It is a discussion on up scaling the agriculture in India.

1. Incentivization of Agricultural Technology Transfer for Increasing Income in Rural Areas
Dr R P Singh, Professor Extension Education
G B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand , India
In the post- green revolution era, there is a qualitative change in the situation and the
food security has been achieved. Alternative poverty alleviation programmes have been put
into operation to reduce the rural inequalities. However, the emergence of break- through
technologies has ceased to evolve, for the past several years. The ‘Technology push’, so
dominant a factor in the early 21st century is no more a consideration at present. As a result,
the role assigned to the extension system as the ‘handmaid of research’ does not appear to be
purposeful, any more. In ft, the context in which extension has been operating has changed in
many ways. As experience has indicated, the extension service runs into difficulties whenever it
becomes stagnant and gets ritualized losing its dynamism in dealing with the regional and
temporal variations or challenges posed by a developing agriculture.
Extension reforms was a major intervention in overhauling the extension system for making it
‘Farmer driven and Farmer accountable’ through process and institutional reforms mechanism in
the form of ‘Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA)’ at district level. In addition to
‘Support to State Extension Programmes for extension Reforms, the Department of Agriculture &
Cooperation (DAC) has initiated number of schemes to revitalize the agricultural extension system
in the country, duly incorporating the elements needed for reforms. But, there are several
problems in the agricultural sector of the country primarily related to agricultural productivity,
farmers knowledge and skills, adaptability and uses of new technologies etc. the low technology
penetration and lack of modern agricultural practices along with the low penetration of the
agricultural value chain system has stunted the market connectivity in the agricultural ecosystem of
India. Farmers lack access to new technologies, modern farming equipment and quality knowledge
input based on scientific data. Connectivity to markets is big issue as well.
In present, the Modi govt. is giving subsidies to the farmers directly to their account in the
term of money. The agricultural and allied sectors in India have grown at an annual growth rate
of nearly 2.9 per cent from 2014-15 to 2018-19. Food inflation based on consumer food price
index, maintaining its declining trend, has remained below 2 per cent for the last two
consecutive years. The Interim Budget announced Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-
Kisan) to provide Rs 6,000 in income support to 12.6 crore small and ma rginal farmers. The
economic survey cautioned difficulties in expanding sources of funds for schemes such as PM-
KISAN without compromising on the fiscal deficit target as per the revised glide path of 3 per
cent of GDP by 2020-21 (Source: Union Budget 2019 published in Busssiness Today). The
fertilizer response ratio has been declining over time. It was expected that the allocation
towards fertilizers would remain unchanged or even decrease. The government was expected
to increase the Minimum Support Price (MSP), fixed at 50 per cent more than the cost, for 22
crops in the interim budget, further. This would have led to slighter higher inflation.

2. In the Union Budget, the allocation for the Ministry of Agriculture is Rs 1,30,485 crore and
fertiliser subsidy is Rs 79,996 crore for the year 2019-20. The budgetary estimate for the
Agriculture Ministry for 2019-20 is 140 per cent higher than that for 2018-19 at Rs 57,600 crore,
primarily due to Rs 75,000 crore allocations to PM-Kisan. While fertilizer subsidy allocation
increased from Rs 70,090 crore to Rs 79,996 crore, innovative pilots of 'zero budget farming'
will be replicated across the country to reduce fertilizer dependency. The newly carved out
Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying have been allocated Rs 3,737 crore. Of
this, Rs 805 crore has been allocated to Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) to
address critical gaps in the value chain, including infrastructure, modernization, traceability,
production, productivity, post-harvest management and quality control.
The agriculture sector is facing problems on man power front. The labour wages are
costly and not matching with cost-benefit ratio. The women worker has increased who are
illiterate and unskilled. Government is focusing on gender mainstreaming but it is not effective.
Another problem is the holding of small and marginal farmers, who comprises major portion of
farmers are shrinking day by day and it is not paying to their livelihoods therefore, small and
marginal farmers are inclined towards wages in nearby towns (Report on formulation of action
plan of K V K, Dehradun-by R P Singh). They are reluctant with their own farming.
Mechanization of agriculture requires big investments which are not available and if available
then they are lacking skill and knowledge. Now problem is how to maintain productivity of land
for national food security as well as rural households economically secure. In the villages, youth
is hopeless with agriculture and desperate to migrate from rural to urban areas. Therefore, the
villages are having old women and men along with fewer youth who are forced to live without
enthuse.
To cope up above situation, we have two operational models which provide solutions
for further advancement. First is up scaling of land for mechanization of agriculture on the
model of Europeans and Americans and second is being practices in Republican of china.
China’s initiatives about making agriculture more profitable is also depends on up scaling of
land but it is more practical and suitable for our situation. As we know that the population
density of both countries and land holdings of farmers are similar. So, the up scaling of land for
agriculture is the prime factor which needs focus to revisit. In fact, with the ‘Freedom
Movement of India’ another movement was initiated ‘Bhoodan Yagya’ by ‘Sri Vinova Bhawe ji’
to consolidate land but it has forgotten with the time. Today, again a movement is needed to
save the agriculture of India. If we could see the official data of the country, there are more
than 60 percent of people falls under farmers category. This is not healthy situation. In all the
developed country, the farmers community shares lass than 10 percent and the share in GDP is
less than 20 percent. In India, agriculture shares less than 13 percent in GDP with the annual
growth rate 2.9 percent. Therefore, share of farmers in the population must be decreased and
in my opinion it is decreasing through migration and shifting from their previous occupation.
Mechenizations requires more investments, big land holdings, automated modern
technologies for precision farming and highly expertise skilled manpower. It will provide quality
produce and bi-products which can suffice the global market needs. It is brutal truth that most
of the real farmers are farm workers are illiterate and unskilled along with having marginal and
small holdings and not able to invest on mechanization of their farms. Government has no huge
investment for modernize agriculture of the country. Therefore we have second option the

3. China Model which could be exercised in our country. In this model, we have to plan in time
frame with new model of Up Scaling of land and promoting ‘Village Agribusiness System’ in
villages. The village will be treated as economic unit. The focus will be shifted from livelihood to
agribusiness. Government policies will be changed from subsidy to investment and incentive
and village niche based agribusiness development for e.g. One agricultural enterprise will be
main for the village or cluster of the villages which would be ‘Unique Selling Point’ of the village
or cluster of villages. Investment from the Private partners or Government organizations will be
in rural people’s skills development in areas of agribusiness focus. The highly qualified and
trained leader will be elected by the villagers and appointed by the government for fixed time
period. The leader will join the group and their task will be increase economic returns to
farmers in the group to ensure re-election. There are several examples available on webs and
youtubes.
Lessons we can extract from this discussion that to eliminate the problem of rural
poverty because of small family farming, companizing the farm sector with the help of
‘Converting Land Resource in to Capital,’ ‘Local Resources as Cash resource’, and ‘Generate
capital for investment’. It is Chinese sayings that “Generating Blood rather than Giving Blood”. It
is necessary to the government to provide enabling policy and investment environment to
facilitate village farmers organize themselves as an economic unit of any form-suitable to them.
Provide financial support from the government named as incentive for the village not the
subsidy to each and every farmers of the village. It should be in the mode of ‘Blood transfusion’
leading to ‘Blood Generation’. Government should facilitate infrastructure development for
‘Producer to Consumer value Chain System.