion Sub-total Sunflower Grand Total

Figures in the parenthesis indicate percentage to total 23

labour availability scenario, also posed problem in completion of transplanting with 10-12 days old seedlings. Keeping in view the superiority of the technology in terms of not only productivity increase, but also its favourable environmental implications, all these perceived problems need to be addressed through much more intensive extension interventions, like trainings, demonstrations integrated with meetings at demonstration plots etc for allaying the concerns emerging out of these experiences. (iv) Changes in Production / Productivity As a result of the irrigation development supported by appropriate technological options, upward trend was discernible (2004-08) in total production as well as productivity for most of the crops grown as component of the cropping schedule zeroed in at Somnath as well as Anandwan farms. Table 10 presents the details of area, production and productivity of such crops. Table 10: Area, production and productivity of crops in the cropping schedule 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 Area Production Area Production Area Production Area Production (acre) (Quintals) (acre) (Quintals) (acre) (Quintals) (acre) (Quintals) 270 3771 280 3950 247 2932 255.5 3802 Somnath Paddy (13.97) (14.11) (11.87) (14.88) Wheat 65 135 50 138 55 322 65 485 (2.07) (2.76) (5.85) (7.46) Soybean 10 6 11 13 5 43 46 315 (0.6) (1.2) (8.6) (6.85) Gram 30 35 35 50 34 64 50 61 (1.2) (1.4) (1.8) (1.2) Chilli 11 14 13 13 3.5 28 5 39 (1.3) (1.0) (7.9) (7.8) Turmeric 2.5 13 3.5 21 7 30 6.5 32 (5.2) (6.0) (4.3) (4.9) NA 700 110 545 120 668 138 808 Anandwan Soybean (4.95) (5.6) (5.57) Wheat NA 415 85 364 65 358 75 449 (4.28) (5.51) (5.99) Gram 5 4 5 5 (0.8) (1.0) Red 5 4 5 8 gram (0.8) (1.6) Chilli NA 19 3 6 3.5 29 3.5 3 (2.0) (8.28) (0.86) Onion NA NA 2 22 2 34 4 110 (11) (17) (27.5) Figures in parenthesis indicate productivity in terms of quintals per acre. The upward trend in productivity was discernible (between the data obtained for 2004-05 and those of 2007-08) in Somnath farm in rice (106%), wheat (360%; although there was no increase in the area), soybean (1142%) and chilli (600%). However, turmeric recorded a slight declining trend (94%) as compared to the previous years yield. On the other hand, the productivity of chickpea (gram) during 2007-08 remained much 24 Farms Crops

the same as that of 2004-05, although it did register an increase in the interim period. All these changes could be related to the various project interventions. At Anandwan farm, among the principal crops, soybean (112%) and wheat (140%) only recorded increasing trend in productivity (during 2005-08), though the actual yield per acre were very low as compared to Somnath. Other crops like gram (125%), red gram (200%) and onion (250%), though grown in small scale, all registered increase in productivity. However, only chilli (43%) recorded a decline in productivity during 200708 from that obtained in 2005-06. Thus, in respect of crops grown in both the farms, like, soybean, wheat, gram and chillies, the productivity at Somnath was higher than at Anandwan. (v) Farm income As revealed from Table 9, the total farm income in Somnath unit was continuously on rise from 2004-05, the base year. While the gross farm income in 200405 was Rs 25.72 lakh, it progressively increased to Rs 31.27 lakh in 2005-06, Rs 31.73 lakh in 2006-07 and Rs 46.65 lakh in 2007-08, corresponding to annual rates of increase by 125%, 126.7% and 186.3%, respectively. There was a gradual reduction in net contribution from rice to the total farm income with a corresponding rise in income from crops like wheat, soybean and most significantly from vegetables, thereby establishing a major trend in crop diversification. Total farm income in Anandwan center also registered increase during 2005-08. From a total of Rs 11.39 lakh in 2005-06, it had risen to Rs 20.73 lakh in 2007-08. Thus, the increase was by 182%. The most important contribution towards this increased farm income came from soybean (71.54%) (vi) Livelihood dimension: Employment In case of application of SRI in paddy, load of inter-culture operation (weeding) was much heavier and hence more labour intensive. For small farm families, family labour utilization was more intensive. However, use of Kono weeders for weeding to be made more efficient and cost-effective, essentially involved employment of male members replacing women. Usually two men can complete the weeding operation of one acre in a day with the help of Kono weeder as against 12-15 women doing weeding, manually. Thus, there was chance of gender balance in employment getting disturbed. Application of weed killers was another recommendation which enabled considerable saving of labour while controlling weeds efficiently. However, the effects of the chemicals on the environment, if any, needed to be carefully examined. Hence, it was needed to address the dilemma. Bulk of agricultural labours and marginal farmers constitute the usual labour force for carrying out agricultural operations in bigger farmers fields. They migrate elsewhere in search of employment after completion of transplanting of paddy. Such migration created problem of labour availability for carrying out vegetable farming. (vii) Livelihood dimension: Food & nutritional security A major part of the agricultural produce (cereals, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables etc.) grown in the farms of Somnath and Anandwan were being utilized for meeting the food requirements of more than 4,000 inmates of the MSS. Only after meeting such food requirements, surplus produce (mainly vegetables) were being sold in the market. During 2007-08 alone, vegetables were sold in the market, after meeting the requirements of the 25

inmates were Rs.10.22 lakh (from an area of 32 acres of vegetable grown) and Rs.9.87 lakh (from an area of 30 acres of vegetable grown) in Somnath and Anandwan farms respectively. Besides, rice, wheat, pulses etc grown in the farms were being fully consumed in the domestic kitchens in the MSS. Spread effects As already stated, the focus of Chandrapur centre was on utilizing the land resources of the MSS in its various locations in establishing demonstrations on application of suitable technological options in land, water and crop management. Such live demonstrations were contemplated to spread the messages among the farming communities in the surrounding villages through various extension interventions. With such objective, attempt was made to initiate the process of village level dissemination by way of taking up the interventions, like demonstrations and supply of various inputs among five farmers from five villages around Somnath farm during 200506, which could be spread among 32 farmers in eight villages by 2007-08. Besides these interventions, during the period of these three years, training programs were also conducted, which must have contributed by way of creating awareness and other kinds of behaviour changes among the participating farmers. However, in view of absence of any follow-up of such training efforts, their spread effect could not be quantified. In case of Anandwan, no relevant data was available in relation to the extension efforts in the villages. In Mulgavan, on the other hand, the program of extension interventions was started only in 2007-08 and hence, time was not ripe enough to assess the spread effect. Strengths and weaknesses The agriculture development project implemented through the Chandrapur centre had a few inherent strengths as well as weaknesses which needed to be taken into consideration and addressed in redirecting the programs of action. While deciding the course of such future action strengths need to be capitalized upon while the weaknesses should be addressed in such a way, so that they do not come in the way of effective implementation of the program. It will be interesting to note the points of such strengths and weaknesses before embarking upon identifying action points for increasing effectiveness of the program implementation. Strengths The centre was implementing the project in partnership with an organization characterized by: dedication with proven ability towards uplift of the poor and the disadvantaged, by way of inculcating self-reliance through capacity building in different vocational areas, including agriculture; already established array of vocational training-cum-production centers in various areas, other than agriculture with the help of trained army of village youth boys and girls; and large holding of land resources including already developed farm land, equipped with good infrastructural support and backward and forward linkages.

The centre had already established live demonstration on land, water and crop management techniques relevant to the agro-ecological characteristics of vast tract of area coming under semi-arid tropic. 26

 Besides its own team of professionally qualified personnel, support available from multidisciplinary team of experts in various branches of agriculture in the agriculture college located within the main campus of MSS the partner organization. Weaknesses Village level extension network was relatively poor as compared to the farm development facilitated by the project interventions. Lack of adequate manpower support towards organization of good extension network in the villages surrounding the farms which were quite far apart from each other. Project personnel already hard pressed with their load of work in farm development and the partner organization with hardly any expertise either technical or organizational in developing such extension network. A few action points In the light of the findings in respect of the agriculture development project of Chandrapur district discussed in previous sections, a few emerging action points are suggested in the following paragraphs for more gainful utilization of the valuable experiences gathered so far. The focus of the Chandrapur centre need to be more clearly defined by way of narrowing down the choice between farm development and extension work. This is needed in view of limited provision of manpower support in the project and their more intensive involvement in the management of farms at Somnath and Anandwan. Keeping in view the achievements made so far, it will be more prudent to concentrate on farm development work, particularly the Somnath farm, being more rural in setting and greater extent of infrastructural development. Somnath farm need to be made more diversified by way of incorporating all relevant land use options and be developed as a model farm, representing agroecological features of semi-arid tropic Vocational training centre on agriculture particularly with the aim of generating self- employment capability among rural youth may be opened with relevant branches, like, food processing, orchard management (especially export quality fruits), floriculture, animal husbandry, management of custom hiring (tractors and power tillers), soil testing, plant health clinic and veterinary health care etc. Keeping in view the already available expertise of MSS in management of trainingcum-production centres in other vocational areas, the issue of finding trainees and their post-training utilization should be decided in consultation with them. Responsibilities of organizing such courses should be shared between SFI and MSS. While infrastructure for such vocational training centre may fully be provided by MSS, areas like teachers/instructors recruitment (support may also be sought from the agriculture college at Anandwan) and recurring expenditure may be shared with mutual consultation. However, the equipment, laboratory facilities including that of soil testing and plant health clinic may be fully organized by SFI. 27

 The outreach activities of the Somnath farm and vocational training centre will be primarily centre based training-cum-demonstrations, diagnostic and prescriptive support in areas like soil testing, plant and animal health related problems and consultancy support on demand from farmers on areas like commercial floriculture, vegetable and fruit farming etc.

Agriculture Development Project at Jawhar in Thane District, Maharashtra

Project background Pragati Pratishthan, a Non-Government Organization was registered with Govt. of Maharashtra in 1972. In the beginning, it took up urban centered development activities, like running of a primary school, improving the conditions of slums etc in and around Thane city. Since 1980, the organization had embarked upon rural development activities in Jawhar and Mokhada, two of the most backward blocks of Thane district with more than 90 percent of the population belonging to the scheduled tribes, majority of whom were perpetually poverty-stricken. Migration was widespread in quest of meeting livelihood requirements. In view of such phenomenon, primary goal of the organization in carrying out such development activities was to make people to stay in their villages. In order to attain this objective, increasing access to water resource was adopted as the basic means. In this hilly rain fed tract, many seasonal springs and rivulets start flowing during monsoon. Arresting these water flows through construction of check dams and percolation tanks was taken as the major activity towards meeting the requirements of the villages situated in their course and their animals. In such efforts, Pragati Pratisthan got support from the local unit of Rotary Club of India. With the help received from a number of Rotary Clubs from Mumbai and its suburbs, Pragati Pratisthan could get 14 such check- dams constructed in Jawhar Taluka. Around this time, the organization, through a member of one of these Rotary Clubs, came in touch with the Syngenta Foundation India which was already engaged in various welfare-oriented activities and was looking for a suitable situation where it could launch a project to promote sustainable agriculture among resource-poor farmers. Ultimately in 2006, Syngenta Foundation India, in partnership with Pragati Pratisthan started its agricultural development project in villages brought under the command of the protective irrigation from the check dams and other kinds of sources harnessed as a result of the organizations efforts. Besides supporting with technological options, SFI assisted with various other forms of support to enable the farmers to maximize the benefit in the form of production/productivity increase of their land resources. In addition to the partnership developed with Pragati Pratisthan, SFI, for field level implementation of its agricultural development project, also started collaborating with Bharat Agro-Industries Foundation (BAIF) an internationally acclaimed nongovernment organization, especially known for their contribution to watershed and animal resource development, Wadi model of horticulture, etc. Since 2007-08, such collaboration started through taking up of one acre plots from each of the twelve participating farmers for raising fruits and forest species and growing of vegetable in the inter-space. With such dual collaboration, the project at Jawhar centre had completed two years, striving towards developing agriculture by way of spreading messages regarding 28

appropriate technological options among the poor tribal farmers and thereby create regular source of income at village level. Towards achievement of such goals, the Jawhar centre made a series of interventions at village level, aiming at reaching farmers at both individual as well group level. These interventions broadly categorized into three as stated in table 1, were analyzed to assess their effectiveness in line with the objectives laid down earlier. The results of such analysis are being presented in the following paragraphs. Technology-led interventions The Jawhar centre identified a series of technological options, in line with the project level objectives for facilitating their spread and absorption at the targeted farmers level. Such technological options were analyzed in respect of, firstly, their composition by way of preparing an inventory and secondly, their relevance to the targeted farming systems. The results thus obtained are being presented below. (i) Technology inventory For facilitating technological intervention among the targeted farmers, the centre had identified various options, primarily to meet the requirements of the farming systems. Table 11 presents an account of the major among them which were integrated with the other categories of interventions. Table 11: Major options chosen for technology intervention in Jawhar centre Sl. No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Technological Options Hybrid/HYV paddy cultivation Paddy cultivation through Systematic Rice Improvement Technique (SRI) Techniques of hybrid vegetable cultivation (Kharif and Rabi) WADI cultivation (orchard intercropped with vegetable) Water resource development technique (farm pond in WADI) Low cost Nursery raising technique Technique of paddy seed production at farmers level Vermi-composting technique Crop protection techniques

Table 11 very clearly presents that in Jawhar centre, mainly two categories of technological options were taken up for popularization and absorption by the local farmers. One of the two categories was paddy based options, like (i) hybrid / HYV paddy cultivation, (ii) paddy cultivation through SRI and (iii) technique of paddy seed production. The second category on the other hand was mainly vegetable based options, which consisted of (i) techniques of hybrid vegetable cultivation (kharif & rabi) and (ii) WADI cultivation (orchard intercropped with vegetable). However, in case of WADI cultivation, fruits were another component. The remaining three technologies were for supporting either of the two sets of major options. Thus low cost nursery raising as well vermin-composting techniques were primarily for supporting vegetable growing, whereas crop protection technique was required by both. 29

(ii) Technology Relevance: Paddy Based Farming System In view of the technological options selected for organizing interventions being based on paddy and vegetable farming, their relevance were studied in respect of these two farming systems. Paddy based farming system being universally relevant (specially in kharif) in Jawhar, technologies, like Hybrid / HY paddy varieties and SRI were highly relevant to the existing farming system characteristics in kharif as well as in rabi (subject to availability of irrigation facility). The crop met both consumption as well as commercial requirements of the farmers. Kharif, the main paddy growing season and majority of farms being rain fed in Jawhar, erratic rainfall often affected paddy cultivation under SRI method. After initial rains and farmers having prepared seedbed (popular belief being seedbed should be laid with the first rain), monsoon played truant for more than two weeks during 2007. As a result, the farmers resorting to SRI could not meet the stipulated deadline of completing transplanting of seedlings within 10-12 days and failed to capitalize on the advantage of the technique. . In case of SRI method, the farmers (big or small) were practicing it only in small pieces of land. The big farmers, dependent on hired labour for carrying out transplanting operation, were unequivocal in asserting that adoption of the levels of technological sophistication (like transplanting with 1-2 plants per hill of 10-12 days of age in the seedbed) associated with the technique was difficult, especially at larger scale by way of employing hired labour. Problem of labour availability, their skill level and more importantly lack of mental orientation all came in the way. However, all the farmers big or small were convinced about the superiority of the technology, in case the recommendations could be followed. In Jawhar, many of the farm lands situated on a typically rolling topography, were found to be left with coarse and gravelly soil on the surface with good top-soil having run off to the valleys down below and the numerous streams flowing through these. In gravelly soil, the farmers found it difficult to transplant very young and tender seedlings in lines, as per recommendation to be followed for resorting to SRI technique while growing paddy. In case of land surface being undulating, heavy rains, immediately after transplanting, often washed out the thin and tender paddy seedlings transplanted under SRI. (iii) Technology Relevance: Vegetable Based Farming System Vegetable cultivation, before launching of the project activities by the Jawhar centre, was being practiced by the farmers primarily for meeting their consumption requirements by way of planting local seeds with traditional practices. Vegetable farming on commercial scale was introduced for the first time through the project. Profitability, cash return potential in short run and availability of good quality seeds through the project, coupled with training intervention caught the imagination of the farming community. Attempts of providing irrigation infrastructures like, farm pond, pump sets etc. triggered farmers resolve to include vegetable crops in both kharif and rabi cropping schedule even by way of utilizing other schemes as well as individual investment. 30

Intervention like Wadi was undertaken with the assistance from BAIF MITTRA. In these WADIs, inter-cropping of vegetables was integrated by SFI. This was a significant value addition and was well received by the participating farmers. Extension Management Strategy In order to reach out to the target clientele, primarily consisting of tribal farmers, the centre adopted extension management strategy for facilitating absorption of the various technological options. Such strategy encompassing the whole gamut of change agency related issues like extension approach, the organizational arrangements, capacity building efforts, capacity of the change agents to reach out effectively among the clientele groups etc was studied to understand the effectiveness of the extension interventions. The results thus obtained are presented in the following paragraphs. (i) Extension Approach The centre initially started as facilitator for increasing productive capacity of lands brought under the purview of protective irrigation by Pragati Pratisthan the partner NGO, primarily through dissemination of information about technological options, appropriate to the agro-ecological characteristics of the area. It graduated to more direct interventions through water resource development technologies in conjunction with agricultural practices (vegetable farming), integrated with horticultural and silvicultural crops, being promoted by another partner NGO (BAIF). The centre also got involved in facilitation of such technology absorption through infrastructure and supply oriented interventions, like poly-house nurseries, pump sets, agricultural equipment, seeds and seedlings of new and improved varieties etc. (ii) Extension organization As per the provision made available to the centre, an extension organization was specifically created to take charge of organizing various categories of interventions towards facilitating absorption of technologies at the client system level, mainly consisting of tribal farmers across different villages of Jawhar Taluka. The status in respect of the extension personnel constituting the extension organization at Jawhar centre is presented below. One Project Officer happened to be the leader of a team of three Field Supervisors, together managing extension activities in 18 villages, spread over four major clusters across Jawhar Taluka. While the Project Officer was placed in the present position since inception of the project, out of the three Field Supervisors, only one was serving since 2006. Among the other two, one Field Supervisor joined the team in April 2007, while another had been in position only since January 2008. Professional qualification of the Project Officer was B.Sc. (Ag) and that of the Field Supervisors was Diploma in Agriculture. The Project officer had his professional experience in the field of marketing of agricultural inputs (agricultural chemicals) with the Syngenta corporate body. By virtue of his experience in marketing, he was found to be quirt efficient in communicating with the farmers.

31

(iii) Partner organization The Jawhar centre started implementing the project, taking Pragati Pratisthan as its partner organization. While such partnership continued, the centre, since the kharif season of 2007, entered into collaboration with another partner the BAIF-MITTRA, mainly for implementing the WADI program as a component of the technological interventions of the project. Pragati Pratisthan the partner organization started its mission through organizing medical aid in the villages of this tribal dominated district. It gradually entered into the field of education, which became their main forte. The problem of migration arising out of lack of employment options especially during the lean season was noticed as one of the major maladies. Towards addressing such problem, water resource development was taken as an intervention. Agriculture was felt to be the means towards fruitful utilization of such water resource. The SFI project became handy. The Pragati Pratisthan was being managed by its Treasurer, duly assisted by a team of member secretary, manager-cum-accountant, worker and a program coordinator. However, these persons were involved in managing various other programs viz, imparting education to hearing impaired children, health-care of children of BPL families, aiding women's self-help groups, etc. Therefore, agricultural development programmes were attended by a separate team attached to the SFI Project, under the supervision and control of its Project Officer. There was no personnel with Pragati Pratisthan, capable of managing a technical program like agriculture development. From the manner in which the program was being implemented, one hardly got any indication of the leadership role of Pragati Pratisthan in the program management. During the discussions with the BAIF people, it was learnt that cattle breeding, wasteland development and watershed management were their forte and they had also been running an organization called 'MITTRA' (Maharashtra Institute for Technology Transfer in Rural Areas) in association with the Government of Maharashtra. The Jawhar centre entered into collaboration with this organization for implementation of the project. Such collaboration was thought necessary, in view of intensive involvement of BAIFMITTRA in implementing WADI program. BAIF-MITTRA was operating from its own campus at Jawhar. Besides having its own demonstration plot and laboratories on Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK), the campus was also equipped with an excellent facility of training hall, which was being utilized by the centre for organizing training programs for the project. Their field based activities, centering on WADI was quite extensive. In Jawhar alone, they were reaching out 9624 families and covering 9555 acres under the Wadi programme. Cashew being an important component in the species mix of orchard crops, they had already opened a cashew processing plant for providing forward linkage to the participating farmers in the WADI program. In association with BAIF-MITTRA, the agricultural development project at Jawhar centre took up WADI program in the plots of one acre each of twelve farmers in 2007. It was contemplating to spread the program further in 2008-09 by way of taking up WADI program in 26 more farmers fields. In such collaboration, the BAIF MITTRA was providing the technology support in relation to the orchard and forest trees management in the Wadis. (iv) Concentration of efforts Having started implementing the project activities only in 2006, it was felt necessary to create a support base first in the Taluka, dominated by poor tribal population. 32

Accordingly, the centres coverage was restricted to 18 villages until 2007-08, all located in the Jawhar Block and divided into four clusters. The Project Officer with his three field assistants were concentrating their extension efforts vertically, rather than too thinly spreading over large geographical area. Concentration of its efforts in clusters was facilitating natural spread of the technologies among the farmers of surrounding villages, not brought under the project activities, besides making the monitoring and follow-up of the programs of interventions relatively easier. However, the distance between the clusters should have been kept lesser, in view of lack of transport facilities. (v) Clientele base Across the four clusters, the total number of farmers spread over 18 villages was 115 during 2007-08. Considering the number of field supervisors to be three, number of farmers per supervisor came to approximately 40. This made supervision easier on the part of the field supervisors as each of the three was assigned with one cluster. (vi) Capacity building interventions An essential step towards enabling farmers, the target clientele, to absorb various technological options identified by the centre to achieve project objectives, was to develop required capacity among them. In the scheme of activities chosen by the centre towards such capacity building were interventions made through training and extension methods. Thus, both these categories of interventions were analyzed in respect of actual mechanisms followed and achievements made. The results obtained against such analyses are presented below. Training

Training was the major capacity building intervention of the project. In all, 12 one-day training programs were conducted which were attended by about 500 farmers. Major topics covered in these programs were related to paddy and vegetable. Table 12 presents the details of such training programs, their focus and number of farmers attending such programs. In the post-training follow-up the level of acceptance of ideas by the attending farmers were reported to be very high. More than 70 percent of the attending farmers were reported to have accepted the ideas. However, such acceptance might not necessarily be in respect of whole package, but might have remained restricted to very few among those recommended. These trainings were mostly conducted in the project HQ located in the campus of Pragati Pratisthan. A few were also conducted at the BAIF-MITTRA campus. However, in both the sites, lack of farm made the trainings mostly lecture-cum-discussion based, with very little use of demonstrations. Pragati Pratisthans infrastructure of the school-cum-rehabilitation centre for handicapped children was utilized for organizing farmers training programs. Besides, the excellent infrastructure of BAIF-MITTRA, the other collaborating organization also could be utilized as additional training infrastructure in case of any special need.

33

Table 12: Training programmes conducted at Jawhar Centre Year Title of training program Focus No. of farmers attending 32 38 68 38 25 45 45 32 60 45 70 18 516

2006 Improved cultivation of Paddy 2006 Techniques of growing vegetable crops 2006 Paddy-Crop protection management &

Paddy Vegetable Nutrient Paddy

2007 Preparation of vermi-compost, vermi- Organic Farming wash and biopesticides 2007 New practices in agriculture 2007 Paddy cultivation by SRI 2007 Pest and disease control in paddy General Paddy Paddy

2007 New techniques in agriculture and General related field 2007 Vegetable cultivation 2007 Pest and Disease control in vegetables Vegetable Vegetable

2007 Pest and disease control in mango and Fruits cashew 2008 Summer vegetable cultivation TOTAL Extension methods Vegetable

Eighty demonstrations were conducted on hybrid rice and 7 on vegetable crops. Seed packets of small amount of various crops were distributed among the farmers for conducting trials at farmers fields. Seedling and seeds of fruit crops were distributed among farmers towards their popularization. Harvest Hungama (meeting at harvesting of demonstration plots) and farmers tours were the other extension methods utilized in the project. While demonstrations conducted at this project were also faced with similar shortcomings as were at Chandrapur centre, Harvest Hungama was a praiseworthy attempt to bring farmers together to the sites of the demonstrations worth showing to other farmers for publicizing usefulness of the practice. 5 such events took place during the evaluation period and 500 farmers were reported to have attended. However, organizing such event was one-shot affair during the period of any one of such demonstration. Moreover, attendance of 100 participating farmers on an average per event was not very conducive for providing information on vital details of the practice on which the particular demonstration was being conducted. For effective use of this method, the number of attending farmers should be such that face to face interaction was possible between the extension personnel / expert and the farmers. 34

Farmers tours were organized in 8 occasions wherein a total of 440 farmers attended. These tours were organized to show some of the excellent vegetable fields within the project area to the participating farmers. For awareness building such tours were quite effective. (vii)Knowledge and skill levels of extension personnel A professionally qualified Project Officer with previous background in sales of agricultural chemicals was leading the project in the centre. He was found to be quite competent in respect of solving technical problems posed by the farmers in course of interactions with them. Moreover, his professional experience in marketing also made him an efficient motivator. One possible indicator of the competence of the extension personnel in motivating and guiding the farmers in accepting the recommended technologies in their respective situations was the results obtained in respect of increase in the coverage of area under technology use vis--vis productivity as well as farm income of the targeted farmers. The Project Officer along with his team members in course of their extension efforts could motivate farmers to adopt recommended technologies in respect of paddy and vegetable crops. In case of paddy, the production increase at farmers level registered through adoption of SRI on hybrid varieties was to the tune of 172.6%. Vegetable farming at commercial scale being altogether new, participation of 46 farmers across 17 of the 18 villages in commercial vegetable farming was a commendable achievement. By way of producing a variety of vegetable crops in 7.9 ha. of land, with a gross income of Rs 4.80 lakh made the farmers even more enthusiastic. Unlike Chandrapur, the Project Officer was found to have good amount of human relations skill as evidenced through rapport building with a number of development agencies working in the project area. While entering into collaboration with the BAIFMITTRA was resultant of such rapport, the Project Officer was personally acquainted with quite a few development agents, like those of Agricultural Extension Officers attached to the agriculture department as well as Panchayat Samiti also. In fact, such previous acquaintance helped exploring ways and means of solving some of the felt problems of the farmers through utilization of schemes available with other departments. Support interventions Support interventions in case of Jawhar centre were aimed at reaching out the farm families brought under the project activities in collaboration with the two partner organizations- Pragati Pratisthan and BAIF-MITTRA. (i) Interventions: Pragati Pratisthan Major chunk of support interventions were organized in the programs taken up with the partnership of Pragati Pratisthan the older among the two partners. These were, supply of 5 HP diesel engines (4 nos), low-cost poly houses (4 nos), kitchen garden kits, each consisting of 25 seeds of different kinds of vegetable crops (139 lots), high performance hybrids of vegetables HYV field crops (250 lots) and setting up of two farmers information centres, for providing knowledge of improved agronomic practices to farmers through group discussions as well as printed literature. Besides, seeds of nagli (ragi; finger millet), different kinds of vegetables viz, cucurbits, cauliflower and potato (by TPS) and flowers like marigold, were also distributed among the farmers aimed at popularising the crops with a high incomegenerating potential. 35

Some of the support interventions were made under cost sharing basis between SFI and farmers, while rest of them were fully funded under the project. 5 HP diesel engines, low-cost poly houses, kitchen gardens and the agricultural information center were set up in the farmers field or villages with full funding from SFI. Seeds of paddy as well as vegetables, fertilizers and pesticides were procured / produced with the help of revolving fund provided by SFI and the cost was recovered from the concerned farmers to replenish the revolving fund. (ii) Interventions: BAIF-MITTRA Partnership with BAIF-MITTRA revolved around a program - WADI, assisting farmers in planting of fruits and forest species in their rainfed lands. The SFI entered into collaboration with BAIF-MITTRA through these Wadis by way of integrating vegetable in the inter-space during the initial years. 12 such Wadis were established under this collaboration. Each WADI plot owner was provided with saplings of 40 cashew, 20 mango and 400 forest species. In the Wadis, drum irrigation sources were being tried, with an intention of installing farm water reservoirs by way of following Konkan Krishi Vdyapeeth model. This was later to be replaced with farm ponds to be dug at WADI level for providing protective irrigation. Impact of interventions The impact of the above mentioned interventions of Jawhar centre at the farmers fields was studied in respect of : (i) area brought under recommended technological options; (ii) changes in cropping pattern; (iii) technology adoption; (iv) changes in production / productivity; (v) farm income; (vi) livelihood dimension : employment; (vii) livelihood dimension: food and nutritional security. (i) Area brought under recommended technological options In Jawhar, initiating the project at a level where the farming community used to resort to only traditional ways of paddy and subsistence oriented vegetable cultivation, over the project period (2006-08) 18.65 acres was brought under recommended technological options for paddy, involving 77 farmers. Out of this area, 13.45 acres was put under improved paddy varieties and 9.5 acres under hybrid varieties. The entire area put under hybrid varieties was being cultivated by following SRI. Vegetable was being hardly cultivated in the area before the project was initiated. From such a situation, the project was able to bring 18.58 acres under various types of vegetable cultivation and 1.17 acre of marigold, primarily with commercial motive. Starting with only three farmers in 2006, 105 farmers were practicing vegetable farming by 2007, the second year of the project. Table 13 provides an account of area, production and productivity of various vegetable crops grown by the targeted farmers in the project area of Jawhar. Among the 15 different types of vegetables, being grown, area wise okra (23.04%) was by far the mostly grown crop, followed by brinjal (12.38%), chilly (12.16%), onion (9.85%), bittergourd (9.15%), bottle gourd (7.80%) etc.

36

Table 13: Area, production, productivity and income from various vegetable crops grown by farmers in project area (as in 2007) Sl. No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. Vegetable Crops Area (in acres) Production (in qtls.) Productivity (in qtls/acre) Okra Brinjal Chillies Onion Bittergourd Bottlegourd Yard Bean Cucumber Watermelon Sweet Corn Cluster Bean Cauliflower Tomato Potato Cabbage TOTAL (ii) Changes in Cropping Pattern In Jawhar, farming was being carried out under rainfed condition, with the traditional cropping pattern composed of paddy, ragi, pigeon pea and vari (common millet Panicum miliaceum). By way of arranging some protective irrigation (through pumping of water from rivers/ nullahs/ wells or some other form of water harvesting structure) as well as organizing a series of technological, extension and support interventions, new sets of cropping pattern could be introduced in the target farmers fields. In paddy based farming system, besides further increasing paddy yield through introduction of hybrids or SRI, vegetable as well as floriculture crops were incorporated in the cropping system. Uplands, otherwise lying fallow were utilized as Wadis with crop combination of fruits and forest species, intercropped with vegetable and flowers in the early phase. (iii) Technology Adoption Among the technologies adopted by the farmers, maximum changes were evident in case of paddy which was traditionally being cultivated by the farmers in the project area. The changes were mainly in respect of varietal replacement and application of production technologies (including SRI). Though many new varieties of paddy, including 37 4.28 (23.04%) 2.30 (12.38%) 2.26 (12.16%) 1.83 (9.85%) 1.70 (9.15%) 1.45 (7.80%) 1.07(5.76%) 0.95 (5.11%) 0.65 (3.50%) 0.52 (2.80%) 0.47 (2.53%) 0.40 (2.15%) 0.35 (1.88%) 0.25 (1.34%) 0.10 (0.54%) 18.58 87.80 (20.54) 71.50 (31.09) 26.17 (10.47) 94.52 (37.81) 26.66 (15.68) 18.59 (7.43) 12.30 (11.49) 10.05 (10.58) 7.80 (12.00) 5.20 (10.00) 3.10 (6.59) 21.70 (54.25) 3.54 (10.11) 9.50 (38.00) 7.00 (700.00) 1.79 (0.42/acre) 0.71 (0.31/acre) 0.48 (0.21/acre) 0.43 (0.23/acre) 0.42 (0.25/acre) 0.11 (0.07/acre) 0.13 (0.12/acre) 0.08 (0.08/acre) 0.08(0.12/acre) 0.05 (0.10/acre) 0.04 (0.08/acre) 0.20 (0.5/acre) 0.05 (0.14/acre) 0.10 (0.4/acre) 0.03 (0.3/acre) 4,7 (0.25/acre) Income (in lakh Rs.)

hybrids were introduced in the project villages, their extent of adoption was partial with farmers still evaluating pros and cons in the context of their needs and priorities. In case of SRI, many farmers reached out under the Jawhar centre, besides having similar types of misgivings with those of Chandrapur farmers, also expressed their inability to abide by the prescription of transplanting seedlings within the stipulated 10-12 days in view of a prolonged dry spell after initial spell of early monsoon showers. Besides, gravelly soils, prevalent in the project area, made it difficult for some farmers to operate Kono weeder. Vegetable farming during rabi season was found to be a more profitable and attractive proposition for the farmers in case they could gain access to some form of irrigation support. As it was mostly dealing with cash crops, the result was visible within a short period. Farmers came in a bigger way (100% of the practicing farmers) to resort to vegetable farming during rabi season, when due to limited access to irrigation, cultivation of heavy-duty crop like paddy was not possible. Supported by some form of irrigation, coupled with assured supply of quality seeds along with training in dealing with plant protection problems was required to attract more number of farmers to vegetable cultivation. However, only 33.33% of the training effort was devoted to topics related to vegetable farming, involving 31.21% of the total clientele, which did not commensurate with the demand scenario. (iv) Changes in Production / Productivity While paddy was being cultivated in the area traditionally, vegetable was almost non-existent in the cropping schedule. Thus although paddy had some base level production status to compare with the post project performance, for vegetable crops no such comparable base level data was there. From the average paddy yield of 11.15 qtls. /acre received by farmers against their own seed and traditional practices, with the use of high yielding varieties, there was increase of 150% (16.71 qtls./acre). Again, with the hybrid varieties and application of SRI, the yield increased by 200% (22.34 qtls./acre). From the table 13, it was evident that the average yield per acre obtained by the target farmers for the major ones from among the 15 different types of vegetable crops being cultivated were: okra (20.54 qtls), brinjal (31.09 qtls), chilly (10.47 qtls), onion (37.81 qtls), bottle gourd (7.43 qtls), cauliflower (54.25 qtls.) and potato (38 qtls.) etc. (in view of all these crops being totally new, such production significantly influenced their farm income level. (v) Farm Income The farm income of the participating farmers under the Jawhar centre was computed based on gross returns from individual crops grown by them as well as income obtained per acre of the crop cultivated during 2007. Table 13, earlier presented income per acre from okra, brinjal, chilli, onion, bittergourd and bottle gourd, the main vegetable crops grown by the farmers in the project area. These were Rs. 0.42, 0.31, 0.21, 0.23 and 0.07 lakh respectively. The total gross income from 18.58 acres of vegetable crops grown by the targeted farmers came to Rs. 4.7 lakh with per acre return of Rs. 0.25 lakh. As vegetable growing was almost nonexistent before the project got underway, the gain thus made was total, especially considering that earlier these lands were mainly lying fallow. 38

(vi) Livelihood dimension : Employment The project interventions, especially the technology of vegetable farming, hitherto not practiced by the farmers in and around Jawhar, had significantly changed the employment vis--vis income generation scenario in the livelihood of those who had put them to use. Changes in the life of Tulsiram of Dabhosa village Tulsiram Kama Mhadi is the eldest among three brothers, owning about four acres of agricultural land. He is married and has two children. His second brother and his wife have one child. The third brother is not married. They stay together in a joint family, eke out their livelihood out of the income received from the four acres of land entirely rainfed. The land had a rolling topography, not permitting best of cultivation practices to be followed. Only in 2 acres, he used to cultivate local paddy during kharif and the rest was put under ragi (Eleucine coracana finger millet) and vari (Panicum miliaceum a local millet). The produce from such efforts was barely enough to meet the requirements of eight members of the family. Thus, Tulsi Ram and his brothers had also had to work as labour, after transplanting of paddy and ragi was over. Tulsiram, was quite often moving out of Jawhar and going as far as to Thane, Mumbai and other such places to do masonry work. That brought him in touch with Pragati Pratisthan, getting some construction work done at their centre. Tulsiram came to know about the engagement of Pragati Pratisthan into agricultural development activities and through them contacted the Project Officer of SFI who made him aware of the various possibilities of increasing the farm income by adopting improved agronomic practices. Table 14 : Details of crop combination, production and gross income from 2 acres of land of Tulsiram of village Dabhosa Sl. No 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Crop Combination Okra Brinjal Chilli Cauliflower Marigold Cucumber Cabbage Potato Sweet Corn TOTAL Area (in acre) 0.25 0.5 0.25 0.15 0.05 0.10 0.05 0.25 0.08 1.68 Production (in Kg) 300 800 35 520 60 180 400 950 70 Income (in Rs) 4,500.00 9,600.00 700.00 3,500.00 1,200.00 1500.00 3,200.00 9,500.00 700.00 34,400.00

In the first year, he had grown marigold on 4 gunthas (0.1 acre) of his land, otherwise lying fallow and earned Rs. 2500/- from it. This was the first ever encounter of Tulsiram with an advanced agronomic technique and tasting success by adopting the 39

same. From there onwards, Tulsiram did not look back. By virtue of his association with Pragati Pratisthan, he had known some officials in the Panchayat Samiti at Jawhar. With their help, he got his land levelled under the Employment Guarantee Scheme of the Government and took loan of Rs. 20,000/-, from State Bank of India for digging of a well. Having improved the infrastructure in this way, he planned for a cropping pattern in consultation with the Project Officer of SFI. Besides growing paddy on the 2-acre plot, Tulsiram went for growing cash crops like vegetables and flowers on the remaining land. The details of crop combination, production and gross income earned from the 2 acres of land are given in Table 14. He earned about Rs. 35,000/- from 1.68 acres of land, which was earlier being used to produce millets. The money he thus received was being contemplated for purchase of a pump set for lifting water from the dug well as well as from a nullah flowing by his land. Now on, Tulsiram and his brothers got fully involved round the year in carrying out agriculture on commercial scale. He was no longer required to go out in look out for labours job to make his both ends meet for fulfilling his livelihood requirements. In the rainfed tract of Jawhar with the predominant practice of monoculture of kharif cereals and millets, a new program like WADI in cooperation with BAIF, was aimed at creating round-the-year employment opportunities, for small and marginal farmers and in the process raising their income. Twelve such WADIs, each on one-acre plot, were planted with fruits (mango and cashew) and forest species, with flowers and vegetables grown in the inter-space. Seedlings along with fertilizers and plant protection chemicals were supplied by the project. Water harvesting by way of creating plastic sheet topped farm ponds (1m x 1m x 1m) was planned for supplementing WADIs with protective irrigation. From the first year, some cash income (Rs.3000 5000/-) in kharif from floriculture as well as vegetable farming followed. The fruit crops would start yielding from fifth year onwards. Thus, paddy cultivation (both hybrid and high yielding varieties by following usual as well as SRI techniques) would be able to keep the farmer fully employed throughout the year. Low-cost nursery given to farmers was another program intervention with employment generating potential. A farmer had set up a nursery of 1000 sq. ft. (40ft x 25ft) on his own land with the project bearing the cost of Rs.48,000/-, towards poly film, aluminium profiles, clips, etc. Besides the cost of insect net, shade net, aluminum profile, plastic coated wire and poly film, the project had also provided one 1000 litre plastic water storage tank for watering the seedlings. The space, sufficient for raising 16000 seedlings of vegetable was provided by the farmer and would be raised at his cost and he would be free to sell at cost deemed fit by him and obtainable from the local farmers. (vii) Livelihood dimension: Food and nutritional security Two principal meals of the farm families, especially those belonging to the resource poor (marginal and small farmers etc.) categories usually consisted of rice and ragi. Hardly any vegetable ever constituted part of their diets. However, after the project succeeded in introducing a good number of vegetables, they had become a regular component of their meals. Spread effects The Jawhar centre started its journey in 2006 towards enabling the farmers in tribal dominated villages to absorb technological options in increasing productive capacity of their land resources and thereby come out of the shackles of poverty and impoverishment. In such journey, the project got 42 farmers from 3 villages, who were 40

the first to accept the technological options short listed for dissemination. In 2007, the projects sphere of influence had spread to 15 more villages across Jawhar Taluka, bringing into its fold 105 farmers, in accepting the recommended technologies at their respective farming systems. The spread of technology application had also correspondingly increased from 10.6 acres of paddy and 2 acres of vegetable cultivation as per recommended practices in 2006 to 18.65 acres and 18.58 acres of paddy and vegetable respectively in 2007. However, the spread of the technology absorption was likely to increase further, in case of removal of some of the barriers to such changes, by way of appropriate interventions which were largely related to net working with government departments and infrastructure development. Farmers of Mahalepada, Borsepada, Siroshi and Talyachepada expressed their interest on resorting to vegetable farming. However, they were apprehensive of possible damage of such enterprise by way of grazing by the cattle. Cattle population in the area being mostly indigenous and poorly productive, free grazing was the usual practice. Thus, the farmers expressed their need for barbed wire fencing for which according to them, there was government scheme and they had already submitted application in this regard, but of no avail. On inquiry, it was found that under tribal sub plan with the Panchayat Samiti there was provision of assistance to the tune of Rs.15,000.00 towards providing fencing in agricultural land. As these villages were dominated by tribal population, such provision could be easily availed by the farmers with liaison work being taken up by the project. The farmers needed to be helped to submit their application with relevant documents, like (i) land map, (ii) BPL (below poverty level) certificate, (iii) income certificate, (iv) Gram Sabha sanction letter, and (v) copy of recent photograph of the applicant. While exploring the possibility of securing government assistance in meeting the demands for fencing, many more relevant schemes under the tribal sub-plan could be identified. These could as well be utilized by the farmers of the project villages. The schemes found to be relevant to the project interventions of Jawhar centre were : (i) land development (100% assistance) for less than 1 hectare holding; (ii) repairing of well; (iii) pipeline for irrigation; (iv) digging of well and accessories; (v) digging of farm ponds; (vi) drip irrigation etc. Liaison efforts with the government departments like panchayat and rural development, tribal development (specifically ITDP), agriculture and soil conservation, horticulture etc on the part of the project officials would help in bringing many more farmers into the fold of the agriculture development project and contribute to the spread effect of the interventions. Strengths and weaknesses The agricultural development project implemented by the Jawhar centre was characterized by a few strengths and weaknesses, inherent into the setting as well as system. An attempt was made to identify them, so that these would form the basis for deciding the action points for further enhancement of the project implementation efficiency. Strengths Jawhar Taluka, though rainfed, was in receipt of abundant precipitation during the monsoon and was endowed with numerous streams and nullahs, carrying the rainwater, which if harvested properly, would constitute a very valuable productive resource. 41

 Agro-ecologically, Jawhar Taluka had the potential for development of multiple land use options, like field crops, horticulture, silviculture etc for utilizing them towards increased returns from the land resources of this tribal dominated area. Presence of an enthusiastic, technically sound, extrovert project officer, quite apt to lead the program of actions aiming at bringing more and more farmers into the fold of agricultural development project and also networking with relevant development agencies both government and non-government for facilitating convergence of development interventions. Weaknesses The dependence syndrome of the partner organization Pragati Pratisthan, with neither the required manpower support nor technical and organizational expertise to carry out a technical project like the agricultural development project, made its sustainability doubtful after the withdrawal of SFI from the scenario. The relative isolation of the project from the relevant development agencies, mandated to carry out development activities in the same area, quite often coinciding in respect of the target group as well as interventions. Poor access to the markets for majority of target clientele and remoteness of the villages vis--vis availability of public or means of transport. A few action points The discussion made so far on the results of the evaluation study of the agricultural development project being implemented by the Jawhar centre, lead us to a few action points for increasing effectiveness of program implementation. These action points are being presented in the following paragraphs. More emphasis needed to be placed on creating water harvesting structures in individual farmers fields as well as at community level resources, by way of taking advantage of available schemes with different development departments. Towards this end, mention may be made about the scheme under the National Horticultural Mission of water harvesting at farmers group level (10-12 farmers). Among the 5 such projects drawn, Jawhar had already been included and District Agricultural Officer, Thane was in charge of coordinating the project. Efforts at SFI level to liaise with the District Agricultural Officer to take advantage of the provisions of this project might be helpful to create water resources for the farmers targeted by the agricultural development project. At individual farmers level, especially being brought under WADI, creation of farm water reservoirs, a program for which had already been drawn for 2008-09, might be given due emphasis. Addressing farmers needs and problems in respect of application of recommended technological options should be the prime concern of the project personnel. Towards this end, facilitation of the process of convergence of already available schemes with various development departments might be of great help and more sustainable in the long run. In this connection, an example had already been given in respect of fencing scheme for agricultural land of the Panchayat & Rural Development department. Popularization of vegetable farming being one of the prime agenda of action for the agricultural development project and the produce being perishable, marketing 42

support was considered to be one of the necessary pre-conditions for its success. Lack of such support in the project area was identified as a major weakness. In order to address such weakness, groups need to be formed with vegetable growers of a few contiguous villages, for organizing marketing of the produce on behalf of each of their members. The project authority need to review the ways and means of making the partner organization (Pragati Pratisthan) more participative through manpower support and increasingly share responsibilities of program implementation, so that in due course, they would be capable of taking over the reign of the project. In case of failure in achieving the above mentioned goal, the SFI may have to think of alternative ways of finding out a partner organization which will be capable and willing to take a more active role in managing the project activities.

Agricultural Development Project, Kalahandi, Orissa

Project background Kalahandi is primarily known as an agricultural district. 87% of its total work force eke out their livelihood from agriculture and allied sector activities. Traditionally known for recurrent drought, Kalahandi came into national focus way back in eighties for alleged starvation deaths. Since then lot of development efforts had been in place, most important among which had been its irrigation resource development. The district was brought under the command of Indravati river irrigation project. By 2006-07, the potential irrigated area created in Kalahandi came to about 1.47 lakh hectares or about 39 percent of its total cultivable land during kharif. However, in rabi, the potential for irrigation was 0.9 lakh hectares or about 24 percent of the cultivable land. The district ranked third in the state in respect of its paddy growing area. However, even then more than 70 percent of the families have remained below the poverty line. Thus, in spite of considerable development taking place, majority of the population of the district could not get the benefits. In order to bring these resource poor into the fold of mainstream of development by way of using the technological potential created in the realm of agriculture, Kalahandi was selected as one of the sites for implementation of the agricultural development project of SFI. In pursuance of its policy of working in collaboration with a local partner, Kalahandi Association for Rural Reconstruction and Total Awareness Benefit of Youth Action (KARRTABYA), an NGO was identified. After being established as a youth club in 1984, it graduated to an NGO in early nineties and started project based development activities since 1996. Starting with Total Literacy Campaign, the NGO mainly worked in the areas related to capacity building and human resource development for a variety of organizations / programs, like the Panchayati raj and local self-government, schools for child labour, integrated nutrition and health program, managing continuous education centres etc. In agriculture, however, it was the maiden involvement for the NGO through the agricultural development project of SFI. The area of operation of KARRTABYA spread across all the constituent gram panchayats of 7 Blocks of Kalahandi district. It has been operating from its office at Chhoriagarh, a village located at a distance of 50 km from Bhawanipatna the District HQ of Kalahandi. Keeping in view the wide base of the NGO, it was selected as the partner organization in carrying out the interventions, mainly centered on rice the principal crop 43

of the district. Like other two centres already described, the Kalahandi centre also organized series of interventions. However, unlike these centres, in Kalahandi the organization of interventions was solely carried out by KARRTABYA the partner organization. Attempt is being made to analyze each of these interventions in the light of the objectives set for the evaluation endeavour. Technology-led interventions In line with the framework of project level objectives, which was same for all the implementing centres, the Kalahandi centre also identified a series of technological options for facilitating their transfer among the targeted farmers. These technological options were evaluated by way of preparing an inventory, followed by analysis of their relevance to the prevalent conditions in the targeted farm families. The results obtained from such evaluation process are presented below. (i) Technology inventory The Kalahandi centre had chosen a few technological options for facilitating their absorption by the farmers targeted from various villages covered under the project. Table 15 provides an account of the technology domain chosen for facilitating their transfer Table 15: Technological Options Chosen by Kalahandi Centre for their Absorption at Farmers Level Sl. No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Technological Options Hybrid/HYV paddy cultivation SRI method of paddy cultivation Hybrid vegetable cultivation (kharif & rabi) Crop protection techniques Low cost nursery raising technique

by way of organizing extension and support interventions through the project. From the table, it was evident that like other projects, the technologies were primarily paddy and vegetable based, with crop protection and low cost nursery raising techniques playing supporting role. (ii) Technology Relevance: Paddy Based Farming System A good majority of villages of Kalahandi centre being covered under Indravati river irrigation project and predominance of paddy based farming system, made technologies like Hybrid / High Yielding paddy varieties and SRI extremely relevant in kharif as well as rabi seasons. This was especially more relevant because of the irrigation project continuing release of water in the field channels till end of May every year, thereby enabling farmers growing summer paddy to meet their water requirement. The crop met primarily subsistence requirements of the small holders, while big farmers sold surplus in the market. In practice, in the canal irrigated villages paddy was being cultivated in high, medium as well as low land in both the seasons. While in upland and medium land highyielding varieties (and occasionally hybrids) were cultivated, in lowlands mostly tall, local varieties were grown. Majority of the farmers were however cultivating high yielding varieties. Extent of application of Hybrid as well as SRI technique was relatively less. The reason behind lesser application of SRI technique, as expressed by the farmers 44

during interaction with them, were : (i) farmers with low lands found the technique not relevant under their farming system; (ii) maintaining water level in the fields difficult under canal irrigated areas, as farmers had hardly any control over release of canal water; (iii) farmers having undulating land surface found it difficult to follow line transplanting and also maintain water level uniformly across the fields. Practicing farmers were convinced about the effectiveness of SRI technology in increasing yield, reducing cost of cultivation and above all environmental impact. However, until now they were using the technique in small pieces of land, mainly operated by family labour. The reasons behind such smaller scale application were mostly similar to the ones expressed by the farmers in the two centers of Maharashtra. Difficulty in maintaining transplanting of 10-12days old seedlings from the seedbed and getting the transplanting done by the hired labours by maintaining the sophistication demanded (like, care required in uprooting of very young seedlings with 1-2 laves, planting of a single plant per hill and also completion of transplanting even in bigger sized plots within 1012days etc.) were a few of such reasons. (iii) Technology Relevance: Vegetable Based Farming System Being located in a paddy based farming system and supported by canal irrigation project, the farmers inclination was on cultivating paddy in both kharif as well as rabi. Vegetable was being mainly cultivated for meeting their consumption need in the family. Mali community, being the traditional vegetable growers in the area, villages dominated by them only resorted to commercial vegetable farming. Even in villages inhabited by a few of such farmers, they were the only vegetable growers on commercial scale. For meeting irrigation requirement of the vegetable crops, the Mali farmers in the rain fed villages had dug wells, either kutcha (own) or pucca (mostly constructed under some scheme or other). Extension management strategy Having identified the technological options, the next logical step was to arrange for their transfer among the target clientele the farmers. In the process of such transfer, two major issues were to be addressed. These issues related to organization of, firstly, the extension mechanism and the secondly, the support system. The extension mechanism adopted by the Kalahandi centre is being discussed under this section, detailing the extension approach followed, the organizational arrangements made, capacity building efforts, capacity of the change agents to reach out effectively among the clientele groups etc. The findings of the evaluation study in respect of each of these dimensions are presented in the following paragraphs. (i) Extension Approach The extension approach adopted by the Kalahandi centre revolved primarily around increasing productivity of mainly paddy as the prevailing farming system was paddy based. The productivity increase was attempted through introduction of suitable varieties of high yielding and hybrid paddy, improved production technique like, SRI in the canal irrigated area. Introduction of the varieties and technique was facilitated by adoption of extension methods and capacity building efforts. Vegetable farming was the additional area of concern for which the extension approach was to facilitate its absorption by the target farmers through distribution of 45

seeds and seedlings of improved varieties and training as supplementary income earning from lands not brought under paddy cultivation. (ii) Extension Organization As already stated, in Kalahandi, unlike the Chandrapur and Jawhar centres, the extension personnel forming the extension organization were recruited by the partner NGO, instead of SFI recruiting and placing them in the centres. However, in both these models, required funds were being met from the project budget meant for the concerned centre. The agricultural development project was being led by one Agricultural Extension Coordinator, assisted by two Field Organizers (only one had been in position during the entire period of 2006-08). Together, they managed extension activities in 53 villages, distributed across four different blocks of Kalahandi district. The professional qualification of the Extension Coordinator was Diploma in Agriculture and that of the Field Organizer (one who served during the period of evaluation) was Bachelor of Arts with six months training in Horticulture. The other field organizer, recruited only in April 2008, was having higher secondary as his qualification. The Extension Coordinator, before joining the project worked for some other NGO in an agricultural project in neighbouring Sambalpur district and even before that worked as Supervisor in tea garden in Assam. The lone field organizer who was serving the project during the period of evaluation, however had no previous professional experience. (iii) Partner Organization Some details about KARRTABYA the partner organization had already been described while dealing with the project background. Kalahandi Association for Rural Reconstruction and Total Awareness Benefit of Youth Action (KARRTABYA) developed as a registered NGO originally from a youth club. The NGO started its operation with Total Literacy Campaign and gradually got involved in organizing HRD support for a number of schemes running in Kalahandi district. They entered into land and agriculture arena with the agriculture project of the SFI. However, the organization did not have any expertise in agriculture. The CEO being an ex-school teacher, only link with the agricultural development program of the organization was through the second person in command, Mr. Markand Nayak, a village-level worker (VLW), attached to Dharamgarh Block, who had been serving in the region for quite some time in the past. KARRTABYA was involved at the time of the evaluation study in HRD and capacity building related areas of 10 diverse types of projects, like child labour, integrated nutrition and health, land rights and management, empowerment of women members of PRI, child development etc, besides the SFI project in agriculture. For managing projects of such diverse nature, the NGO depended on the concerned project teams recruited for the purpose. Thus, in managing the agriculture development project the dependence on the project team was almost total. (iv) Concentration of Efforts The project was carrying out its extension efforts in 53 villages, coming under four Blocks of Kalahandi district. Year wise coverage of villages across the four blocks, namely, Junagarh, Dharamgarh, Kalampur and Jayapatna in various distance ranges is shown in table 16. 46

Table 16: Block-wise coverage of Project villages under Kalahandi centre Blocks Year Villages covered according to distance ranges Up to 11-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-62 10 km km km km km km 15 3 1 6 3 1 2 5 5 4 2 1 1 4 18 15 8 6 2 4

Junagarh

2006-07 2007-08 Dharamgarh 2006-07 2007-08 Kalampur 2007-08 Jayapatna 2007-08 TOTAL

Table 16 shows that out of the 53 villages 12 villages, brought into the fold of the project during 2007-08 were in the distance range of 31-62 km from the project headquarter. Further scrutiny revealed that only 13 farmers were covered in these 12 villages. Moreover, these 12 villages were distributed across three of the four blocks. Thus, it appeared that the project had taken a strategy of spreading activities too thinly across large area rather than concentrating its efforts for maximum visibility as well as facilitating regular M&E. Such horizontal expansion in project coverage had taken place only in the second year (2007-08) and ironically, the centre had the lowest number of extension personnel among all the four projects. During the reporting period, it was functioning with one Extension Coordinator and one Field Organizer. This gives rise to the question of rationalizing the coverage of villages permitting ease in management and creating more of vertical rather than horizontal spread of the program of activities. (v) Clientele base The total number of farmers reached in 53 villages spread across 4 blocks during 2006-08 was 68, while the number of field organizer was only one during the period under reference. The centre was contemplating to reach 288 farmers during 2008-09. The center had recruited one more field organizer with effect from April 2008. However, the newly joined field organizer was merely a fresher with no previous experience of working in an agricultural project. Even if it is assumed that both the field organizers would share the load of work equally among them, the number of farmers to be reached by each field organizer stood at whopping 144, who were spread over a distance range of 62 km, leaving a serious question on pragmatism in deciding on the coverage in terms of both number of villages as well as clientele. (vi) Capacity building interventions Capacity building interventions were organized by the Kalahandi centre, like other centres mainly through training and extension methods. The details of these two categories of interventions are being presented in the following paragraphs. Training Training was the major capacity building intervention for the KARRTABYA centre. In all 12 programs were conducted during the two years period of the project (2006-08). About 390 farmers from different villages attended the training programs. The 47

Table 17: Training Programs Conducted at Kalahandi Center Year 2006-07 2006-07 2006-07 2006-07 2006-07 2006-07 2006-07 2007-08 2007-08 2007-08 2007-08 2007-08 Title of training program Focus Paddy Paddy Vegetable Paddy & Vegetable Do Vegetable Manures & Fertilizers Paddy Paddy Paddy & Vegetable Vegetable Vegetable No. of farmers attending 35 16 11 15 17 18 61 58 20 17 60 62 390

SRI Method of Paddy Cultivation Do Kharif vegetable cultivation Pests & Disease control in paddy & vegetable SRI method of paddy & Rabi vegetable cultivation Characteristics of different varieties of vegetable Organic Manure SRI method of paddy cultivation Hybrid paddy cultivation Pest Management in paddy & vegetable Kharif vegetable cultivation Rabi vegetable cultivation TOTAL

Details of these training programs conducted at the KARRTABYA centre are presented in table 17. Most of the training programs were conducted covering topics related to paddy and vegetable. While 4 training programs were conducted exclusively on paddy, three were conducted on vegetable and four programs dealt with paddy and vegetable together. All these training were conducted for one days duration only. However, wisdom behind fixing training for one days duration, irrespective of load of information, was questionable. For example, conducting a training program on SR I method of paddy and rabi vegetable cultivation in one day, definitely raises question on feasibility of such duration, keeping in view the possible load of information. More over, the logic behind combining such apparently unconnected subjects was also not very clear. However, in the post-training follow-up it was reported that about 56 percent of the attending farmers did accept some ideas or other, recommended in course of the programs. All the training programs were conducted in the KARRTABYA HQ, built up on a total area of 0.38 acre. Here too, the lack of having its own farmland prevented the Project partner from supplementing the lecture-cum-discussions with field-level demonstrations, i.e., to show to farmers how the various recommended techniques are practised or what results are expected from the use of these. Training programs were being conducted in the unfinished hall, located in the project HQ. The hall, including kitchen as well as the toilet facilities required lot of improvement for conducting trainings more effectively. Extension methods In the process of capacity building of the farmers on technological options thrown out by the research system, extension methods act as tools for the extension workers to bring about desired changes at the level of the clients knowledge, skill and attitude. A host of such extension methods can be utilized in this process. The Kalahandi centre also applied many of them. 48

Demonstrations on SRI and hybrid paddy were conducted in 52 and 50 farmers fields respectively. Farmers field trials on vegetable crops were set up in the fields of 70 farmers. Besides, 398 packets of vegetable seeds were distributed among 129 farmers for popularizing their utilization. 8 farmers were taken on exposure visits to Chandrapur project and 16 others were taken on similar visit within the state. Demonstrations were conducted with similar set of shortcomings as found in case of Chandrapur project. Ironically, involvement of number of farmers was the highest (102) among all the four, with least number of extension personnel and highest number of villages, spread over largest size of jurisdiction. Besides, a large number of seed packets were also distributed among the farmers. However, there was no follow-up of their results as well as responses of the farmers. All these facts lead one to conclude that these methods were used as end in themselves, rather than means towards end increasing extent of adoption. (vii) Knowledge and skill levels of extension personnel The credibility of the extension workers before the eyes of his/her clients depend largely on his/her ability to solve their felt problems in respect of their vocations. In this regard, the knowledge and skill of the extension worker in his/her professional field occupies a very important position. The Extension Coordinator in the Kalahandi centre was not only the technical leader for the project activities, but also, as already stated was the only technical person in the whole organization, managing the technically sophisticated agricultural development project of SFI. However, being a diploma holder, he was lacking in respect of adequate professional qualification. In respect of experience, he spent greater part of his professional career in the tea garden of Assam, the technical parameters of which was in considerable variation from that of the agricultural practices being promoted under the project. Inadequacy in respect of required technical knowledge in meeting the information demands of the farmers could be noticed during his interactions with them in course of data collection phase. Solutions related to plant protection problems posed to the coordinator by the farmers on several occasions remained mostly unanswered. Both the coordinator and the field organizer were found wanting in respect of required technical knowledge Support interventions Support interventions, organized in course of implementation of the project at the Kalahandi centre, were primarily part of the demonstrations on recommended technologies conducted in the targeted farmers fields. The support interventions, like, improved paddy seeds (168kg), hybrid paddy seeds (138kg), Kono weeder (27) and marker (7) were meant for facilitating demonstrations on paddy, including those taken up with SRI technique. Besides, 612 packets seeds of 10 gm each of various kinds of vegetables each were also distributed among the farmers. Besides these field-level support interventions in farmers' fields, two poly houses were installed in the KARRTABYA HQ at Chhoriagarh. Seedlings raised in these nurseries were supplied among the farmers as well as others. 49

In the Kalahandi centre, the support interventions were mostly fully funded by SFI. Kono weeders, markers, paddy seeds both improved as well as hybrid were distributed free of cost for the purpose of demonstrations with full funding from SFI Revolving fund was used for purchase of certified paddy seeds from a local company (Amulya Seeds, Charbahal) and distributed at no-profit-no-loss basis, among the farmers. The poly house nursery established in the KARRTABYA HQ was being used to raise vegetable seedlings and distributed among people interested on no-profit-no-loss basis. Among all the four centres implementing the project, it appeared that Kalahandi could manage to distribute highest quantity of various inputs and implements all free of cost. However, there was no follow-up of utilization of these inputs at the users level. Considering the spread of the project area and poor manpower support, such follow-up appeared to be difficult, if not impossible. Hence, it is felt that delimiting the area of operation within the practically approachable distance as well as number of clientele is of supreme importance. It will not only facilitate efficient monitoring of progress of the project towards the objectives contemplated, but also will result into greater visibility of the impact of the changes brought about as a result of the technology transfer endeavour. Institutional interventions The Kalahandi centre had formed farmers groups as a part of institutional intervention. Five such groups were formed consisting of 49 members in five project villages, namely, Kulihari, Budelbandh, Bargaon, Rainguda and Karli. These groups were stated to have been formed around paddy and vegetable farming. However, in course of interaction with one such group in Rainguda, the groups were found to be more on paper, with majority of the members not aware about their membership and no concrete group activity was discernible. As a result, the group lacked cohesion. With regard to the basis of selection of villages for such group formation, lack of rationality was noticed. As stated earlier, in Kalahandi, mainly members of the Mali community (belonging to OBC) were practicing vegetable farming on commercial scale. A farmers group was formed, centering on vegetable farming in Bargaon, with members belonging to this community. However, most of their lands were located on the bank of a canal connected to Hati river and these remained submerged under water until AugustSeptember every year. Planting of vegetable was being done only in October. Thus, the group activities of the farmers could not take off in the absence of appropriate land. It was told that these farmers were contemplating to take some upland on lease from farmers belonging to other communities. This however was bogged down with lots of ifs and buts. So in effect, the group formed in Bargaon remained non-functional. Interestingly, Gadiajore, another Mali dominated project village was found to be practicing commercial vegetable farming in quite big scale. Growing of vegetable was found to be a round the year phenomenon. It used to commence from May-June and continued till February-March. Though rain fed, many of the farmers had their own dug well to meet irrigation requirement for the vegetable crops. These farmers used to purchase huge quantity of vegetable seeds from Bhawanipatna as well as Dharamgarh, which were being marketed by different companies. At least 10 farmers from this village attended training meetings organized under the project. The farmers were reported to be earning anything between thirty thousand (end season) to one lakh (peak season) rupees 50

per acre from such vegetable cultivation as gross income, with the average being sixty thousand rupees. Surprisingly, such a village, ideal for group formation was left out from first choice. However, the Coordinator proposed to form a farmers group in this village during 2008-09. Impact of interventions The results in respect of impact of the above mentioned interventions made by the Kalahandi centre at the farmers fields are being presented in respect of : (i) area brought under recommended technological options; (ii) changes in cropping pattern; (iii) technology adoption; (iv) changes in production / productivity; (v) farm income; (vi) livelihood dimension : employment; (vii) livelihood dimension: food and nutritional security. It is worth mentioning that the analyses in respect of these impact dimensions were made on the basis of secondary information provided by the centers personnel about the achievements made. i) Area brought under recommended technological options In Kalahandi, the project area being located primarily in an irrigated tract, paddy and vegetable farming was pre-existent. However, project became instrumental in introducing recommended practices in the 53 villages. Over the project period (2006-08), technological options could be introduced in 91.5 acres (32%) (kharif & rabi) of 285 acres of paddy grown in the area. Out of this, 15 acres was put under hybrid paddy. Vegetable growing was a pre-existent practice, especially among Mali communities. However, recommended practices could be introduced in growing such vegetable crops. 215.6 acres of vegetables grown in kharif and rabi together could be brought under the purview of improved technological options across the 53 project villages. (ii) Changes in cropping pattern Being located in an area coming under the command of an irrigation project, paddy based farming system was most common with the other crops being black gram, vegetable, green gram, mung, sugarcane etc. In most parts of the irrigated tract, two to three crops of paddy were being taken. A specific community, known as Mali, commonly practiced vegetable farming. In such area, through various kinds of interventions vegetables were incorporated in the predominantly paddy based cropping system, besides introducing technologies for increasing productivity of paddy crop. (iii) Technology adoption Transfer of paddy and vegetable based technologies were the major focus of the project. As most of the project area was covered with canal irrigation, area under paddy, the main crop, was to the tune of 285 acres, out of which paddy based technological options were being practiced in 91.5 acres. Hybrid paddy vis--vis SRI was being practiced in 15 acres of project area. However, none of these technologies was new to the system. Table 18 shows that 120 and 83 farmers from across 53 villages were practicing paddy-based technologies, either exclusively or in combination with vegetable crops during kharif and rabi respectively. The common problems referred by the farmers practicing SRI was availability of skilled labour, undulating as well as low lands, problem of controlling water in the field coming under the command of canal irrigation, Kono weeders being very light were prone to get damaged etc. 51

Vegetable farming was also a pre-existing practice in the project area. Varietal replacement through supply of quality seeds as well as planting materials formed the major project intervention. Out of 288 farmers reached out by the project, 262 and 242 farmers were stated to be practicing vegetable farming during kharif and rabi respectively, thereby bringing 215.6 acres of project area under the purview of vegetable based technological options. Table 18: Distribution of farmers practicing recommended technological options (2006-08) Crop based technologies application Paddy only Vegetable only Paddy & Vegetable combined TOTAL Season-wise number of practicing farmers Kharif 19 (6.76) 161 (57.30) 101 (35.94) 281 (100.00) Rabi 22 (8.33) 181 (68.56) 61 (23.11) 264 (100.00)

Figures in the parenthesis indicate percentage to total number of farmers practicing Interestingly, Table 18 also shows that a great majority of practicing farmers were applying vegetable based technological options (93.24% and 91.67% in kharif and rabi respectively) in their respective situations, which was higher in proportion as compared to farmers growing paddy based ones. In the project area, significant presence of Mali community having a long tradition vegetable growing being associated with its caste, were already involved in vegetable farming on commercial basis. However, it remained a marginal vocation for them as they carried out farming under a number of constraints ranging from lack of irrigation facilities to non-availability of quality seeds, knowledge of advanced agronomic techniques and facilities for marketing. The project may focus on the Mali community as a major target group and strive to bring about a major change in vegetable growing in the area by collectively working with this community. (iv) Changes in production/ productivity In Kalahandi, technological improvements were attempted in both paddy (general as well as hybrid) and all the vegetable crops, which were being cultivated even before the introduction of the project. As a result of the interventions made in the project, there have been improvements in terms of area under improved varieties, production and productivity of most of these crops. Table 19 presents an account of such changes. Although area under high yielding paddy varieties remained much the same, production increased considerably due to technology up-gradation and productivity increase was to the tune of 125 percent from the pre-project status. Area under hybrid paddy varieties, following SRI technique on the other hand, registered an increase by 125% as a result of project interventions and the corresponding productivity increased by 114.85 percent. However, the average yield per acre of hybrid paddy varieties did not show much of improvement over the high yielding varieties. It was only 106 percent more than the current average yield level of high yielding varieties in the project area. On the other hand, the Project interventions on vegetable crops showed much bigger and widespread impact in respect of the area, production as well as productivity. While area under all the major vegetables increased considerably, in absolute term the 52

increase was more pronounced in the cases of brinjal, cabbage, tomato and cauliflower. However, production and productivity increase was highly spectacular in the cases of cabbage, tomato, cauliflower and brinjal as a result of project interventions. Table 19: Changes in area, production and productivity of various crops grown in the Project area (2006-08) Crops Area (in acres) Pre-Project 285 12 Current 285 15 (125%) Production (in qtls.) Pre-Project 3420 168 Current 4275 (125%) 240 (142.86%) Productivity (in qtls. per acre) Pre-Project Current 12.00 15.00 (125%) 14.00 16.00 (114.85%)

Paddy (HYV) Paddy (Hybrid with SRI) Tomato

3840 40.00 80.00 (320%) (200%) Brinjal 15 37 675 2775 45.00 75.00 (246.7%) (411.1%) (166.67%) Chilli 3 12 (400%) 45 216 15.00 18.00 (480%) (120%) Cauliflower 27 40 1620 3400 60.00 85.00 (148.14%) (209.88%) (141.67%) Cabbage 15 35 975 4200 65.00 120.00 (233.33%) (430.80%) (184.61%) Figures in the parenthesis indicate percentage increase from pre-project period to current year (2007-08) Thus, changes in respect of production and productivity of most of the major vegetable crops as a result of the project interventions were so very gratifying, it led more and more number of farmers to join the bandwagon of vegetable farming. This explains the result obtained in respect of overwhelming increase in the number of farmers practicing technologies in vegetable crops, than those growing paddy. (v) Farm Income Table 20 presents the gross income received by the farmers in the project area from various crops in the pre-project as well as current year (2007-08) as a result of the interventions. The gross income levels of the practicing farmers have been presented in terms of the average as well as the maximum of the project area. The maximum income denotes the highest potential achieved by any single farmer in the project area. In Kalahandi centre, the farmers grew paddy both high yielding as well as hybrid varieties. In the case of hybrid rice, only SRI was followed as the standard cultivation technique. From the pre-project period average gross income of Rs. 7,000.00 per acre in paddy grown without SRI, as a result of project interventions, it grew to Rs. 8,064.00 (115.2% increase). However, maximum income obtained from the same crop during the pre-project and current year was Rs. 8,640.00 and Rs. 10,080.00 respectively. On the other hand, hybrid paddy with SRI yielded an average income of Rs. 16,128.00 per acre, which was 127.27% higher than the hybrids grown without SRI. The maximum gross income per acre received from paddy fields by way of practicing SRI was however, Rs.20,160.00, which was 200 percent higher than the maximum income received from 53

30

48 (160%)

1200

paddy grown without application of SRI. This had clearly established the superiority of the technology. Table 20: Income from various crops in the Project area Crops Average Rice (without SRI) Rice (with SRI) Tomato Brinjal Chilli Cauliflower Cabbage 7,000.00 12,672.00 25,600.00 25,200.00 26,400.00 48,000.00 36,400.00 Income per acre (in Rs.) Pre-Project Maximum 8,640.00 15,840.00 32,000.00 31,500.00 33,000.00 60,000.00 45,500.00 Current Average 8,064.00 16,128.00 51,200.00 42,000.00 31,680.00 68,000.00 67,200.00 Maximum 10,080.00 20,160.00 64,000.00 52,500.00 39,600.00 85,000.00 84,000.00

Table 20 also presents the average as well as maximum gross income received from vegetable crops by the targeted farmers in the project area in the pre-project period and the current year (2007-08) after the interventions were made. In case of vegetable crops, tomato, brinjal, chilli, cauliflower and cabbage yielded gross average income of Rs. 51,200, 42,000, 31,680, 68,000 and 67,200 per acre which were 200.00, 166.67, 120.00, 141.67and 184.61 percent respectively higher than the income received by the farmers before the project interventions were made. Thus, the very high income potentials of vegetable crops had attracted the farmers in the project area towards accepting technologies, which were mostly restricted to supply of high yielding/hybrid seeds of good quality. Such responses indicated the need for supplementing the interventions more intensively with more of extension led interventions. In course of interactions with the farmers during the data collection phase in the project area, it was apparent that one of the most sought after extension interventions could be capacity building of the farmers in solving their plant protection related problems in the vegetable crops. More of training, demonstrations and advisory supports covering production as well as plant protection techniques involved in the vegetable farming would be required to contribute to the knowledge and skills of the targeted farmers. (vi) Livelihood dimension: Employment As the farmers in the project area were growing most of the crops, there was not much change in the extent of land utilization and hence impact on employment pattern was also not discernible. However, the spectacular increase in production and resultant income from vegetable crops experienced through project interventions had opened a new vista in respect of cropping pattern. Vegetable farming being more labour intensive, it was likely to create more employment for the agricultural labours in the area. (vii) Livelihood dimension: Food and nutritional security Rice and vegetables were cultivated by the farmers under Kalahandi centre even before the initiation of project activities. Along with increase in area and production of 54

crops coming under already existing cropping system, there was hardly any change in the dietary composition. Spread effects The Kalahandi centre spread its tentacles on various types of interventions too fast, over a large number of villages as well as target clientele. Instead of spreading the network so thinly across dispersed locations, it would have been better to identify clusters with closely-knit network of villages from blocks, preferably adjacent to the headquarter of the project. This would have ensured concentration of extension efforts, thereby making the impact visible to others general farmers, development and support agencies etc. As a result, the spread of relevant technological options would have been much faster as the increased visibility of their impact on productivity vis--vis livelihood security and economic development of the project villages would create a ripple effect and motivate others in the adjacent villages. However, the secondary information obtained at the project level had shown that there was considerable spread of the technologies, resulting into creation of desirable impact in terms of area brought under technological recommendation, changes in cropping pattern and technology adoption etc among increasing number of target clientele. Initiating the project activities among 68 farmers, spread over 19 villages in 2006-07, the coverage of Kalahandi centre came to 288 farmers from 53 villages in 200708. However, such increase in the number of target clientele was not found to send the ripple effect among the rest of the farming population, at least in the project villages, visited in course of the data collection phase. Strengths and weaknesses The Kalahandi centre had some strengths as well as weaknesses which were identified for deciding on the salient action points for increasing the effectiveness of the program of activities. The following were a few major strengths and weaknesses. Strengths One of the greatest strength of the Kalahandi centre was the access to irrigation a very important infrastructure support in its operational area, needed for absorption of the technological options identified by the project as vehicle for increasing agricultural productivity vis--vis income potential for the farming population. The primarily agricultural background of the operational area, with farmers already growing relevant crops, provided an existing base, thereby making it easier for the implementing agency to introduce the identified technological options. Weaknesses Excessively large area of operation chosen by the implementing agency, not keeping in conformity with manpower resources available at its disposal to carry out the contemplated program of activities aiming at reaching out the target clientele. Project personnel ill equipped with technical expertise to match the required capacity to transfer various technological options among the target clientele. Due to very large area of operation, characterized by dispersed location of the selected villages, with many of them being far apart from each other, follow-up and 55

monitoring of the progress in terms of the programs of activities could not be taken up by the project personnel to the required extent. A few action points The results presented in respect of various dimensions of interventions and their analyses as well as the strengths and weaknesses identified about the center vis--vis the project, did indicate a few relevant action points which the project authority need to take into account for increasing the program effectiveness towards achievement of the goals. Following paragraphs present some of the more important action points identified. The Kalahandi centre needed to be strengthened with placement of a technically qualified person, capable of interacting with the members of the farming community in respect of solutions to their production system related problems. He/she should also play important role in monitoring and follow-up of the results of development interventions and be equipped with decision making ability regarding adoption of corrective measures. Control needed to be exercised on the part of project authority on delimitation of the operational area as well as the spread of the clientele base, depending upon availability of required number as well as capacity of the extension personnel, put in charge of program implementation. Organization of intensive capacity building training for the project personnel on various operational parameters of technological options identified as well as proper use of extension methodologies to be used for facilitating their absorption at respective farming system levels of the targeted farmers.

Agricultural Development Project, Bankura, West Bengal

Project background Shamayita Math a religious and spiritual non-government organization had been actively associated with agriculture and rural development programs in the tribal dominated backward Gangajalghati Block of Bankura district of West Bengal. The organizations tryst with agriculture and rural development activities started way back in 2002, by way of taking up a CAPART (Council for Advancement of Peoples Action for Rural Technology) funded project on sustainable agriculture, aiming at facilitating increased productivity and income potential of the agriculture based rural population in this other wise rain fed block, through transfer of agro-based technologies, rain water harvesting, digging of wells and capacity building efforts, like training etc. While this was the beginning, the organization, in course of time had taken up several other agriculture based projects in the arena of soil and seed testing, seed production and preservation, nursery management, nutritional gardening etc before embarking upon the agriculture development project of Syngenta Foundation India. The organizations previous background of implementation of the CAPART funded project as well as its experience of handling other agro based projects, in most of which technology transfer among the rural populace happened to be the main focus, led SFI to identify Shamayita Math as the partner organization in implementing the project activities for Bankura centre. Having initiated the activities in 2006-07 in selected villages of Gangajalghati block, the centre attempted towards increasing agricultural productivity by way of 56

transfer of appropriate technological options among the resource poor farmers and thereby create regular source of income at village level. Towards fulfillment of such goals, the Bankura centre made a series of individual as well as group level interventions in selected villages. Each of these interventions was analyzed, the results of which are presented below. Technology-led interventions The centre identified a number of technological options for transferring them among the intended clientele through organization of a series of extension and support interventions. These technology led interventions were evaluated by way of firstly, preparing an inventory of the individual technological options and secondly, analyzing their relevance to the farming system characteristics. The results of such analyses are presented below. (i) Technology inventory A series of technological options was identified by the center within the framework of the project activities. In this section, attempt had been made to prepare an inventory of more important of these options. Table 21 presents an account of the major technological options identified by the centre for facilitating their transfer among the target clientele through supporting with other kinds of interventions. Table 21 below presents mainly four categories of technological options chosen by the center for their popularization by way of integrating them with extension and support interventions. The first category of technologies was mainly rice based, consisting of (i) hybrid/HYV paddy cultivation and (ii) paddy cultivation with application of SRI technique. The second group was mainly vegetable based and included (i) techniques of hybrid vegetable cultivation (kharif and rabi), (ii) vegetable farming in vested land, (iii) induced ripening technique (tomato ripening with ethylene) and kitchen gardening. The third group consisted of technologies having supporting role for the first two categories, like, (i) low-cost nursery raising technique, (ii) seed treatment technique and (iii) crop protection technique. The last and fourth category was a mixed bag of technologies, not having any direct bearing on any of the earlier three categories. This category consisted of (i) land shaping (5%) and (ii) animal husbandry (goat/duck rearing). Table 21: Major Options Chosen for Technology Intervention in Bankura Centre Sl. No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Technological Options Hybrid/HYV paddy cultivation Paddy cultivation through Systematic Rice Improvement Technique (SRI) Techniques of hybrid vegetable cultivation (Kharif and Rabi) Land shaping (5%) Vegetable farming in vested land Low cost Nursery raising technique Induced ripening techniques (Tomato ripening with ethylene) Seed treatment techniques Crop protection techniques Kitchen gardening Animal husbandry (goat/duck rearing) 57

(ii) Technology relevance: Rice-based farming system Paddy, the major crop cultivated during kharif was being grown under rainfed condition. Very few farmers having access to irrigation (ponds & rivulets) went for summer paddy. Thus, rice-based technologies like hybrid/ HY varieties and SRI were highly relevant for the farmers of the area. Majority being small holders, the crop met mainly their subsistence requirements, while few of the big farmers sold the surplus in the market. Definite impact was created by the project through introduction of HY varieties like GS 1, 2 and 3 among the farmers by way of replacing the ruling varieties. Hybrid paddy varieties, though also introduced, could not create such wide spread influence so far. The reason behind the popularity of GS 1 in particular was its relatively early maturing characteristics, thereby permitting practicing farmers to grow wheat potato and vegetables. SRI as a technique was found by the practicing farmers to be effective in terms of increased productivity, less cost intensive than the paddy grown under conventional method of cultivation. However, general farmers were yet to take it up for replacing the conventional method of paddy cultivation. Even the practicing farmers kept its use restricted to small fragments of their holdings. In order to popularize the technique among the farmers there was need for more intensive extension effort. (iii) Technology Relevance: Vegetable Based Farming System Although located in the midst of paddy based faming system, vegetable formed an important component in the cropping sequence of the villagers (other than tribals). The projects intervention of supply of quality seeds and seedlings of various vegetable crops, encouraged these farmers to resort to commercial vegetable farming. Intervention like tank re-excavation also had motivated farmers in resorting to vegetable farming. Short duration paddy varieties, like GS I was in great demand for accommodating potato, vegetable & wheat in their cropping sequence. With a number of growth centres like Raniganj, Durgapur, Asansol etc., located within 40-45 km from the project area, profitability of commercial vegetable farming was well established and farmers were more and more getting encouraged. In the tribal villages, attempts of incorporating vegetable farming through SHGs / groups of women in degraded vested lands created enthusiasm among the members. The enthusiasm thus generated, also motivated them to go for taking up other types of productive income earning options. Such an instance was evidenced with the Belbuni Lahanti Mahila Swayambhar Gosthi (womens SHG in Belbuni tribal village) taking up of the private tank on auction in addition to their initial endeavour of vegetable farming on vested land. The third category of technologies, like, seed treatment, nursery raising as well as crop protection techniques was relevant because of their supporting role to either rice or vegetable farmers or both. The fourth category, even though was not directly related to either of the three groups, consisted of facilitating other income earning option, like that of land shaping or in itself an income generating endeavour, like animal husbandry with goat or duck rearing. 58

Thus, the Bankura centre was found to have identified most varied types of technological options, keeping in view the requirements of its clientele system and organized other categories of interventions around them. Extension management strategy Out of the two categories of interventions, extension led interventions were guided by the extension management strategy, consisting of issues like (i) extension approach, (ii) organizational arrangements, (iii) capacity building efforts, (iv) capacity of the change agents to reach out effectively among the clientele groups etc. Each of these dimensions was studied to understand the effectiveness of the extension interventions made by the center. The results thus obtained are presented in the following paragraphs. (i) Extension approach Keeping in view the characteristics of the two distinctly different client groups non-tribals and tribals, the Bankura centre adopted the approach of selecting individual as well as group based extension interventions. While more of individual based interventions were identified for the non-tribals, the tribal villages were approached with a number of group based interventions besides the individual ones. The extension approach in the non-tribal villages revolved around paddy based farming system in a basically rainfed tract through motivating farmers to replace their traditionally used rice varieties with short duration ones and also change their planting materials. The short duration varieties (Gotra Selection series) could fulfill farmers need for incorporation of vegetable crops as well as wheat in the cropping sequence. In order to meet the farmers requirement for such cropping sequence, interventions like re-excavation of existing tanks, production of seeds of desired paddy varieties (in the NGO owned farm as well as farmers fields), supply of vegetable seeds and seedlings etc were used as enablers. However, for reaching out clients in the tribal dominated villages, along with individual oriented interventions, more of group interventions like group (SHG) based vegetable farming in degraded vested land and community grain banks were introduced, keeping the tribal culture in view. (ii) Extension organization The implementation of the project related activities in the centre was vested with an organizational set-up, specifically created with the project funding received by the partner organization. The organizational set-up consisted of one project leader, termed as Extension Coordinator, who was being assisted by a part time Coordinator, two Field Assistants and one Agricultural Supervisor (managing the agricultural farm attached to the NGO HQ). The Agricultural Supervisor was being drafted also as Field Assistant from 2008. Together, they managed 41 villages, all coming under one Block. However, from the current year (2008-09), the area of operation was being planned for reorganization into four clusters with altogether 21 villages. The project leader is an M.Sc. (Ag), Ph.D. in Agricultural Botany. The part time consultant is M.Sc. (Ag) in Agronomy. One of the two Field Assistants was Madhyamik (SSC) with training in Agriculture. The other Field Assistant was a graduate (pursuing MSW) with two years training in computer applications. The Agricultural Supervisor on the other hand was Higher Secondary in the vocational stream of Agriculture. 59

The Extension Coordinator, before joining the project had worked in seed technology based research projects at University as well as with one reputed NGO involved in rural development. The part time coordinator on the other hand, in his earlier tenure worked with an internationally known NGO in its rural development project. Thus, the organizational set-up consisted of two very well qualified and experienced extension coordinators, one of them being a part time staff. Both these coordinators were experienced of working with reputed NGOs, well known for their developmental activities in rural areas. (iii) Partner organization Shamayita Math a spiritual organization with faith in mother cult was established for utilization of enormous creative energy of womanhood towards serving people as a whole. With their focus on education both formal and vocational, the organization also embarked upon various other areas of rural development like womens empowerment, non-conventional energy, self-help groups, tribal development etc. Agriculture development was also one of their areas of concern with funding received from various central agencies. They partnered with the SFI in respect of the agriculture project. By virtue of their activities, involving social services, like running of a diagnostic center, a school for girls and a vocational training center, Shamayita Math was well known in the nearby villages. Its agricultural activities being quite old, especially the soil testing laboratory and seed production program, the NGO was also known as a service provider. Thus, the agricultural development project taken up in partnership with SFI gelled well with its background. (iv) Concentration of efforts The project is working in 43 villages of a single Block, namely, Gangajalghati. However, as they felt the need for concentrating on fewer number of villages more intensively, from 2008-09 cluster approach was going to be followed. Accordingly, based on the tribal-non-tribal as well as location specific factors, altogether four clusters had been identified, with the total number of villages being reduced to 21. Two of these clusters were primarily non-tribal, whereas rest two was clusters of tribal villages. All these villages are located at distances ranging from 4 - 15 km. from the Project HQ. (v) Clientele base Total number of farmers being reached in 43 villages till 2007-08, located within one block was 126 and 5 SHGs (group activity) with total number of members being 92. The number of farmers reached by one field assistant thus stood at approximately 63 and 2-3 SHGs. (vi) Capacity building interventions Towards enabling farmers targeted by the project activities of the centre to absorb various technological options, their capacity building is important. Developing adequate knowledge and skills as well as a favourable attitude, covering the essential features of the technologies concerned, is one of the necessary conditions for capacity building. Such capacity building of farmers was attempted by the centre primarily through training and application of extension methods like demonstrations etc with their participation. The mechanisms adopted for organization of these capacity building interventions were analyzed for the purpose of evaluation, the results of which are presented below. 60

Training

Like all other projects, trainings were conducted as the major capacity building intervention. Table 22 provided the details regarding the topics of each of these trainings and also the number of farmers attending each of them. In all, 11 trainings and 3 awareness building meetings were conducted. The topics of these training programs revolved around paddy, vegetable, general agriculture and goat rearing. The awareness meetings were conducted on sustainable agriculture. 436 farmers attended these training programs as well as the awareness development programs. All these training programs were conducted in the campus of Shamayita Math. Besides lecture-cum-discussion, demonstrations conducted on some of the practices as well as crops were also used as training methods for driving home the messages pertaining to the topic of the concerned training. These demonstrations conducted in the farm located in the campus were utilized during the training programs. Like all other centers, duration of each of these training programs was one day, irrespective of load of information. It is understandable that with the limitation of conducting residential training programs, the duration was kept at one day, so that trainee farmers would disperse after the program. In such case, the topics should have been preferably made much more specific to make the contents commensurate with the duration. Table 22: Training programs conducted at Bankura centre Year Title of Training Program Focus No. of Farmers Attending 55 31 36 20 52 16 26 8 24 52 16 33 45 22 436

2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2007 2007 2007 2007 2007 2007 2007 2007 2007

Improvement of paddy cultivation in kharif season Awareness meeting for sustainable agriculture Crop cultivation in kharif season Awareness meeting on sustainable agriculture Pest & disease control of kharif paddy Awareness meeting on sustainable agriculture Kharif crop cultivation Workshop on goat rearing Kharif crop cultivation Kharif vegetable cultivation Use of quality potato seeds in potato cultivation Goatery development Techniques of potato cultivation Pest & disease control in winter vegetable TOTAL

Paddy Sustainable Agriculture General Agriculture Sustainable Agriculture Paddy Sustainable Agriculture General Agriculture Goat Rearing General Agriculture Vegetable Vegetable Goat Rearing Vegetable Vegetable

61

There was a training hall in the building earmarked for agricultural activities in the campus of Shamayita Math. However, the hall was being utilized for storage of farm products and other inputs. It was told that during training programs such commodities would be shifted, allowing room for the trainees to sit. Kitchen and dining hall facilities of the math were being made available during the training programs. Extension methods Different types of extension methods were used to motivate the targeted farmers towards accepting the technological options in their respective farming situation. These extension methods were mostly demonstration based. Demonstrations were conducted on SRI, hybrid and short duration rice varieties as well as hybrid vegetables. In all 46 farmers were involved. Method demonstrations were conducted on techniques of induced ripening of tomato, seed treatment, use of nitrogenfixing bacterial culture, use of Trichoderma viridae, etc, to more than seventy farmers. Besides, seeds and seedlings of vegetable and fruits species were also distributed. Clinical advice was extended to 430 farmers & exposure visit was arranged for 120 farmers. As found in all other three centres, similar set of shortcomings did come in the way while conducting the demonstrations. However, more of interpersonal communication was used while conducting these demonstrations in the Bankura centre. Method demonstration meetings were conducted on skill-oriented topics with relatively lesser number of farmers participating in each, allowing interpersonal interaction between them on one hand and the trainer on the other. Clinical advice was extended in respect of plant protection as well as soil & seed testing services to the farmers. Plant protection related advice constituted the mostly sought after support of the farmers not only in all the projects, but also from the extension agencies in general. Soil testing also formed another highly relevant extension support. In this respect, the projects interventions did definitely depart from the rest. (vii)Knowledge and Skill Level of Extension Personnel Both the coordinators of the project one full time and the other part time, were sufficiently qualified to handle the technical components involved in the project. Their experience level also was befitting to the challenges at the field level. Especially the tenure served in two eminent NGOs by both the coordinators significant portion of their professional career, most likely had contributed to building up of their human relations as well as communication skills. Extent of personal rapport built up with the clientele groups appeared to be rather strong, reflected by both the coordinators knowing many of them by name. Moreover, both the field assistants unlike other projects, hailed from the same area, thereby having intimate personal knowledge of the locale. All these might have become instrumental in launching a good number of need based extension interventions as stated earlier. Support interventions Support interventions were meant for facilitating adoption of various technological options brought under the purview of the project. These interventions were made at both individual and community or group level. However, some of these interventions were meant for individuals as well as groups of target farmers. 62

Support interventions at individual level Supply of seeds of HYV and hybrid rice, Kono weeders and markers for demonstration of advanced agronomic techniques, including SRI, among target farmers. Dug wells were also meant for increasing cropping intensity of targeted farmers at individual level. However, it had already been withdrawn as an intervention by the centre. Land shaping was another individual level intervention to augment irrigation potential and also productivity per unit area of land Distribution of ducklings was done at individual level. Re-excavation of ponds was taken up to augment water harvesting potential of the existing structures for increasing cropping intensity in the lands of farmers coming under their command and introduce recommended varieties/practices thereby. Grain bank was another support intervention in the tribal villages at community level to facilitate poor villagers to tide over food crisis during lean period of the year. Support interventions like production of seeds and seedlings of a number of field, vegetable and fruit crops were meant for their distribution among groups as well as individuals. Seeds of paddy (127qtls), mustard (30qtls), wheat (0.85qtl), mung bean (1.25qtls), soybean (0.59qtl) and potato TPS (1.05qtls) were produced out of foundation seeds procured from various sources.

Support interventions at community level

Support interventions at both individual as well as community level

At Shamayita math, the support interventions were made under varied mode noprofit-no-loss, free & cost sharing basis. Seeds of field crops as well as vegetable seedlings and fruit saplings raised in the Shamayita farm were distributed among farmers on no-profit-no-loss-basis. Distribution of grain banks, ducklings, providing Kono weeders, markers etc and digging of dug wells were the interventions, fully funded by the SFI. Re-excavation of existing tanks and land shaping related interventions were taken up on cost sharing (50:50) basis between the concerned farmers at the community as well as individual level. Institutional interventions Institution building among the target clientele was another category of intervention made by the Bankura centre, especially in the tribal villages, in conformity with their culture Self-help groups already formed with the help of Shamayita Math, mostly in the tribal villages with memberships drawn from the women. In all, five such groups formed with 92 women are running in five villages. As the SFI project got into the act, interventions like, grain banks and vegetable farming on vested lands were also incorporated. The grain banks as well as vegetable farms, set up at the behest of the centre were being subsequently managed by the women themselves. The instance of one of these SHGs Belbuni Lahanti Mahila Swayambhar Gosthi, taking up a private tank on lease and releasing fingerlings, in addition to the vegetable farming on vested land showed the 63

extent of enthusiasm generated among these tribal women as a result of the institutional intervention made by the centre. The managerial efficiency of the otherwise illiterate or neo-literate tribal women was also in display in one of the remaining SHGs functioning around one community grain bank set up by the center, in addition to goat rearing as the income generating activity, taken up by the group. Sidara Adivasi Mahila Dal marches ahead Sidara, under the Gangajalghati Block, inhabited by 55 families was a typical tribal village, inflicted by poverty and malnutrition. Most of the inhabitants were eking out their livelihood by way of working as labours in the agricultural fields of the farmers belonging to neighbouring as well as distant villages. However, after the paddy transplanting season was over, such jobs also became scarce, especially during the months of August September. Although centrally sponsored scheme like NREGA promised 100 days of work on demand to any job seeker, for these hapless tribals such assurances remained merely on paper. These tribals during the lean months, either had to migrate or thrive on their collections consisting of roots, tubers, fruits etc from the forest. The ordeal used to be more in drought years. In order to help the womenfolk of this village with some income earning option, the Sidara Adivasi Mahila Dal was formed as one of the five self help groups by the Bankura centre in 2006 under the agriculture development project funded by the SFI. Total member strength of the group was 18. Keeping in view the recurrent phenomenon of scarcities, affecting the poorer among them in particular, a 50 quintal storage bin was installed by the center in the village as a community grain bank at the behest of the SFI funded project. To start with, 2 quintals of rice was contributed by the center as base storage. The Sidara Adivasi Mahila Dal was entrusted with the responsibility of management of the grain bank. The group had fixed tenth day of each month for mobilizing contribution of Rs.10 per month from each member towards her savings. For making the grain bank functional, an amount of 1 kg of rice was taken as contribution from each family of the village. At the time of field work, the grain bank had 10 quintals of buffer stock, created in this way. The panchayat decided the modalities of the utilization of the grain stock thus created. Accordingly, during scarcity, each family could draw an amount of 20 kg of rice on loan, to be returned with 5 kg of rice as interest for every six months period. During the reporting period, six families had taken rice from the bank and all of them had returned the grain with interest. The Sidara Adivasi Mahila Dal had accumulated a total saving of Rs.5,700.00, as reported by Ms. Rupali Murmu, the Secretary. The members had taken up goat and pig rearing as their in come earning option by way of taking loan from their own savings, kept in the name of the group in the Bank at Gangajalghati. Rupali and two other members of the SHG attended training on goat rearing held at Shamayita Math. These pigs and goats were being sold to the traders, who used to collect these from their doorstep. The ruling price of these pigs and goats were in the ranges of Rs.80-90 and 110 per kg for the pigs and goats respectively. Thus, the Sidara Adivasi Mahila Dal, consisting of 18 illiterate tribal women were not only managing the community grain bank, but also maintaining their own group and started receiving their own income by way of rearing of goats and pigs, which according to Rupali was quite profitable. However, in all these activities, they used to get full 64

cooperation and assistance from their men folk. For instance, the SHG savings as well as other registers were being maintained by Rupalis husband. Thus, the Sidara village as a whole had rallied behind the Sidara Adivasi Mahila Dal and helping them to march ahead. This was made possible by way of the institutional intervention made by the center, as a part of the project activities. Impact of interventions The impact of the above mentioned interventions made by the Bankura centre on the intended clientele were studied as a part of the evaluation. Like all other projects, the results of such impact analyses are being presented under the following sections : (i) area brought under recommended technological options; (ii) changes in cropping pattern; (iii) technology adoption; (iv) changes in production / productivity; (v) farm income; (vi) livelihood dimension : employment; (vii) livelihood dimension: food and nutritional security. (i) Area brought under recommended technological options In Bankura centre, the project area being rainfed, during kharif season, farmers resorted to growing only paddy. During rabi, vegetables were being grown, besides some amount of mustard and wheat. The project interventions could rope in farmers to apply recommended technologies in 57.64 acres of their paddy crop grown during kharif season. However, the recommended technological options varied from simple technology like seed treatment to the entire set of package of practices. From table 23, it was evident that a major chunk of area (73.39%) under paddy based technologies was revolving around the crop grown with certified HYV seeds. Relatively more sophisticated and state of the art technologies like cultivation of hybrid paddy varieties was only to the tune of 6.8% of the total area under paddy based technological options propagated by the centre. Area under high yielding paddy cultivated with SRI technology was the lowest (1.42%), showing that in spite of its superiority in many regard, the technology was yet to be picked up, probably due to its various problems of relevance to the characteristics of the farming systems as already described in many places of this report. Table 23 : Area, production, productivity and income from various crops grown by farmers in Bankura centre (2007-08) Sl. No. Crops Area (in acres) Production (in qtls.) Productivity (in qtls/acre) Av. Income (in 000 Rs./Acre)

1. Paddy 1.1 HYV Certified seeds 42.3 713.86 (16.87) 1.2. Shamayita Math (TL) 10.6 165.12 (15.48) 1.3. Hybrid 3.92 80.49 (20.55) 1.4 HYV with SRI 0.82 16.44 (20.13) 2.. Potato 6.3 712.5 (112.5) 3. Tomato 5 915 (183.00) 4. Cabbage 3.6 605 (165.00) 5. Cauliflower 3.5 425.25 (121.5) 6. Okra 1.73 821.58 (474.9) 7. Chilli 1.13 29.28 (25.84) Figures in parenthesis indicate productivity in qtls. per acre 65

NA NA NA 14.34 30.60 60.02 24.00 100.40 15.03 18.90

Interestingly, while these were the performances of the more sophisticated technologies, area under TL seeds produced at the farm of Shamayita Math was much higher in demand as evidenced by 18.39% of the area under paddy based technologies being covered under these. On scrutiny, it was found that the most popular among these were Gotra selection series of TL seeds, among which GS 1 had been the most sought after, because of its early maturing characteristics. This had already been discussed in greater detail elsewhere in this report. Vegetable along with mustard and wheat were being grown during rabi in 15% of the targeted lands even before project initiation. They were growing local varieties with traditional technologies. The project could introduce recommended technologies in various types of vegetable crops, including potato, covering an area of 21.26 acres of the land of 101 farmers and five groups of tribal farmers, of17 of the 21 project villages. Table 23 had shown that within the 21.26 acres of vegetable crops grown with recommended technologies, potato, tomato, cabbage and cauliflower occupied 29.63, 23.51, 16.93 and 16.46 percent area respectively. Among the technological options propagated in the project area, the single most important was supply of seeds and planting materials of hybrid as well as improved vegetable crops. The vegetable production scenario got altogether changed as a result of such intervention and made it a commercial rather than subsistence oriented venture. (ii) Changes in cropping pattern As the Bankura centre was located in a rainfed tract, attempts were made to increase the cropping intensity through incorporation of additional crops with the help of residual moisture or making use of the surplus water from the existing water bodies. Towards this end, besides increasing paddy yield, shorter duration suitable paddy varieties were introduced, so that the farmers may take another crop, like wheat, mustard, potato or other vegetables with the additional time gained. Thus, there were changes in the cropping pattern as a result of the interventions made by the center. In order to increase productivity per unit area of land, inland fisheries as a technological option was introduced in the water bodies. In this way, the land shaping plots also were being introduced with fishery and duckery for the water bodies and vegetable as well as fruits on the bunds. (iii) Technology adoption The operational area of the centre being totally rainfed, paddy was being cultivated only during kharif season, whereas vegetable farming was resorted to in the rabi. Paddy related technological options mainly revolved around varietal replacement (hybrid and shorter duration varieties) and production technology including SRI. As stated earlier such paddy based technological options were applied in 57.64 acres of land area in the project villages (cluster as well as outside cluster), involving 126 individual and 5 groups (92) of farmers. However, farmers response in the project villages was found to be predominantly in favour of continuing with their present mode of cultivation of paddy with introduction of technologies in some of the practices, like seed treatment, fertilizer application and plant protection measures etc. Replacement of presently used varieties with shorter duration high yielding varieties (GS group), also was sought by the farmers to enable them to accommodate one more crop vegetable, mustard, potato etc with the help of residual moisture or available water in the existing water bodies. Hybrids and SRI were also being taken up by them, but at a limited scale, as shown earlier. 66

Vegetable farming was becoming more and more popular among the farming community, especially in the project villages. The centre towards its mission of facilitating farmers adoption of commercial vegetable farming could bring in 21.26 acres of land in various project villages, involving 101 individual and 5 groups (92) to take up vegetable cultivation. While farmers at individual level were primarily concentrating on utilization of good quality seeds and planting materials, supplied by the center, major chunk of enquiries were related to plant protection. However, while 29 percent of the 14 training programs conducted during 2006-08 addressed directly issues related to vegetable farming (including potato). Leaving potato, training programs conducted on topics related to purely vegetable cultivation (kharif and rabi) was only 14 percent of the total. Women in 5 SHGs in the tribal villages (92) were engaged in vegetable farming on vested land, which was worth exploring. iv) Changes in production/ productivity Table 23 had already presented the status in respect of production and productivity of various crops grown by the targeted farmers with application of recommended technologies. In the Bankura centre, paddy crop was targeted for increased productivity through varietal replacement and also introduction of improved technique like SRI. Three types of paddy seeds were supplied among the farmers for varietal replacement. TL seeds produced in Shamayita Math farm, HYV MTU 7029 and hybrid varieties yielded 15.48, 17.22 and 20.55 qtls/acre respectively, registering 111.69, 124.24 and 148.27 percent increase from the conventional varieties. The MTU 7029 applied with SRI yielded 20.13 qtls / acre, registering an increase of 116.90%. From the table 23, it was also evident that among the major vegetable crops grown by the targeted farmers, tomato, cabbage, cauliflower, okra and chilli yielded 183, 165, 121.5, 474.9 and 25.84 qtls./ acre respectively. As there was not much tradition of commercial vegetable growing in the project area, such achievements were significant. (v) Farm income Table 23 also presented the status of gross income per acre obtained by the practicing farmers from various crops grown by way of application of recommended technologies. In Bankura, income from cultivating HYV with SRI was Rs. 14.34 thousand per acre. This was 260% higher than the income of Rs.5.00 thousand per acre obtained by the farmers growing paddy conventionally without application of SRI. Such result had clearly established the profitability of paddy growing with application of SRI technique. However, increased income, although an important priority for the farmers, may not necessarily be always the most important one. Farmers priorities are decided by various considerations, often in variance from the income consideration. After the project interventions, the average gross income per acre of major vegetable crops like, potato, tomato, cabbage, cauliflower, okra and chilli was 30.60, 60.02, 24.00, 100.40, 15.00 and 18.90 thousand per acre. As none of these vegetable crops was ever grown on a commercial scale by these farmers before introduction of the Project, these income levels could not be compared. (vi) Livelihood dimension: Employment Bankura centre had shown the impact of increased access to water in an otherwise water starved rainfed area in creating enthusiasm among the farmers in increasing cropping intensity, crop diversification and consequent employment generation. Tank re67

excavation work taken up in two villages on cost sharing basis, had brought in additional areas under cultivation during rabi season, thereby enabling many of the farm families to resort to vegetable farming. Areas, hitherto growing only paddy were being put to chilli, providing much needed income during otherwise lean months of August-September. Wheat and mustard were being incorporated in the cropping system in the rabi. In order to be able to grow vegetable, early maturing GS varieties were in great demand among the farmers. Keeping in view the inherent feature of strong community bondage in the tribal villages, employment and income generating activities around agriculture were introduced among groups of women. Self Help Groups were formed and they were organized to take up group vegetable farming on degraded vested lands. In one village, as a fall out of such endeavour, the same group of women had taken a privately owned pond on lease and released fingerlings for practicing fishery. The most redeeming feature of this experience had been the participation and active support extended by the men folk of the families of these tribal women. (vii) Livelihood dimension: Food and nutritional security The project intervention in the form of community grain bank set up in two of the six tribal villages was really an attempt of providing food security to the poor tribals, especially during lean months. The grain banks, managed by the women of the SHGs provided rice (20kg) stored there on loan at the time of scarcity, to be replaced by paying 5kg of rice as interest for every six months, besides the principal amount. The grain bank was considered as very useful by the tribal villagers and it was being used by them and the system was functioning effectively. Impact of nutritional security and its manifestation on the tribal life as a result of the project interventions was most appropriately described by one of the tribal headman. According to him, most of the tribal families principal meal of rice gruel was being supplemented with one or two vegetable items, since the project started its activities. Spread effects The Bankura centre started implementing the agricultural development project in the Gangajalghati block in 2006-07 by taking up activities with the participation of 48 farmers and two SHGs with a total of 36 members spread over 22 villages. These 48 farmers had taken up the technological recommendations in 9 acres (paddy only) and 12.58 acres (mostly vegetables with some mustard) of their land during kharif and rabi respectively. In 2007-08 the number of villages swelled to 43 with 126 farmers and 5 SHGs (92 members). Correspondingly, the area increased to 30.67 and 43.5 acres of land during kharif and rabi respectively. Thus, since the project activities were initiated, there was considerable spread of the program in respect of number of villages, target clientele as well as coverage of area under recommended technologies during kharif and rabi. The spread of area coverage was found to be more during rabi season in comparison to kharif. Thus, the vegetable based technological recommendations were absorbed more by the targeted farmers, which reinforced the results obtained in respect of the same dimension in other centers also. The greater spread of vegetable-based technological options took place entirely during rabi season in an area, basically rainfed and from a base level situation of almost no tradition of commercial vegetable growing among the farming population of the area. Such overwhelming response could be obtained from the farmers in view of project interventions like, supply of good quality seeds and seedlings of vegetable (hybrid and 68

high yielding), re-excavation of tanks, coupled with capacity building exposures, in the form of training and demonstrations etc. In order to facilitate further spread of not only commercial vegetable farming but also crop production in general, all the above mentioned interventions needed to be continued. However, for making available supplementary water resource for the farmers, besides re-excavation of tanks, other means of rain water harvesting and conservation of water resources, like check dams, nullah bunding etc on watershed basis needed to be explored. In this regard, besides SFIs own resources, available schemes of various departments like, agriculture, rural development, soil conservation and minor irrigation etc also needed to be tapped. However, for the tribal population, interventions capable of creation of more of employment opportunities needed to be identified, preferably in harmony with the natural resource base and their cultural context. In this regard, lac (shellac) culture-oriented employment generating option might be of relevance, keeping in view the abundance of the flame-of-forest (Butea monosperma) trees in the region. This tree species, a natural habitat of lac insect (Kerria lacca), could be utilized for providing employment generating option to self help groups formed around lac culture. The technology in this regard might be transferred among the tribal women through training and demonstration. Necessary backward and forward linkages might be established by the center. In this way, the technology based development might be spread further among the tribal villages. Strengths and weaknesses Attempt was made to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the agriculture development project implemented by the Bankura center, so that those could form the basis for deciding on the action points towards bringing about further improvement in implementation of project activities. Strengths The operational area of the Bankura center, though placed in a rainfed zone, was endowed with good annual precipitation rate and a number of water bodies, like, tanks, streams, nallahs and rivulets flowing through the area. These water resources, if harvested properly, could become excellent productive resource for agriculture and other land based activities. The partner organizations previous experience base of working in the related fields with that of the agricultural development project of SFI, made it relatively easier for them to comprehend the project and take up activities in the villages by using their already existing network. Presence of a number of big growth centers surrounding the operational area, like Raniganj, Durgapur and Asansol all industrial towns, connected with good communication facility, provided excellent opportunity of marketing its agricultural produce, especially vegetables and fruits. Weaknesses The centres relative isolation from other development departments in relevant fields did not allow them to integrate their activities with the larger development fields (integration of its water resource development work in the form of tank excavation with schemes like, NWDPRA or watershed development of ministry of rural areas and employment, GOI etc.). 69

 Lack of institutional arrangements for increasing farmers access to the market, in spite of the excellent possibilities thrown open by the number of industrial centres surrounding the operational area of the project. A few action points The foregoing discussion on the results of the evaluation of activities of the centre as well as the strengths and weaknesses identified, led to a few action points for increased effectiveness of the program implementation. Following paragraphs present such action points. Delineation of watershed(s) covering the operational area and identifying the soil and water conservation vis--vis water harvesting measures/ structures needed to be adopted / constructed for facilitating maximum possible in situ moisture and water conservation. Adopting necessary treatment measures (water harvesting structure, check dams, percolation tanks or simple nullah bunding etc.) for making available protective irrigation to the rabi crops when it would be needed. At this stage, it would be necessary for the center to establish linkage with relevant development departments and explore possibilities of convergence of available schemes in this respect. Identification of most appropriate and profitable utilization mechanism of the water resources thus created vis--vis land capability. Identification of cluster level leaders from among the farming community for organizing peoples participation in production related programs of action. Capacity building of the extension personnel as well as cluster level leaders through training programs on technological options and extension methodology for their dissemination among target population. Cluster level group mobilization among the vegetable growers to take care of marketing of their produce by way of establishment of their own information network for price verification in different markets around the cluster. (following the e-Choupal model of ITC or that of pineapple traders of Jalpaiguri)

70

CHAPTER IV CONCLUDING REMARKS & RECOMMENDATIONS Conclusions and recommendations In order to attain the objective of helping small farmers in acquiring entrepreneurial skills in respect of various production technologies, Syngenta Foundation India launched a four centre agricultural development project during the period 2005-08. It started generating valuable learning experiences. These learning experiences were valuable not only from the point of view of adopting mid-course corrective actions in the centres future program implementation strategies, but also to the larger body of knowledge accumulated in the fields of development studies. Attempt was made in the present chapter to spell out the salient features of such learning experiences and derive certain recommendations out of them. However, for centre-specific contextual application, these recommendations are needed to be read in conjunction with the Action Points suggested at the end of presentation of findings for each of the centres. From the point of view of focus of the programs of action adopted in all the four centers, distinctly two different approaches were discernible. Chandrapur centre as the lone exception, adopted a dual strategy of developing the very large farms at the disposal of Maharogi Sewa Samiti (MSS), the partner organization, on scientific lines and organizing at the same time outreach activities of the centre through carrying out village based extension activities. Under the second approach, all the three other centres, in collaboration with their respective partner organizations were engaged in village based outreach activities only. However, with broadly similar technological options, various centres used a series of extension as well as support / institutional interventions for transferring them among their targets farms under MSS and members of farming community. Least area increase under SRI : need for more intensive extension intervention The technological options were mainly paddy or vegetable related and their productivity as well as farm income did register significant increase across the centres due to increasing levels of adoption (indicated through increase in area under technology use), facilitated by the interventions. However, in the case of rice-based technologies, the increase was most pronounced across the centres in case of use of recommended high yielding varieties and associated technology use. Among the other rice-based technologies, the application of System of Rice Intensification (SRI) technique, though recorded the highest productivity increase, registered least increase in terms of area put under it. In spite of the farmers appreciating the technique due to its lower seed rate, lesser water requirement, higher number of tillers as well as higher productivity etc, SRI was adopted only at a small scale even by the small farmers. Bigger scale application of the technology, mostly under conditions of using hired labour, did not find favourable response with the practicing farmers. Major constraints were: (i) during peak season, difficulty in completing transplanting with 10-12 days old seedlings by hired labour (problem of availability); (ii) difficulties in making the hired labour to be extra cautious in uprooting 10-12 days old tender seedlings for transplanting; (iii) under rainfed condition, in case of monsoon playing truant, it became spoilsport in upsetting the very rigid transplanting schedule etc. It is worthwhile to mention here that these factors did not however affect taking up the SRI technique in the context of the farm (Somnath) under MSS. Keeping in view the superiority of the technology, not only in terms of productivity increase, but also its favourable environmental implications, all these 71

perceived problems need to be addressed through much more intensive extension interventions, like trainings, demonstrations integrated with meetings at demonstration plots etc for allaying the concerns emerging out of these experiences. Vegetable farming more readily accepted : need to step up promotion Vegetable based technological options were taken up by most of the targeted farmers during the rabi season. Compared to paddy based technologies, vegetable based technologies were more readily accepted, even though there was no tradition of vegetable growing on commercial scale in most of the centres. The higher rate of adoption of vegetable based technological option was triggered by the demonstration of spectacular production vis--vis income earning potential of vegetable farming through the initial adopters, growing them with quality seeds and seedlings made available by the centres as a part of project intervention. Supply of quality seeds and seedlings was continued throughout the project period under the present evaluation study. The other factor playing a decisive role in influencing more number of farmers in accepting vegetable farming was the provision of irrigation in some form or other. Wherever some water source could be tapped, either as a result of centres intervention or by the farmers own effort, vegetable cultivation were taken up by the farmers. In all the centres, the spread of vegetable-based cropping systems was much faster than the rice-based ones. However, these two options did not have to compete with each other, as by and large these were practiced in two different seasons and type of land. Moreover, the motivation behind practicing these two crop-based technologies by the farmers also was different, with paddy being grown mainly for reasons of subsistence, while vegetable farming was taken up with commercial motive. Hence, in future the centres should step up promoting vegetable farming even more by way of ensuring all relevant backward and forward linkages. Thus, two major groups of technological options became successful in creating dents among the targeted farming population in the village based outreach activities of all the centres in which most of the other options played supportive role. Need for capacity building of extension personnel through tailor made trainings In this whole transfer process, the series of extension management and support interventions did play very important role. Among the extension management led interventions, training programs, covering these two major groups of technological areas, helped in providing the necessary technical inputs. Although there was incongruence in some cases in respect of coverage vis--vis time allotted to such training programs, the ideas disseminated through them, reinforced through appropriate support interventions, probably had triggered the decision-making process in favour of practicing the technologies. Demonstrative impact created by the initial adopters, practicing the technologies within the social system through significantly higher productivity and farm income also had helped in the spread of the ideas. However, in conducting demonstrations in the farmers fields, as claimed by the centres, all of them failed to follow the essential steps, thereby affecting their effectiveness in dissemination of the intended messages. It was found that such omission resulted out of general ignorance on the part of the extension personnel. Coupled with this, in some cases definite dearth of technical knowledge on the part of the extension personnel also affected their effectiveness as change agents. However, face to face interaction between the farmers and the extension personnel played very important role in creating the desired impact in respect of acceptance of any idea and the centers varied among themselves in this regard. All these indicated the need for capacity building of extension personnel through separate

72

tailor made training programs designed with technical and extension and training methodology related inputs. Rain water harvesting need to be taken as compulsory intervention Support interventions of various kinds also played very strong decisive role in influencing the acceptance of the two major groups of technology by the targeted farmers across the centres. They also played equally important role in enabling the farms under MSS (especially Somnath) to absorb the technological options. Among the support interventions, the most significant was the irrigation resource development. While in the MSS farms it was created under professional supervision in the form of farm ponds, deepening of existing water bodies and drip irrigation, in the villages, they were developed with locally available resources and expertise, like re-excavation of existing water bodies, dug wells or storage tanks made up of plastic drums etc. In Kalahandi, it was however mainly provided by the irrigation project. In Jawhar, in addition to making available some of these irrigation sources, pump sets also were provided to the participating farmers for drawing irrigation water from the wells. Access to irrigation sources, coupled with know-how about technological options disseminated through various extension methods and training programs and other inputs created the motivation needed for the farmers to absorb them into their respective situations. Between the two broad categories of technological options, access to irrigation resources was a more critical input for vegetable farming, as this was taken up mostly during the rabi season. Hence, in promoting vegetable faming further, augmenting irrigation water availability was found to be a necessary condition. For this to happen, wherever applicable, rain water harvesting through farm ponds, re-excavation of tanks, check dams etc on watershed basis should be taken up as intervention by the respective centers. Supply of quality seeds and planting materials to continue Besides irrigation, supply of quality seeds and seedlings developed out of such seeds became instrumental in facilitating spread of paddy as well as vegetable based technological options among the farmers in various centers. However, this category of support intervention played more important role in popularization and increased application of vegetable farming, in particular. In case of paddy, supply of seeds of new varieties (Gotra Selection series) had been instrumental in addition to a number of new crops, including vegetable in the cropping system in view of their early maturing characteristics. Low-cost nursery established as a project intervention, either in the center or in farmers fields was effective in raising the required number of seedlings to meet the demands. Supply of seeds and planting materials thus needed to be continued to maintain the tempo generated, especially in case of vegetable farming. Continuation of this intervention was necessary, in view of the ground reality of total lack of source of supply of quality planting materials Need for stricter follow-up action to check utilization of seeds & planting materials

However, lack of follow-up efforts was noticed in some of the centres in keeping track of the utilization of these seeds and seedlings, distributed free of cost. Hence, while supply of seeds and seedlings of vegetable crops should continue for facilitating its further spread, stricter follow-up of post distribution utilization and results obtained thereof should be ensured Besides creation of irrigation resources and supply of seeds and seedlings the two sets of major support interventions, other kinds of support were, supply of Kono 73

weeder, markers, paddy puddlers, agricultural tools and implements etc, mostly on cost sharing basis. However, they were found to be not of much significance in influencing the adoption of the technological options. While these were the more important operational issues concerning the programs of action taken up by various centres, a few of the more strategic issues also cropped up while conducting the evaluation study. Need for redefining the focus of Chandrapur centre : setting up of a vocational training-cum-production centre in agriculture

In the Chandrapur centre, considering the numerical strength of the extension personnel vis--vis the load of their dual responsibilities, the focus of the centre needed to be clearly defined, by way of concentrating on the stronger one from among the two. Its inherent strength, the proven ability of the partner organization in capacity building of the illiterate / neo literate and socially ostracized poor villagers in various vocational areas to make them capable of earning their own livelihood should be supplemented with the live demonstrations of technological possibilities set up in the farms (more particularly in Somnath), towards increased productivity and income from land resources. The outreach activities needed to be recast in the form of setting up of a vocational training-cumproduction center in agriculture at Somnath, instead of village based extension work. This center would generate self- employment capability among rural youth in areas, like, food processing, orchard management (especially export quality fruits), floriculture, animal husbandry, management of custom hiring (tractors and power tillers), soil testing, plant health clinic and veterinary health care etc. Besides, the centre may also start offering diagnostic and prescriptive support towards soil testing and plant and animal health and consultancy support in areas like commercial floriculture, vegetable and fruit farming etc on demand. Need for linkage with development departments for facilitating convergence of schemes for the benefit of the targeted farmers

Almost all the centres were observed to be working in isolation from the development departments operating in the respective operational areas with their respective development schemes, many of which were relevant to their programs of action. Linkage needed to be established with these departments with an intention of utilizing the provisions of the schemes through the means of convergence, for furthering the cause of the project. Need for forming farmers groups for marketing of produce (especially vegetable) In order to further promote the practice of commercial vegetable farming in the area, it was of utmost importance to increase access of the vegetable growers to the market. Almost all the centres were connected with one or more number of industrial towns or growth centres, having potential market for the vegetables produced in the villages under each of them. In order to develop an inbuilt mechanism for marketing of fresh produce of each centre, farmers groups are needed to be formed in the clusters of villages growing vegetables. From each of these groups, preferably young and relatively more educated members may be identified and trained to carry out market intelligence and establish their own network instead of being exploited by the intermediaries. These trained members would take care of marketing of the entire produce of the group.

74

Need for diversification of self help groups, supported by backward & forward linkages

Self Help Groups were being organized by some of the centres (like Bankura) with income earning options identified around technological options being promoted under the project. While such practice of concentration of produce may facilitate marketing under availability of organized marketing network, in the absence of the infrastructure, it may be better to go for diversification of income earning options for these SHGs under any given centre. However, identification of such options should be preceded with exploration of backward and forward linkages, available in the operational area. The options with prospect of getting supported by such linkages should only be identified, for the ease of input-output management by the groups. The centers need to be proactive in this regard. Need for placement of SFIs own supervisory personnel in solely partner operated centres

In course of the evaluation study, one of the purely partner operated centre was found to be rather overambitious in deciding its coverage of villages vis--vis number of farmers, irrespective of the number of extension personnel at its disposal as well as their capability to deliver the goods. In such cases, it would be advisable to keep a well qualified and professionally capable person on the payroll of SFI, at the helm of the affairs (in line with the pattern of Chandrapur and Jawhar centres). Dr Dibyendu Sen 31 August 2008

75

76

APPENDIX I
Criteria Technology Interventions Sub-criteria Intervention domain (major) SFI INTERVENTIONS - INTER-PROJECT COMPARATIVE ACCOUNT Project Level Status (Salient Features) Chandrapur Jawhar Kalahandi Paddy Based Paddy Based Paddy Based * Hybrid/HYV paddy cultivation * Hybrid/HYV paddy cultivation * Hybrid/HYV paddy cultivation * SRI method of paddy * SRI method of paddy * SRI method of paddy cultivation cultivation cultivation Vegetable Based * Hybrid vegetable cultivation (kharif & rabi) Vegetable Based *Hybrid vegetable cultivation (kharif & rabi) * Wadi cultivation (orchard intercropped with vegetable) * Water resource development technique (farm pond in WADI) * Low cost Nursery raising technique * Own seed production technique * Vermi-composting technique * Crop protection techniques * Water resource development technique (farm pond in WADI) Intervention domain (others) * Farm mechanization (Tractor drawn & Bullock drawn seed drill) * Fruit cultivation Vegetable Based * Hybrid vegetable cultivation (kharif & rabi) Bankura Paddy Based * Hybrid/HYV paddy cultivation * SRI method of paddy cultivation Vegetable Based * Hybrid vegetable cultivation (kharif & rabi)

Intervention domain (supporting major)

* Seed treatment * Weed control through herbicide application * Own seed production technique * Vermi-composting technique

* Crop protection techniques * Low cost nursery technique

* Seed treatment * Low cost nursery technique * Induced ripening (tomato with ethylene) technique * Vegetable farming in vested land * Crop protection techniques * Kitchen gardening * Land shaping (5%)

* Animal husbandry (goat/duck rearing)

Criteria

Sub-criteria Technology relevance: Farming system characteristic - paddy Chandrapur Relevant Endemic to the Somnath region Consumption requirements of the inmates met Relevant to irrigation resource development in Somnath Kharif as well as rabi Professional management with trained labour and assured factors of production, did not allow any problem for technique like SRI SRI applied mostly at small scale using family labour as at bigger scale, using mainly hired labour, hard to maintain transplanting schedule, in SRI. Relevant Met consumption as well as commercial requirements (in Somnath & Anadwan) Kharif vegetable though profitable, land availability was problem Labour migration immediately after paddy transplanting posed problem

Technology relevance : Farming system characteristic - vegetable

Project Level Status (Salient Features) Jawhar Kalahandi Relevant Relevant Endemic to the region Endemic to the region Consumption as well as Command area of commercial requirements Indrawati Irrigation project Mainly kharif as the area Kharif as well as rabi was rainfed Subsistence to small Transplanting schedule farmers (10-12 days seedlings) in SRI In the absence of control upset with monsoon failure over release of canal water after seedbed raised with time maintenance for initial rains transplanting hard to ensure SRI applied mostly at small with SRI scale using family labour as at SRI applied mostly at small bigger scale, with hired scale using family labour labour, hard to maintain transplanting schedule, in SRI. In undulating land heavy rains after transplanting washed away thin / tender seedlings. Relevant Relevant Commercial cultivation Covered with irrigation, was introduced as a result of farmers inclined to grow project interventions (seeds, paddy with vegetable meeting training, demonstrations etc.) consumption needs Potential for Traditionally members profitability/cash return in of Mali community grew short run, made it attractive to vegetable commercially. farmers. Irrigation requirements WADI with its met by way of digging of vegetable component wells supplemented new found interest of farmers.

Bankura Relevant Endemic to the region Mainly kharif Subsistence to majority of small farmers GS 1 varieties in great demand over hybrids for its shorter duration so as to accommodate another crop (wheat, vegetable, potato etc) SRI applied mostly at small scale using family labour Conventional method still favoured over SRI in spite of many positive points,

Relevant Traditional vegetable growing turned into commercial with project interventions (seed supply, tank excavation etc) Number of big towns in the vicinity made it more attractive Vegetable farming in vested land by SHGs of tribal women

ii

Criteria Extension Management

Sub-criteria Extension approach Chandrapur Dual approach (Partner oriented) (i) MSS farm development Farm infrastructure Productive utilization of farms through technology application Use as demonstration center for reaching out to farmers (ii) Village outreach approach Use farms for training of farmers from surrounding villages Reach others through trained farmers and project interventions. One Agricultural Extension Manager, assisted by four Field Supervisors managed three farms under MSS, the partner. Besides, they were to take up village based extension activities around the farms (23 villages). Agricultural Extension Manager was M,Sc (Ag) with experience of managing sale of agricultural inputs (seeds) in corporate bodies. Field Supervisors were having diploma in agriculture

Project Level Status (Salient Features) Jawhar Kalahandi Village outreach approach Village outreach approach (Partner oriented) (Partner oriented) Technology transfer in Technology transfer in rainfed paddy for productivity a primarily irrigated area with increase paddy based options through extension &support Water resource interventions development for promoting vegetable farming integrated Vegetable farming also with fruits and trees. promoted as supplementary income earning option Technology transfer through seeds and seedling integrated with extension and supply and training support interventions. interventions.

Extension organization

One Project Officer, assisted by three Field Supervisors, carried out interventions in 18 villages (4 clusters). Project Officer was B.Sc (Ag) with experience of organizing sale of agricultural inputs (agricultural chemical) in corporate bodies. Field Officers were having diploma in agriculture.

One Agricultural Extension Coordinator (AEC), assisted by one Field Organizer (2006-08), organizing interventions in 53 villages, across 4 blocks of Kalahandi district. AEC was diploma holder in agriculture with experience of working in an NGO and tea garden in Assam. Field Organizer was B.A with training in Horticulture.

Bankura Village outreach approach (Partner oriented) Focus on shorter duration high yielding paddy in a rainfed tract and also hybrids and SRI as a technique Introduced vegetable, wheat and potato in the cropping sequence Water resource development and production and distribution of seeds to meet farmers requirements. Tribal villages reached out through group based interventions. One Extension Coordinator, assisted by one part time coordinator, two Field Assistants and one Agril. Supervisor organizing interventions in 41 villages in one block. Extension Coordinator was M.Sc PhD in Agriculture and other Coordinator M.Sc (Ag). Both with experience of working in NGOs. One Field Assistant SSC with training in agriculture & other graduate with training in computers.

iii

Criteria

Sub-criteria Partner organization Chandrapur Maharogi Seva Sangh (MSS), an internationally acclaimed organization for social rehabilitation of lepers. Proven expertise of rehabilitation of illiterate & neo-literate villagers through building self-employment & entrepreneurial qualities. Holding vast tract of degraded land from which it intended to meet the huge food requirements of the inmates. Entered into collaboration with SFI for scientific management of their farms.

Concentration of efforts

Dual focus : (i) MSS farms development; (ii) Carrying outreach activities in villages. MSS farms : (i) Somnath; (ii) Anandwan & (iii) Mulgawan Outreach activities : 18 villages.

Project Level Status (Salient Features) Jawhar Kalahandi Pragati Pratisthan, Kalahandi Association originally involved in social for Rural Reconstruction and sector development, like Total Awareness Benefit of health and education, entered YouthAction (KARRTABYA) into water resource was involved in offering development. HRD support to a number of schemes of various agencies Agriculture was running in Kalahandi district. identified as means towards utilization of such water They entered into land resource for addressing the and agriculture arena with the problem of migration, arising agriculture project of the SFI. out of lack of employment. Towards this end, entered into partnership with SFI. Also entered into partnership with BAIFMITTRA in respect of WADI, a program for integrated land use. 18 villages, divided into 53 villages, located at a 4 clusters all located under distance range of 3-62 km., one Block - Jawhar distributed across 4 Blocks of Kalahandi district

Bankura Shamayita Math a spiritual organization, originally focused on education both formal and vocational. They took up a number of rural development projects on womens empowerment, non-conventional energy, self-help groups, tribal development etc. with funding from various central agencies. Also took up agriculture related projects on rain water harvesting and seed testing etc. They partnered with the SFI in respect of the agriculture project. 42 villages, located at a distance range of 4-15 kms., all covered under the block Gangajalghati.

iv

Criteria

Sub-criteria Clientele base Chandrapur 46 farmers in 18 villages around Somnath and Anandwan (3 Field Supervisors) No. of farmers / Supervisor: 16 23 training programs conducted (2005-08) on subjects mainly covering paddy (including SRI), vegetable and soybean. 1440 farmers attended Trainings were of one days duration. Major training method farm based field demonstrations on paddy (SRI related technique) Training infrastructure need improvement (at Somnath)

Capacity building intervention: Training

Project Level Status (Salient Features) Jawhar Kalahandi 115 farmers in 18 288 farmers in 53 villages (3 Field Supervisors) villages (1 Field Organizer) No. of farmers / No. of farmers / Field Supervisor : 40 Organizer : 288

Bankura 126 farmers & 5 SHGs in 42 villages (2 Field Assistants) No. of farmers / Field Assistant : 63 & 2-3 SHGs

13 training programs conducted (2006-08) on topics mainly covering paddy and vegetable and attended by 516 farmers. Trainings were of one days duration. Major training method lecture-cum-demonstration Training infrastructure of Pragati Pratisthan utilized

12 training programs conducted (2006-08) on topics mainly covering paddy and vegetable and attended by 390 farmers.

Trainings were of one days duration. Major training method lecture-cum-demonstration

11 training and 3 awareness programs conducted (2006-08) on topics revolving around paddy, vegetable, potato and goat, attended by 436 farmers.
Trainings were of one days duration.

Training infrastructure of KARRTABYA need lot of improvement.

Besides lecturecum-demonstration, farm based demonstrations were also used as training methods. Training infrastructure need improvement

Criteria

Sub-criteria Capacity building: use of extension methods Chandrapur Demonstrations (32), mostly on paddy with SRI, intercenter field visits and production of printed booklets (in marathi) were some of the extension methods utilized. Demonstrations were having shortcomings, like, lack of control plot, sign board supervision of extension worker, meetings at demonstration plots

Project Level Status (Salient Features) Jawhar Kalahandi Demonstrations on paddy Demonstrations on SRI and (80) and vegetable (7) were hybrid paddy (102) and the major extension methods farmers field trials (70) on used. vegetable were conducted. Seed packets in small 398 packets of vegetable quantity were distributed for seeds were distributed among conducting trials at farmers 129 farmers for popularizing fields. their utilization. Seedling and seeds of fruit 8 farmers were taken on crops were distributed among exposure visits. farmers Demonstrations were Harvest Hungama (5) with conducted with similar set of 500 farmers were conducted. shortcomings. Farmers tours was the other extension method utilized. Similar set of shortcomings affected demonstrations. Inadequate technical qualification and experience of the coordinator and field assistant was evident in their inability to solve the crop production (especially plant protection) related problems posed by the farmers during data collection phase.

Knowledge & skill level of extension personnel

Technical knowledge and skill of the coordinator and his team was adequate in bringing about increased productivity and income from the MSS farms. Not so impressive spread effect of the interventions in farmers field, indicated possible lack in respect of communication skill of the coordinator & his team.

Technical knowledge as well as motivation skill of the project officer was adequate enough to involve 46 farmers in 17 out of 18 villages in commercial vegetable farming. Human relation skill in rapport building with development agencies demonstrated.

Bankura Demonstrations (46) were conducted on SRI, hybrid and short duration rice varieties as well as hybrid vegetables. Method demonstrations were conducted on techniques of tomato ripening, seed treatment, use of N2 fixing bacteria & use of T.viridae etc before 74 farmers. Clinical advice was extended to 430 farmers. Seeds and seedlings of vegetable and fruits species distributed. Exposure visit was arranged for 120 farmers. Similar set of shortcomings affected demonstrations. Both the coordinators were technically well equipped to offer required solution to the farmers crop production related problems. Their human relations skill was evident through personal rapport built up not only with the farmers in most of the villages, but also with the officials.

vi

Criteria
Support / Institutional Interventions

Sub-criteria
Support interventions

Chandrapur At MSS level in Somnath: (i)creating 13.2 million litres of additional water resource, irrigating 125 acres through digging of farm ponds; (ii) deepening of 2 of the 22 water bodies; (iii) supply of tractor and a number of agricultural implements; (iv) setting up of a briquetting machine for preparing mixed fertilizer (DAP &Urea). At MSS level in Anandwan (i) setting up of drip irrigation system. In farmers fields: (i) supply of seeds & complex fertilizers; (ii) supply of agricultural implements. All these interventions made with full SFI investment

Institutional intervention

Project Level Status (Salient Features) Jawhar Kalahandi In partnership with Pragati (i) supply of seeds of paddy & Pratisthan: (i) 5 HP diesel vegetables, (ii) agricultural engines; (ii) Low cost polyimplements; (iii) poly houses; houses (iii) kitchen garden (iv) supply of vegetables, kits (iv) one agricultural fruits and forest saplings. information center & (v) Agricultural implements supply of state of the art (marker, kono weeder etc.) varieties of vegetable & were fully funded by SFI. other crops. Revolving fund was used for In partnership with BAIFpurchase of certified paddy MITTRA: (i) supply of seeds from market and sale seedlings of fruits, them among farmers. vegetables and forest species in 12 WADIs; (ii) setting up of drum irrigation devices in WADIs. While interventions i-iv were fully funded by SFI paddy and vegetable seeds were produced out of revolving fund and amount replenished out of sale proceeds. 5 farmers groups with 49 members formed around paddy and vegetable in 5 project villages. However, no group activity discernible.

Bankura At individual level: (i) supply of seeds; (ii) supply of implements; (iii) dug wells; (iv) land shaping and (v) distribution of ducklings. At community level: (i) re-excavation of ponds; (ii) grain banks. Supply of seeds and seedling of field, vegetable and fruit crops were made at individual as well as community level. Interventions ii-v as well as grain banks were funded fully by SFI. Seeds of field crops, seedlings of vegetable and fruit species were produced at the farm of the partner NGO and distributed on no-profitno-loss basis. Re-excavation of tanks done on cost sharing basis (50:50) between SFI and beneficiaries.

6 SHGs formed around tribal women with 104 members in 5 villages with distinct group activities, like vegetable farming and managing grain banks. Men also rallied around in a number of villages.

vii

Criteria

Sub-criteria Chandrapur Jawhar

Project Level Status (Salient Features) Kalahandi

Bankura

Impact of Interventions

Area brought under cultivation / recommended technological options

MSS farms (2005-08) Somnath: Average area brought under cultivation 493.8 (65.84%) out of 750 acres of developed area. Anandwan: Average area brought under cultivation 192.5 (96.25%) out of 200 acres of developed area.

Changes in cropping pattern

In 2007-08, 95.96% of the farm area in Somnath was put under: paddy (57.29%), soybean (10.31%), wheat (14.57%), Gram (11.21%), chilly (1.12%) & turmeric (1.46%) by way of drastically reducing the area (24.2%) occupied with nonremunerative crops in the pre-project period.

18.65 acres was brought under recommended options for paddy with 13.45 acres (72.12%) and 9.5 acres (50.94%) devoted to HYV and hybrids respectively. The entire area under hybrids was cultivated with SRI technique. From almost non-existent vegetable cultivation, area under recommended options on vegetable crops came to 18.58 acres and 1.17 acre was put under marigold. In paddy based farming system, besides introducing hybrids or SRI, vegetable as well as floriculture crops were incorporated in the cropping system. Uplands were utilized as WADIs with fruits and forest species, intercropped with vegetable and flowers.

Project area being primarily irrigated, paddy and vegetable farming were pre-existent. Out of 285 acres of paddy area in 53 project villages, 91.5 acres (32%) was brought under recommended practices and 15 acres of this area was put under hybrids during 200608. 215.6 acres of vegetable (kharif and rabi) grown in 53 project villages could be put under recommended technologies.

Recommended technological options in paddy were being followed in 57.64 acres during kharif only. Out of this 42.3 acres (73.39%) was put under certified seeds of HYV, whereas 3.92 acres(6.8%) and 0.82 acre (1.42%) were devoted to hybrids and HYV with SRI respectively. As a result of interventions, 21.26 acres of vegetable could be put under commercial production with recommended technology use.

Traditional cropping pattern in irrigated tract: paddy (2-3 crops), black gram, vegetable, green gram, mung, sugarcane. In such area, new HYV and hybrids of paddy was introduced. Vegetables were incorporated in the predominantly paddy based cropping system.

Traditional cropping pattern in this rainfed tract: paddy, vegetable, mustard & wheat Mainly varietal replacement in paddy was attempted through the project interventions (HYV, Hybrid & shorter duration paddy varieties) In the time thus saved, vegetable, oil seeds, wheat and potato etc were introduced.

viii

Criteria

Sub-criteria Technology adoption Chandrapur Supported by irrigation, adoption of various technological options was total in both Somnath and Anandwan. In spite of the recognized qualities of SRI technique, its adoption was mostly at small scale. The problems encountered in applying the technique in bigger scale were mentioned under technology relevance. Upward trend in productivity in Somnath were discernible in paddy (110%), wheat (359%) (though area increase did not occur), soybean (1181%), gram (161%) and chilli (614%) since project interventions started. In Anandwan center on the other hand, among the principal crops, soybean (118.18%) and wheat (105%) only recorded increasing trend in productivity

Project Level Status (Salient Features) Jawhar Kalahandi Extent of adoption of new Out of 285 acres of paddy area, paddy varieties was partial 91.5 acres was devoted to paddy with farmers still based technological options. evaluating pros and cons. Hybrid paddy vis--vis SRI was being practiced in 15 acres only. Regarding SRI, the farmers had similar sets of opinion SRI related issues of adoption as stated in course of were the same as mentioned discussing relevance under relevance of paddy based related issues. technologies. 100 percent of the 215.6 acres of project area was practicing farmers resorted put under vegetable farming with to vegetable farming during application of recommended rabi season. technologies. Yield increase with high yielding varieties and hybrid with application of SRI were 150% (16.71 qtls./acre) and 200% (22.34 qtls/acre) respectively over local paddy. Yield of a few important vegetables were: okra (20.54 qtls), brinjal (31.09 qtls), chilly (10.47 qtls), onion (37.81 qtls) and bottlegourd (7.43 qtls). Yield increase in paddy (general) (15.00 qtls. / acre) and hybrid with SRI (16.00 qtls. / acre) were 125% and 114% respectively from their pre-project status. Per acre yield of tomato (80.00 qtls), brinjal (75.00 qtls), chilli (18.00 qtls), cauliflower (85.00 qtls) and cabbage (120.00 qtls) registered 200, 167, 120, 142 and 185 percent increases respectively from their preproject status.

Bankura 30.2 acres of land area in the project villages was put under paddy based technological options, out of which most popular was replacement of existing varieties with shorter duration HY varieties. Hybrid paddy and also SRI technique, though applied was in a very limited scale. 69.3 acres of land in the project villages was brought under vegetable farming with suggested technological options. TL seeds produced in Shamayita Math farm, HYV MTU 7029 and hybrid varieties yielded 15.48, 17.22 and 20.55 qtls/acre respectively, registering 111.69, 124.24 and 148.27 percent increase from the conventional varieties. The MTU 7029 applied with SRI yielded 20.13 qtl/acre, registering an increase of 116.90%. Among the major vegetable crops tomato, cabbage, cauliflower, okra and chilli yielded 183, 165, 121.5, 474.9 and 25.8 qtls/acre respectively.

Production / Productivity

ix

Criteria

Sub-criteria Farm income Chandrapur The total farm income in Somnath center gradually increased from Rs.25.03 lakhs (2004-05) to Rs.46.64 (2007-08) lakhs (186.34%). Contribution of paddy in the farm income gradually got reduced with corresponding increase in contribution from wheat, soybean etc., showing increasing trend of diversification. Farm income (2005-06) from Anandwan also rose from Rs.11.39 lakhs to Rs.20.73 lakhs (2007-08) (182%). Most important contribution was from Soybean (71.54%)

Livelihood dimension: food & nutritional security

Major portion of the agricultural produce (cereals, pulses, oilseeds & vegetables) were used for meeting consumption needs of 3,500 inmates and after such requirement were met, surplus were sold in the market.

Project Level Status (Salient Features) Jawhar Kalahandi The income per acre from In case of high yielding okra, brinjal, chilli, onion and varieties of paddy, as a result bottlegourd, the main of project interventions, vegetable crops grown by the income per acre was farmers in the project area increased from 7,000.00 to were: Rs. 0.42, 0.31, 0.21, 8,064.00 (115.2%). 0.23 and 0.07 lakhs Hybrid paddy with SRI respectively. yielded an income of Rs. As vegetable growing was 16,128.00 per acre, which almost non-existent before was 127.27% higher than the the project got underway, the hybrids grown without SRI. gain thus made was total. In case of vegetable crops, tomato, brinjal, chilli, cauliflower and cabbage yielded income of Rs. 51.2, 42.00, 31.68, 68.00 and 67.2 thousands per acre which were 200.00, 166.67, 120.00, 141.67and 184.61 percent respectively higher than the income received before the project interventions. Two principal meals of rice Paddy and vegetable being and ragi were supplemented cultivated even before the with a course of vegetable, project, not much change in since the project interventions dietary composition was were started. evidenced.

Bankura Income from cultivating HYV with SRI was Rs. 14,348.00 per acre (260.87% higher) as compared to Rs.5000.00 obtained from HYV grown without SRI. Income per acre of major vegetable crops like, potato, tomato, cabbage, cauliflower, okra and chilli was 41.52, 85.2, 30.00, 259.00, 18.48 and 22.5 thousand per acre 135.7, 141.9, 125, 249.08, 122.9 and 119.05 percent more respectively.

Identification of community grain bank as an intervention was a conscious attempt of addressing issues related to nutritional security of tribals. The tribal families practicing vegetable, started supplementing their rice gruel meal with an item or two of vegetable, since introduction of the project.

Criteria

Sub-criteria Livelihood dimensions: Employment Chandrapur Paddy based farming itself was labour intensive. Application of SRI was even more so, as load of interculture operation was quite heavy (specially weeding). For small farmers family labour utilization was more intensive. Use of kono weeder, though increased efficiency and was cost-effective, essentially involved male members, replacing women Application of weedicide besides having similar effect, its environmental implications also need to be addressed.

Project Level Status (Salient Features) Jawhar Kalahandi WADI was a unique program Paddy based farming had with inbuilt mechanism of similar kind of employment creation of round the year related manifestations as employment for the farmers evidenced in Chandrapur in a basically rainfed tract. centre. Protective irrigation through Villages dominated by Mali water harvesting in plastic community (ex: Gadiajor) sheet topped farm pond had been practicing vegetable (1mx1mx1m) supported fruits farming by way of organizing / forest trees, intercropped irrigation through dug wells with vegetable and from both institutional as well floriculture crops in the initial as private sources. Right from years. Cash income of May-June vegetable farming Rs.3000-5000 could be continued till Februaryaccrued in the first year. March, thereby keeping the families fully employed Fruit crops would start throughout the year and yielding from fifth year earning on an average Rs.55onwards, keeping the farmer 60 thousand per acre. fully employed through out the year. Poly house nursery given to the farmers at project cost (Rs.48000) along with a plastic water container (1000 litre) also had very good employment and income earning potential.

Bankura Tank re-excavation resulted into increasing the cultivated area, especially during the rabi season and major chunk of such area was put under vegetable cultivation. This provided increased income vis--vis employment during the lean months of AugustSeptember. Even otherwise also, shorter duration GS varieties were in great demand in order to accommodate wheat, mustard, potato and especially vegetable in the cropping schedule, thereby contributing to the employment potential through increased cropping intensity. Promoting self help groups in the tribal villages and identifying group based vegetable farming in degraded vested land was an attempt of creating employment and additional income earning opportunities for the members.

xi

APPENDIX II SWOT ANALYSIS FOR VARIOUS CENTRES & SWOT MATRIX SWOT DIMENSIONS: CHANDRAPUR STRENGTH
Partners proven ability of developing self-reliance among resource poor & disadvantaged through capacity building in vocational areas, including agriculture Already established array of training-cumproduction centres, with trained village youth both boys and girls Holding large farms, equipped with infrastructural support (especially irrigation) for taking up modern agriculture Established live demonstration for scientific land, water and crop management techniques for augmenting productivity in the given agroecological conditions under semi arid tropic Besides professionally qualified project personnel, support available from multidisciplinary team of scientists in the agriculture college at Anandwan campus

WEAKNESSES
Relatively poor village level extension network as compared to the farm development facilitated by the project interventions Lack of adequate manpower support towards organization of good extension network in the villages surrounding the farms, far apart from each other Project personnel already hard pressed with their load of works in the farm development works Partner organization with hardly any expertise either technical or organizational, in developing extension network for technology transfer in the field of agriculture Lack of credible capacity building institution in the district as well as state for entrepreneurial development in various emerging employment generating options in agriculture and allied sectors

OPPORTUNITIES
Availability of commercialization options for the land based production systems in the farms has the potential to generate substantial amount of additional income, after meeting the ever increasing consumption need of the inmates In the era of modern market driven economy, a number of commercial ventures in agriculture started emerging which was having very good scope for entrepreneurial development among the rural youths. A number of organizations, like APEDA, National Horticultural Board, National Horticulture Mission etc., all under Government of India have come out with schemes for helping rural entrepreneurs in such commercial ventures.

THREATS
Large scale expansion of mines in Chandrapur as well as its neighbouring districts pose serious challenge to agriculture both in respect of land as well as human resources Alienation of tribals and rural youth from the national mainstream due to poverty, unemployment and resultant impoverishment

xii

SWOT MATRIX: CHANDRAPUR SWOT Matrix Showing Action Areas for Improving Project Efficiency-Chandrapur
STRENGTHS (S) Partners proven ability of developing self-reliance through capacity building Already established array of training-cum-production centres, with trained village youth Large farms, equipped with infrastructural support (especially irrigation) for taking up modern agriculture Farms are live demonstration for scientific land, water and crop management techniques for augmenting productivity Besides qualified project personnel available support from multidisciplinary team of experts at Agril. College, Anandwan WEAKNESSES (W) Relatively poor village extension network as compared to farm development Lack of adequate manpower support for extension work Project personnel hard pressed for farm development work Partner organization lacks expertise in organizing extension work around agriculture Lack of credible capacity building institution in entrepreneurial development in agricultural and allied sector vocations

OPPORTUNITIES (O) Availability of commercialized land based options for income generation in the farms through surplus production Emergence of a good number of commercial options in agriculture and allied sectors with entrepreneurial potential among rural youth A good number of central sector schemes for assisting rural entrepreneurs in establishing such commercial enterprises

S-O MAXI- MAXI Setting up of vocational training center on agriculture for generating self- employment capability among rural youth Identifying trainees and posttraining utilization to be taken up in consultation with partner. Organization of courses to be jointly taken up by SFI and partner Hand holding support to trained entrepreneurs for linking them with relevant organizations for setting up of enterprises by utilizing central schemes. S-T MAXI-MINI Increased employment and income earning potential among local youth men and women, through agro-based vocational training

W-O MINI-MAXI Concentration on farm development work in Somnath Develop Somnath as model farm-cum-vocational training centre through practicing all agroecologically feasible diversification options Outreach activities of farm-cumvocational training centre to be centre based training-cumdemonstrations, diagnostic and prescriptive services for the benefit of farmers as well as entrepreneurs

THREATS (T) Expansion of mines in the district posing challenges to land as well as people involved in agriculture Alienation of tribals and rural youth from national mainstream due to perpetuating unemployment and poverty

W-T MINI-MINI Rejuvenation of the agro-based economy of the district through capacity building among tribals and rural youth in newly emerging options.

xiii

SWOT DIMENSIONS: JAWHAR STRENGTH

Abundance of precipitation during monsoon, which flows through numerous streams and nullahs. If properly harvested, it can form as a very valuable productive resource Agro-ecological potential for development of multiple land use options, like field crops, horticulture, silviculture etc, capable of increasing returns from the land resources of this tribal dominated area. Presence of an enthusiastic, technically sound, extrovert project officer, capable of bringing more and more farmers into the fold of agricultural development project and also networking with relevant development agencies for facilitating convergence of development interventions

WEAKNESSES
Lack of required manpower support as well as technical and organizational expertise and the resultant dependence syndrome exhibited by Pragati Pratisthan the partner NGO had cast doubts on sustainability of the project after the withdrawal of SFI from the scenario The relative isolation of the project from the relevant development agencies, mandated to carry out development activities in the same area, quite often coinciding in respect of the target group as well as interventions Poor access to the market for majority of target clientele in view of remoteness of the villages vis-vis public transport system.

OPPORTUNITIES
Being a fully tribal block, Jawhar was covered with a multiplicity of schemes run by a number of development agencies, like ITDP, forest department as well as panchayat and rural development etc. Various provisions of National Horticulture Mission in line with some of the project interventions (like, creation of water source through farm ponds / community tanks with plastic lining; establishment of new garden by small and marginal farmers; small nurseries etc) A number of central agencies, like APEDA, National Horticultural Board, Tribal co-operative marketing Development Federation, SFAC etc. have specific provisions for assisting in marketing development, including export promotion.

THREATS
Continuation of subsistence oriented agriculture will contribute to further degradation of the environment, thereby making the land totally incapable of producing outputs, sufficient enough to hold the people on their lands.

xiv

SWOT MATRIX: JAWHAR SWOT Matrix Showing Action Areas for Improving Project Efficiency Jawhar
STRENGTHS (S) Abundance of monsoon precipitation very valuable productive resource Agro-ecological potential for development of multiple land use options An active and extrovert project officer, capable of networking with development agencies for convergence of interventions OPPORTUNITIES (O) Multiplicity of schemes run by various development agencies for reaching out tribals Provisions under National Horticultural mission coinciding with project interventions Number of central agencies in the field having schemes for market development and export promotion of agro-based products THREATS (T) Subsistence oriented agriculture will set in the process of environmental degradation, ultimately making the land incapable of holding the people on the land S-T MAXI-MINI Motivating farmers to take up integrated land use options to restore soil health and increase productivity per unit area S-O MAXI- MAXI Creation of water harvesting structures on individual as well as community level resources At WADI level construction of farm ponds for protective irrigation to silvi-horticultural plantations WEAKNESSES (W) Lack of technical and organizational expertise as well as man power resources on the part of the partner organization vis-vis dependence syndrome Relative isolation of the project from development agencies in the field Poor access of the villagers to the market W-O MINI-MAXI Addressing farmers problems in accepting technological recommendations through taking advantage of available schemes Increasing farmers access to markets through group mobilization or provisions of available schemes of various agencies

W-T MINI-MINI Adopting watershed approach in developing the operational area by way of integrating the efforts with other line departments

xv

SWOT DIMENSIONS: KALAHANDI STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

Access to assured irrigation a very important Excessively large area of operation, characterized
infrastructure support in its operational area

The primarily agricultural background of the

operational area, with farmers already growing relevant crops, provided an existing base for introduction of the identified technological options.

by dispersed location of the selected villages, not keeping in conformity with manpower resources available at the disposal of implementing agency Project personnel ill equipped with required technical expertise for transfer various technological options among the target clientele A good majority of villages selected under the operational area are rainfed

Traditional presence of a community (Mali) in the

operational area, vegetable farming specializing in commercial

OPPORTUNITIES

THREATS

Emergence of vegetable farming as a commercial Annual inundation of low lying lands during
ventures having very good scope for entrepreneurial development among the farmers monsoon months in some of the project villages, thereby delaying planting of vegetable crops

A number of organizations, like APEDA, National In the irrigated tract trend of taking three
Horticultural Board, National Horticulture Mission etc., all under Government of India have come out with schemes for helping rural entrepreneurs in such commercial ventures consecutive paddy crops likely to disturb the soil nutrient status in the region

xvi

SWOT MATRIX: KALAHANDI SWOT Matrix Showing Action Areas for Improving Project Efficiency - Kalahandi
STRENGTHS (S) Access to assured irrigation a very important infrastructure support in its operational area The primarily agricultural background of the operational area, provided an existing base for introduction of the identified technological options Traditional presence of a community (Mali) in the operational area, specializing in commercial vegetable farming OPPORTUNITIES (O) Emergence of vegetable farming as a commercial ventures having very good scope for entrepreneurial development among the farmers A number of organizations, like APEDA, National Horticultural Board, National Horticulture Mission etc., all under Government of India implementing schemes for helping rural entrepreneurs in such commercial ventures S-O MAXI- MAXI Promoting vegetable farming, especially in the Mali dominated villages arranged in clusters Organizing farmers groups in these villages for facilitating marketing of vegetables WEAKNESSES (W) Excessively large area of operation, characterized by dispersed location of the selected villages Project personnel ill equipped with required technical expertise for transfer various technological options among the target clientele A good number of villages selected under the operational area are rainfed

W-O MINI-MAXI Placement of a technically qualified person in the helm of the affairs Delimitation of the operational area as well as the spread of the clientele base Capacity building training for the project personnel on technological options, extension methodologies and schemes floated by various agencies

THREATS (T) Annual inundation of low lying lands during monsoon months in some of the project villages, thereby delaying planting of vegetable crops In the irrigated tract trend of taking three consecutive paddy crops likely to disturb the soil nutrient status in the region

S-T MAXI-MINI Rationalization of selection of farmers for promoting vegetable farming on the basis of location of their lands Promoting diversification of cropping pattern in the irrigated lands by way of weaning away farmers from practicing consecutive crops of paddy

W-T MINI-MINI Gearing up the extension personnel to promote diversification options in villages coming under irrigated tract.

xvii

SWOT DIMENSIONS: BANKURA

STRENGTH

WEAKNESSES

The operational area endowed with good annual precipitation rate and a number of water bodies, like, tanks, streams, nullahs and rivulets flowing through the area The partner organizations previous experience base of working in the related fields with that of the agricultural development project of SFI Rapport built up by the team of extension personnel with the villagers in the operational area (especially as supplier of good quality seeds)

Most of the farmers in the operational area are resource poor and operating under rainfed condition The centers relative isolation from other development departments in relevant fields Lack of institutional arrangements for increasing farmers access to the market Lack of knowledge and skill on the part of extension personnel in selection and proper utilization of extension methodology for motivating farmers in absorbing the technological options.

OPPORTUNITIES

THREATS

Endemic area for the Flame of Forest (Butea monosperma) tree species, natural habitat for lac insect (Kerria lacca), useful for lac culture. Presence of a number of big growth centers (industrial towns) surrounding the operational area Centrally assisted schemes implemented by various development agencies at the field level Various provisions of National Horticulture Mission in line with some of the project interventions (like, creation of water source through farm ponds / community tanks; establishment of new garden by small and marginal farmers; small nurseries etc)

The soil erosion is quite heavy during monsoon months, leading to degradation of soil health Perpetuating poverty and unemployment among the sizeable tribal population may lead to their alienation from the national mainstream

xviii

SWOT MATRIX: BANKURA SWOT Matrix Showing Action Areas for Improving Project Efficiency Bankura
STRENGTHS (S) WEAKNESSES (W)

Operational area endowed with good annual precipitation and a number of water bodies Partner organizations previous working base in line with the fields of interventions of the SFI project Rapport built up by the project personnel with the farmers, especially in respect of source of quality seeds Institution building ability demonstrated through SHGs built up in tribal villages OPPORTUNITIES (O) Endemic area for the Flame of Forest (Butea monosperma) tree species, natural habitat for lac insect (Kerria lacca), useful for lac culture Presence of a number of big growth centers (industrial towns) surrounding the operational area Multiplicity of schemes run by various development agencies Provisions under National Horticultural mission coinciding with project interventions S-O MAXI- MAXI Adopting suitable measures for water harvesting by taking advantage of available schemes Developing SHGs for tribal women around lac culture as an income generating option

Most of the farmers in the operational area are incapable of accepting technologies as they are operating under rainfed condition The centers relative isolation from other development departments in relevant fields Lack of farmers access to the market Lack of knowledge and skill of extension personnel in selection and proper utilization of extension methodology W-O MINI-MAXI Adopting most appropriate and profitable utilization mechanism of the water resources for increasing land productivity Rapport building with development agencies operating in the field, including panchayat, for convergence of schemes around the interventions in the operational area Group mobilization among the vegetable growers for organizing marketing of their produce in the growth centres

THREATS (T) The soil erosion is quite heavy during monsoon months, leading to degradation of soil health Perpetuating poverty and unemployment among the sizeable tribal population may lead to their alienation from the national mainstream

S-T MAXI-MINI Delineation of watershed covering the operational area and adopting suitable treatment measures for checking soil and water erosion

W-T MINI-MINI Training of project personnel on extension methodology for motivating farmers on control of soil erosion and other options for increased productivity

xix

TASKS IDENTIFIED FOR VARIOUS CENTRES AS PER SWOT MATRIX

Centre Chandrapur Tasks The Chandrapur centre needs to concentrate on farm development activities only, especially the one at Somnath. All agro-ecologically feasible as well as profitable agro-based diversification options should be practiced in Somnath farm with an aim of developing it as a model farm-cumvocational training centre. Setting up of a vocational training center on agriculture and allied disciplines at Somnath farm for generating self- employment capability among rural youth. Infrastructure may be jointly provided by SFI and MSS. Keeping in view the expertise and net work of MSS, trainees may be identified in consultation and active support of MSS. Courses may be designed and organized in areas like, food processing, orchard management (especially export quality fruits), floriculture, animal husbandry, management of custom hiring (tractors and power tillers), soil testing, plant health clinic and veterinary health care etc. Faculty support may be obtained from the Agriculture College at Anandwan. Hand holding support to the trained entrepreneurs to be provided by the project for linking them with relevant organizations for setting up of enterprises by utilizing available central schemes. Post training utilization of these entrepreneurs need to be decided in active consultation with MSS. Outreach activities of the farm-cum-vocational training centre among the farmers of the surrounding villages as well as entrepreneurs should be extended in the form of centre based training-cum-demonstrations, diagnostic and prescriptive services, covering various agro-based vocations. Identification and development of the operational area should be done by following watershed approach through integration of efforts with the relevant development departments, already active in the field. Adoption of appropriate soil and water conservation measures in individual as well as community level resources. Motivating farmers to take up integrated land use options for restoring soil health and increase productivity per unit area of their land. Establish linkage with various development departments in the operational area and inventorize various schemes implemented by each of them. Address problems faced by the farmers in application of technological options by way of linking them with relevant schemes, if available Increasing farmers access to markets through group mobilization or provisions of available schemes of various agencies. Placement of a technically qualified person in the helm of the affairs Rationalization of the operational area and the spread of the clientele base Capacity building training for the project personnel on technological options, extension methodologies and schemes floated by various agencies Promoting diversification of cropping pattern in the irrigated lands by way of weaning away farmers from practicing consecutive crops of paddy Promoting vegetable farming, especially in the Mali dominated villages arranged in clusters Organizing farmers groups in these villages for facilitating marketing of vegetables

Jawhar

Kalahandi

xx

TASKS IDENTIFIED FOR VARIOUS CENTRES AS PER SWOT MATRIX (CONTINUED)

Centre Bankura Tasks Delineation of watershed covering the operational area and adopting suitable treatment measures for checking soil and water erosion Rapport building with development agencies operating in the field, including panchayat, for convergence of schemes around the interventions in the operational area Adopting suitable measures for water harvesting by taking advantage of available schemes Adopting most appropriate and profitable utilization mechanism of the land and water resources for increasing land productivity Capacity building of project personnel on extension methodology for motivating farmers on control of soil erosion and other options for increased productivity Group mobilization among the vegetable growers for organizing marketing of their produce in the growth centres Developing SHGs for tribal women around lac culture as an income generating option Establishing forward linkage of the SHGs engaged in vegetable farming and other income generating options

xxi

STRENGTHS-WEAKNESSES-OPPORTUNITIES VIS--VIS TASKS FOR THE SFI PROJECT

Strengths: Strong technological back up Organizational mandate in favour of small farmer oriented agricultural development activities in resource poor areas Committed leadership to steer the project Strong monitoring of progress of the project and achievement of results Strong support of quality inputs Weaknesses Over dependent / demanding partners Lack of linkage with relevant development agencies at district / state level Weak extension back up to provide development orientation to the project, beyond technology Lack of vision contributing to model building Opportunities Opening up of new vista for Public-Private Partnership Popularization of Syngenta products (especially seeds) Diversification into emerging areas of development (like production and marketing of organic products) Tasks Addressing production related problems of resource poor areas in a holistic manner through resource generation measures (watershed approach) Organize entrepreneurship development programs for rural youth in resource poor areas in potential options emerging in the post GATT regime Launch single window services (plant health clinic, quality seeds, agro-chemicals, custom hire services for agril. equipment and planting materials etc) supporting agricultural production of numerous farm families, the resource poor in particular Establish linkage with various development agencies through the provisions of relevant centrally assisted schemes in working out the resource generation programs. Graduate the project into a livelihood development one from its present technology orientation by way of integrating into it employment, food security and gender related issues etc. Provide necessary orientation among the project personnel on such paradigm shift from technology to livelihood development, by way of suitably incorporating emerging options. Motivating and building up of capacity among the partner organizations to own the project with a gradual reduction in dependence on SFI.

xxii