Extension stratiges for Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand: Its peculiarity as state

Uttarakhand, known as Uttaranchal from 2000 to 2006, became the 27th state of the Republic of India on November 9, 2000. It is located 77° 34' 27" East to 81° 02' 22" E and 28° 53' 24" North to 31° 27' 50" N. Total geographical area is 51,125 km²  of which, 92.7% is hilly area where as 7.43 falls into category of plains. A portion of 63% area is covered by forest. Uttarakhand borders Tibet (China) to the north and Nepal to the east, while its neighbor's states are Himachal Pradesh to the west and Uttar Pradesh in the south. The region is traditionally referred to as Uttarakhand in Hindu scriptures and old literature, a term which derives from the Sanskrit for Northern Country or Section.The provisional capital of Uttarakhand is Dehra Dun which is also a rail-head and the largest city in the region.

Demography:

Total population =7,050,634
Male: Female = 1000: 976
Rural population - around 76.90%
literacy rate =72%.

Economics

Uttarakhand's gross state domestic product for 2004 is estimated at $6 billion in current prices. Born out of partition of Uttar Pradesh, the new state of Uttarakhand produces about 8% of the output of the old Uttar Pradesh state. Consolidated Finvest and Holdings, a S&P CNX 500 conglomerate has its corporate office in Uttarakhand. It reported a gross income of Rs.137 million for 2005

Geography and Agriculture

            Around 64% of the total area of the Uttarakhand is covered by forests and the area of cultivable land is very less. The state having mostly a high terrain, characterized by small and fragmented land holdings (More than 68% farmers have land holdings less than 1 hac.), rain fed agriculture, sparse population, undulating- terrain, poor means of transportation and communication, women centred agriculture, fragile eco-system, low risk bearing capacity of farmers and poor agriculture productivity.

Agro-ecological zones and farming situations in Uttarakhand

            Uttarakhand state agro-climatically falls under Zone 9 and Zone 14 of nationally described agro-climatic zones. The state is further divided into four sub-zones on the basis of the altitude, aspects, rainfall and soil type. 

Zone	Farming situations (FS)	Altitude	Rainfall	Soil type
A.  Low hill	i.    Tarai, irrigated ii.   Bhabhar, irrigated   iii.  Lower hill irrigated iv.  Lower hills, rainfed	Below 1000 Below 1000   Below 1000 Below 1000	1200-1400 1200-2000   2000-2400 2000-2400	Alluvial Alluvial mixed with boulders and shingles Alluvial sandy Sandy loam
B.  Mid-hills	v.   Mid-hills, rainfed, north aspect vi.  Mid-hills, rainfed, south aspect vii.  Mid-hills, irrigated	1000-1500 1000-1500 1000-1500	800-1300 800-1300 800-1300	Sandy loam Gravelly sandy loam Sandy loam
C.  High hills	viii. High-hills, rainfed, north        aspect outer ix.   High-hills, rainfed, north        aspect inner x.    High-hills, rainfed, south        aspect outer xi.   High-hills, rainfed, south              aspect inner xii.  High-hills, irrigated	1500-2400   1500-2400   1500-2400   1500-2400   1500-2400	1200-1500   1000-2000   1200-1500   1000-2000   1000-2000	Silty clay loam   Deep clay loam   Silty clay loam   Gravelly clay loam   Clay loam
D.  Very high  hills	xiii. Very high-hills north aspect,         rainfed xiv. Very high-hills south aspect,        rainfed	Above 2400   Above 2400	900-1300   900-1300	Dark black clay   Red to dark black clay

Agriculture Extension - The greatest challenge to our society:

The greatest challenges to our society, in the developing world, today are hunger, poverty and peace- the number one millennium goal of the UN. Despite of known as growing economy in the world, the weaker and poor section of our country is still unprivileged. In fact, we have followed a path of skewed development in favour of mainly economic gains vis-à-vis social development. No doubt, we did so well on the economic front in agricultural sector, but for the resource poor farm families - the social dimension of development.

The two-third of the well-to-do farming families benefited from the conventional development efforts, but the one-third remained poor. The gulf between rich and poor, in fact, has increased many-fold: it was 1:30 in 1970s and now it is 1:74, it is reported (ICSSR-2002).As it was observed by  late Shri Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime-Minister of India that "only 18 percent of the total resources earmarked for the rural poor reached them".

The country, after independence, started with rural development programme by establishing Community Development Programme through C.D. blocks (1952). The very next year (1953) the concept of National Extension System (NES) was introduced. Both these systems continued together till the IADP was launched to focus on agricultural development(1960).This was followed by IAAP(1964).then came High Yielding Variety Programme(1965). The T&V programme of World Bank came in 1974 and was terminated in 1995. Presently, the extension is dealt by line departments of different states, Directorate of Extension of different SAUs, and recently originated, ATMA.

Despite of all above efforts, the gap of lab and land is not bridged up and more over, the programmes could not proved to be socio-economically encouraging for the end users i.e. farmers.

By and large, we have developed a uniform extension system and strategies for the country till date, as a whole which favoured the rich, well-to-do farmers or well endowed areas. We also heavily leaned on crops than on horticulture, animal science and fisheries. We did not evoke partnership between public and private institutions for added investments in agricultural extension - infrastructure & programmes. The present extension strategies must differ for different agro-eco systems as well as for the most backward and the poorest districts lately identified by the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for contemporary studies (Debroy & Bhandari, 2003) - 69 districts. The Planning Commission had constituted over a dozen Committees and Task Forces from 1960 to 2003 to identify regions and districts which have suffered deprivations and are poorest of the poor the sake of priority attention which should have been taken note of. Today, its high time to realize that the  extension system should insist on demand driven strategy with adequate focus on training and entrepreneurship development for jobs for millions for rural youth consistent to the millennium goals. Our training strategy should include bringing "training and entrepreneurship development" at par with teaching, research and extension as the fourth basis function of the agricultural institutions: Teaching, Research, Extension and Training.

Presently, when we go for any kind of strategy making exercise for rural development which is to be done through, Extension, we must consider following points:

• Survey for Bench mark - PRA for immediate action; in-depth survey for a long- term goal is must.
• Programme should be developed in a time frame and priorities should be fixed as per requirement of the area.
• Set measurable specific objectives; different levels of objectives if needed.
• A SYSTEMS Approach should be followed. "AMUL MODEL OF DAIRY" can be taken as successful case study. An holistic integrated system mode, A to Z approach should be adopted.

Right from inputs to marketing plus appropriate investments and capital formation with the poor.

• New and innovative approaches like, Watershed, Lab to Land, ATMA, KVK, TTC, Knowledge village, e-Chaupal etc. could be suitably integrated and put in action.
• For landless, resource less and homeless - adopt FELDA Model of Malaysia-well developed land, constructed houses, market centre, community centre- all provided together as a soft loan of half support and half soft loan.( Will be discussed in detail later).

 Recommendations/ Extension Strategies for Extension in Uttrakhand:           

 Following are the recommendations for Uttarakhand:

 As said by our honourable President:

 "Our basic strategy for social and economic transformation of India towards its vision as developed society by 2020, would be a strong focus on providing urban amenities in rural areas in a most creative and cost effective manner."

                                                            - APJ Abdul Kalam, President of India

As adopted in PURA ,  a scheme to enhance physical, knowledge, economic, societal and electronic connectivities, of the rural areas starting with the construction of ring roads to link a loop of villages. The knowledge connectivity to the PURA complexes, village knowledge centre would act as frontline delivery system.

Establishment of village knowledge centres in panchayats to empower the villagers with information on agriculture, weather, fishermen, craftsmen, traders, entrepreneurs, unemployed youth and the students.

Creating following types of connectivity within them

 Road, Transport and Power

• Electronic (IT, Telecom)
• Knowledge (Educational Training Institute)
• Market Connectivity

KVKs, playing a very effective role in TOT, should be more facilitated and strengthened: 

• Extension should be done in participatory mode; progressive farmers should be a part of planning on regular basis.
• HR practices should be improved. Consideration should be given to farmers along with the employees while planning HR practices. Refinement/ assessment and innovation of technologies at KVKs is taking place and should be encouraged. ITKs should be collected, validated scientifically and popularized. Grass root Innovation Augmentation Foundation (north) (GIAN), a registered society is working in this area very actively in northern state. Such society can be developed here too.

Agro-based industries' should be encouraged

3.   Organic farming & value addition:  

• 4. Self Help Group (SHG) has emerged as a formidable design to organize the needy-the poorer sections of the society especially the rural or urban women through thrifts and credits.This is a most successful design for helping rural women empower themselves both socially and economically. This approach is equally relevant for youth or adults all alike. In agricultural sector, SHG has not been taken as a policy and design as yet; this should be done for the sustained extension efforts particularly for the poor farm families.

6.         The WADI Programme is being promoted by BAIF Development Research Foundation (Pune) as a major holistic project for the socio-economic rehabilitation of the tribal and other background sections of the society in South Gujarat. After working for sometimes, this WADI (orchard) model, which combines improvement of human resources and ecosystems came up. This model has been successful in 300 villages comprising 25000 families. This is being promoted in Maharastra and Rajasthan now.

 7.         Watershed approach to Rainfed Agriculture: An outstanding model for rainfed farming where is in short supply. It has been demonstrated sufficiently at group or community level, but in order to be harvesting its results it must be adopted at the individual farm as well as on collective farming basis wherever possible. For the poor, however, the development strategy must give an initial booster support, a seed resource to make a humble start, to be gradually multiplied. The rich resource farmers need only the knowledge and information support and connectivity to higher sources of S &T- research institutes, SAUs, KVKs and so on.

 8.         The chain should start from agricultural research institutions and laboratories to help farmers in scientific cultivation particularly to produce quality raw material for specific end-use, proper post-harvest management, storage, transportation and marketing. There is also need for application of more and more mechanization and automation in post-harvest management and processing operations; utilization of agri-wastes generated during on-farm processing, agro-industrial systems development and bio-process technology for conversion of raw agricultural produce to useful products.

9.         We should focus on few selected commodities where (i) we have abundant production and consequently the storage problems, (ii) technologies for processing and/or value addition are available readily or can be generated with little modification on existing ones and (iii) national or international demand for such products exists. 

10. Intermediaries in the food chain lock value and add to cost of the raw materials sometimes by even 80 to 100 percent. Effective linkages need to be built between farmers and processors.

 11. Model of the Town and Village Enterprises (TVEs) of China is excellent for involving surplus rural labour in industrial activity by providing them alternative work at their doorstep. This should be adopted with suitable modifications, for primary processing of the agricultural produce and effectively linked to urban units for secondary processing, product development and marketing

 12. In order to make agribusiness a profitable venture it is necessary to have a holistic approach to various activities inherent to it. In order to release the true potential it is necessary to establish efficient linkages between storage and marketing. In addition to providing sufficient storage capacity, it is also necessary to introduce a sound marketing system so as to minimize losses. The panchayats can help to develop the linkages. In addition to formation of linkages, through panchayats, self help groups (SHG) can help to extend micro finance as viable tool for extending credit to the poor farmers which in turn will help in risk management arrangements as a measure to improve profitability. Through involvement of panchayats, cold storages can be constructed on community basis. Panchayats can play role in organizing awareness camps through imparting trainings on value addition aspects.

 13. There should be proper banking support and they should help in developing the techno-economic project profiles. Specified credit facility should be provided to the farmers and their co-operatives, particularly for value added product based project. First loss risk cover should be provided to these farmer- entrepreneurs's.

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