Technology Delivery - M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation
Technology Delivery - M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation
Technology Delivery - M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation
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M.S. <strong>Swaminathan</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong><br />
Chennai - 600113<br />
Department of Science and <strong>Technology</strong><br />
Government of India, New Delhi<br />
Gender, Equity and Rural Employment Division<br />
Food and Agriculture Organisation<br />
Regional Office for Asia-Pacific, Bangkok<br />
State Bank of India, Chennai<br />
M.S. <strong>Swaminathan</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong><br />
3 rd Cross Street, Taramani Institutional Area<br />
Chennai – 600113, INDIA<br />
Tel: +91-44-2254 2698/2254 2699<br />
Fax: +91-44-2254 1319<br />
Email: executivedirector@mssrf.res.in<br />
Web: www.mssrf.org<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> Development and<br />
<strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
Mushroom Production<br />
Trichoderma Production<br />
Silk Reeling<br />
Paper & Paper Boards<br />
Crab Fattening<br />
Trichogramma Production<br />
Leaf Stitching<br />
M.S. <strong>Swaminathan</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong><br />
Pseudomonas Production<br />
Value Addition of Tamarind<br />
Integrated Farms<br />
Biofertilizer Production
Self Help Group Members nurtured by MSSRF in handling<br />
different Income Generating Activities<br />
ARTI’s Household Energy Technologies<br />
(See text in page 69-71)<br />
Improved Laxmi Stove Sampada Gasifier Stove Vivek Sawdust Stove<br />
Sarai Cooking System ARTI Biogas System<br />
Charcoaling <strong>Technology</strong> – Rural<br />
Charcoaling <strong>Technology</strong> – Urban
<strong>Technology</strong> Development and<br />
<strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
M.S. <strong>Swaminathan</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong>
MSSRF/PR/08/67<br />
Editors:<br />
Dr. Sudha Nair<br />
Ms. Nandhini Iyengar<br />
M.S. <strong>Swaminathan</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong><br />
3 rd Cross Street, Taramani Institutional Area<br />
Chennai – 600113, INDIA<br />
Tel: +91-44-2254 2698/2254 2699<br />
Fax: +91-44-2254 1319<br />
Email: executivedirector@mssrf.res.in<br />
Web: www.mssrf.org<br />
Designed and Printed by AMM Prints
Contents<br />
Preface 5<br />
Inaugural Remarks 9<br />
Technical Papers<br />
Role of the State in the Technological Development of Indian Agriculture<br />
Dr. R. Rukmani 21<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong>: The Precision Farming Experience of TNAU in<br />
selected districts of Tamil Nadu<br />
Dr. C. Ramasamy 32<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> to Cotton Farmers in Vidarbha Region of<br />
Maharashtra<br />
Mr. Atul Sharma 42<br />
Development Efforts and <strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> – Extent of Inclusiveness<br />
Dr. P. S. Geethakutty 47<br />
Approach to Rural Development “Economy Decentralization”<br />
Dr. Anil Joshi 51<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> System - a Hub and Spoke Model - a case study in<br />
Sunderbans, West Bengal<br />
Dr. Ramalakshmi Datta & Dr. B. K. Datta 59<br />
Enhancing Livelihood Security through Capacity Building for Organic<br />
Farming.<br />
Dr. K. Vijayalakshmi and Dr. A. V. Balasubramanian 63<br />
Renewable Energy: Balancing Livelihood and Environmental<br />
Sustainability<br />
Dr. A. D. Karve & Dr. Priyadarshini Karve 69<br />
Water Security and Livelihood Security<br />
Mr. Jurgen Putz 75<br />
Approaches for Health Security in Rural India<br />
Dr. Nerges Mistry 82<br />
Social Milieu for <strong>Technology</strong> Transfer: An Asian Perspective<br />
Dr. Revathi Balakrishnan 89
Gender and Social inclusion for sustainable livelihoods: Insights from<br />
the case studies an Overview<br />
Ms. Mina <strong>Swaminathan</strong> 99<br />
Women, Work and <strong>Technology</strong>A View through a Socio-Economic<br />
and Gender Framework<br />
Ms. C. P. Sujaya 110<br />
Public Policies Required for Promoting Socio-economic and<br />
Environmental Sustainability<br />
Dr. Narayan G. Hegde 130<br />
NABARD’s support to <strong>Technology</strong> Development and Distribution<br />
A. Ramanathan 136<br />
Financial Services for Promoting <strong>Technology</strong> Adoption<br />
Ms. Vasumathi 145<br />
Guiding Principles for Socially Inclusive <strong>Technology</strong> Development<br />
and <strong>Delivery</strong> - Recommendations from the Deliberations 159<br />
List of Participants 163<br />
List of Acronyms 167
Preface<br />
Knowledge and innovation are key drivers of the Indian economy. Today India has<br />
positioned itself as a leader in the global scientific community in various fields. In the<br />
home front, the Indian vision was one of science and technology-driven development<br />
for improving living levels of the people. Since independence, the Indian government<br />
has made significant investment, to utilize science and technology to improve<br />
agriculture and rural livelihoods. India’s standing as a dominant actor in the global<br />
economy symbolizes the outcome of its investment in science and technology. India<br />
is also a country with a large population and a sizeable proportion of the population<br />
lives and works in rural areas. A rural-urban development divide presents challenges<br />
to achieve the goal of growth with equity. With a commitment to erase rural disparity<br />
and meet the growing aspirations of the rural population, the country faces the task<br />
of exploiting technology to improve rural livelihoods. Furthermore, competition in the<br />
global economy demands a paradigm for development that advances the knowledge<br />
of the rural communities to augment their livelihood with optimal application of<br />
technology. It is no longer an issue of rural lag in achievement, but the absence of<br />
the right technology among rural producers, with important implications for economic<br />
growth.<br />
The global consensus for closing the development gap resulted in Millennium<br />
Development Goals that present targets for 2015. In the context of the important goals<br />
to be addressed are eradicating hunger and poverty, pressuring the environment,<br />
enhancing education and using science and technology for development and<br />
partnership. It is being increasingly recognized that science and technology could<br />
be a pathway to achieve sustained growth as well as to bridge the development<br />
achievement divide. In India recent national initiatives to renew and reenergize<br />
investment in knowledge systems and institutions of learning demonstrate the national<br />
commitment to endow people with knowledge and information.<br />
Within the broad canvas of the national agenda for knowledge empowerment for<br />
development, a critical aspect is science and technology for rural livelihood. The<br />
11 th five year Plan (2007-2012) is considering setting up “Rural <strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong><br />
Centres” and also proposing to take up a programme on “Science and <strong>Technology</strong> for<br />
Rural Industrialization, Development and Employment” (STRIDE).<br />
The investment in research and development at the national level should form the<br />
basis to generate innovations acceptable and adoptable among people. Scientific<br />
products become innovations that bear economic benefits for rural people. Such<br />
an agenda would require that the scientific community acknowledges that science<br />
5
and technology become innovations that transform rural livelihoods only when people<br />
adopt and apply them in their productive endeavors.<br />
The conceptualization of technologies for sustainable livelihood should incorporate the<br />
dual objectives of a sustainable natural resource base for rural livelihood and sustained<br />
access to household resources to guarantee economic, food and health security.<br />
Hence, the rural people’s social and economic realities should shape technology<br />
development, transfer modalities and technology service support processes. The<br />
technology policies and programmes for improving rural livelihoods should assess the<br />
relevance of technologies to achieve these dual purposes. The assumption that the<br />
current technologies on the shelf or in the making would automatically cater to the felt<br />
needs of the rural communities may have to be examined. Effectiveness of traditional<br />
and emerging modalities for technology delivery to reach diverse social groups to<br />
reap the benefits of innovations on equitable terms should be evaluated.<br />
A broader perspective of the technology system would incorporate technology<br />
development, technology transfer modalities, technology service packages and<br />
policies and programmes for technology development, delivery and adoption. The<br />
stakeholders would include of all actors involved in these processes within the<br />
technology system. The convergence of purpose on employing technologies for the<br />
advancement of rural livelihoods would be to design an inclusive technology system<br />
that is responsive to the felt needs and adoption constraints of all social groups in<br />
rural communities.<br />
A national consultation on “<strong>Technology</strong> Development and <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for<br />
Sustainable Livelihoods,” was organized to explore the four facets of the inclusive<br />
technology system identified as technology development that is responsive to diverse<br />
rural clients, technology transfer modalities, technology service processes that<br />
transcend social inequities and policies and programmes for inclusive technology<br />
development, delivery and adoption. The inclusive perspective examined the social<br />
and economic inequities that perpetuate technology divide in rural communities.<br />
The partnership considerations explored the multi-sector partnerships to improve<br />
technology development and outreach among rural households. The consultation<br />
generated recommendations to the policy makers, technology development and<br />
transfer organizations, and other stakeholders to help the pathways of the multi-sector<br />
stakeholders to refine and reform technology development and delivery modalities to<br />
improve rural livelihoods.<br />
We express our sincere thanks to the Department of Science and <strong>Technology</strong>, Govt of<br />
India, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific<br />
at Bangkok and State Bank of India, Chennai, for having supported us to organize<br />
the National Consultation on <strong>Technology</strong> Development and <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for<br />
6
Sustainable Livelihoods and bring this compendium of lead papers as a publication.<br />
We also express our deep sense of gratitude to all the contributors and the persons<br />
who participated in the Consultation.<br />
I would like to thank my colleagues Dr. Sudha Nair, Director, J. R. D. Tata Ecotechnology<br />
Centre, and Ms. R. V. Bhavani, Director Incharge, Food Security Studies, for ably<br />
organizing the Consultation.<br />
Achyut M. Gokhale<br />
Executive Director<br />
April 2008 M. S. <strong>Swaminathan</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong><br />
Chennai<br />
7
Inaugural Remarks
Prof. M. S. <strong>Swaminathan</strong><br />
Chairman, M. S. <strong>Swaminathan</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong><br />
3rd Cross Road, Taramani Institutional Area<br />
Chennai - 600 113<br />
Email: swami@mssrf.res.in<br />
Inaugural Remarks<br />
I take pleasure in welcoming all the distinguished participants to this national consultation<br />
on technology development and delivery models for sustainable livelihoods.<br />
This consultation, co-sponsored by Department of Science and <strong>Technology</strong> (DST)<br />
Government of India, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Bangkok and State<br />
Bank of India, is a timely one because all over the country there is a discussion on<br />
how to incorporate the concept of inclusion in every sphere of activity, in gender and<br />
social terms.<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> has always been the prime mode of change. Take for example, the cell<br />
phone. It has changed the life of everyone and it is difficult to imagine living without a<br />
cell phone now. So we see that technology is an agent of change, but how to use that<br />
change for the betterment of the quality of life is the challenge.<br />
Let me say a few words about sustainable livelihoods. At the time of independence,<br />
the population in our country was 350 million, of whom 75 % were dependent on<br />
agriculture for their livelihood. Now, 60 years later, the population is 1.1 billion and<br />
many of them are still dependent on agriculture. One of our main difficulties in<br />
poverty eradication is that we have not been able to diversify livelihood opportunities<br />
in villages.<br />
In terms of economic roles, there are 3 sectors. The primary role is that of agriculture,<br />
the secondary role, that of processing and manufacture and the tertiary is the service<br />
sector. In most advanced countries, the majority of the people belong to the tertiary<br />
sector, but that is not the case in our country. Some of our neighbouring countries like<br />
Thailand have been able to bring about a major diversification of livelihood opportunities.<br />
We see, therefore, that one of the requirements for sustainable livelihoods is a multiple<br />
channel of income, especially in the agricultural sector.<br />
Agriculture is applied ecology, based on land, water and biodiversity. Therefore, the<br />
conservation of natural resources and their enhancement becomes very important<br />
for sustainable livelihood. When you want to increase people’s income, you have<br />
to increase the economic value of every hour of their time. This is the challenge for<br />
technology – it must be socially inclusive.<br />
In the case of information technology, we have been trying in our <strong>Foundation</strong>¹, from the<br />
beginning, to reach the unreached, because social inclusion must be the bottom line<br />
in the use of ICT in rural development. We have Village Knowledge Centres or Gyan<br />
¹ http://www.mssrf.org<br />
11
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
Chaupals as they are called. It has now become a national movement. Knowledge<br />
empowerment is very important and timely in terms of disaster management and<br />
livelihood information, market information and market access.<br />
In the case of agriculture, we have been experimenting with a number of methods of<br />
technology delivery, to reach the poorest farmers. We have insisted on training and<br />
learning by doing. The next was lab to land and land to lab linking, which is a very<br />
effective method of getting technology quickly into the field. Then came to farmer-tofarmer<br />
or land-to-land learning, which has a high degree of credibility.<br />
It is very important to ensure social inclusion in technology development because<br />
otherwise it could become another source of division. We should develop a method<br />
by which we can ensure that the divides are ended and technology becomes a great<br />
source for unifying society and empowering every individual, especially those who are<br />
socially and economically underprivileged.<br />
I welcome you all once again and thank the sponsors for arranging this timely<br />
consultation.<br />
12
Dr. T. Ramasami<br />
Secretary, Ministry of Science and <strong>Technology</strong><br />
Department of Science & <strong>Technology</strong>, <strong>Technology</strong> Bhavan<br />
New Mehrauli Road, New Delhi - 110 016<br />
Email: dstsec@nic.in<br />
Inaugural Remarks<br />
Good morning to all of you. I thank the organizers for giving me this opportunity to be<br />
here; inclusion in this case includes me as well.<br />
As mentioned by Dr. <strong>Swaminathan</strong>, the role of technology, especially in bridging the<br />
social divide, has been a subject for discussion and one I am conversant with. If we<br />
look at the endowment garden, nature seems to have favoured rural communities in<br />
developing economies, in the form of land, water, air and livestock. But manmade<br />
facilities and infrastructure, built and aided by technology, seem to favour urban<br />
communities. Is it the defect of technology or the technologist who designed it?<br />
A scientist always looks for interesting problems to be solved. But the people are not<br />
looking for problems, they are looking for solutions. The approach, therefore, should<br />
be to connect these two. Of late, technology seems to have undergone a change in<br />
mindset and is loaded in favour of economy of scale; more and more money is added<br />
into the tools of technology utilization. We have to concentrate rather on technology of<br />
numbers – that which can be used by the maximum number of people.<br />
For this, I recommend the 4 D’s. The first is the design of technology, which provides a<br />
viable solution for problems faced by many. It should be of a size and investment that<br />
can be afforded by underprivileged social groups to be socially inclusive.<br />
The next is development, in the context in which it is to be applied. We have many<br />
designs but they are not of the right size to be of use to the groups who need them.<br />
So technology must be developed and modified to suit the social context in which it<br />
will be used.<br />
Then there is the question of delivery. The technology has to reach the right people at<br />
the right time to be effective and useful. There are many instances when this has not<br />
happened and all the effort and expense has been a waste.<br />
What will catalyse and spread the adoption of the technology is the dramatic effect<br />
it produces. There was an instance of an age-old method being used which resulted<br />
in poor yield, low quality and long process. But the scientists who were sent to rectify<br />
the situation said they could not do anything. They were told to live with the people<br />
and study the system. Slowly they established a rapport with the people and made<br />
them accept the new ideas and technologies which reduced the time and increased<br />
the yield. These dramatic results made it possible to introduce new technology where<br />
there had originally been indifference and apathy.<br />
13
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
When we discuss a programme or technology for sustainable livelihood, we have to<br />
think of a chain from end to end. Otherwise the problem cannot be solved. The 4Ds<br />
of design, development, delivery, and especially dramatic effect are necessary to fill<br />
the gap that is seen and felt. In this context, the Department of S & T is morally bound<br />
to participate in the process of technology delivery.<br />
We are in the process of setting up a foundation-like structure which will bring scientists<br />
to address social problems of high magnitude and provide the science-society linkage<br />
to solve problems.<br />
I am very grateful the MSSRF for giving me this opportunity to participate in this<br />
process and look forward to the recommendations emerging from this consultation<br />
process for the Department to act upon.<br />
14
Mr. He Changchui<br />
Assistant Director-General and<br />
Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific<br />
Inaugural Remarks<br />
Distinguished participants, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to<br />
welcome you all on behalf of FAO as well as on my own personal behalf to this<br />
national consultation jointly organized by the Department of Science and <strong>Technology</strong>,<br />
Government of India, the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, the<br />
M.S.<strong>Swaminathan</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong> and the State Bank of India. The theme<br />
of this national consultation – <strong>Technology</strong> Development and <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for<br />
Sustainable Livelihood – brings forth the commitment of all the collaborating agencies<br />
to employ technology to improving the living conditions of all people. We are pleased<br />
to collaborate with key Indian national government and NGO agencies that promote<br />
technologies for improving the lives of people in all walks of life.<br />
I congratulate the organisers for focusing on a theme that is both timely and important<br />
as Indian economy is in transformation and positions itself as an important power in<br />
global technological partnerships. The focus of the consultation demonstrates that<br />
while Indian technological outreach is global and ushers prosperity for a segment of the<br />
population, it also is crucial not to ignore the technology needs of rural communities.<br />
The consultation I believe acknowledges the social reality that technology driven<br />
prosperity should be shared equitably, and science and technology should be a driving<br />
force in the local economy as it is in the global economy.<br />
The history of India’s agriculture development is marked by many innovative approaches<br />
to provide technologies to rural communities as well as to mobilise rural communities to<br />
absorb technologies and innovative interventions. Achievements were made possible<br />
by the contribution of diverse stakeholders such as Government ministries, agriculture<br />
research systems, national extension systems, national financial institutions, the<br />
private sector and civil society. Hence, the present consultation programme illustrates<br />
the rich and long experience of diverse development professionals in promoting<br />
technology and development intervention support to rural communities. For this<br />
reason, I am sure that the presentations and deliberations will be productive and<br />
pragmatic in approach to improve technology development and delivery to achieve<br />
sustainable livelihoods. The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization as the<br />
focal technology agency for food security and rural development in the UN system<br />
is very interested in learning about the outcome of this consultation: <strong>Technology</strong> and<br />
sustainable livelihoods<br />
As a knowledge organization, FAO contributes to capacity building or, to quote from<br />
Prof. Amartya Sen, “on the actual opportunities of living”, indeed on various attainments<br />
in human living like being well-nourished, avoiding premature mortality and taking part<br />
in the life of the community.<br />
15
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
Even though the identification of poverty just with lowness of income is a wellestablished<br />
tradition, FAO firmly advocates that technology development for improved<br />
livelihoods should, first and foremost, concentrate on the deprived lives that some<br />
people are forced to live and – by extension – concentrate our understanding of<br />
social inequality in the light of the diversity of capabilities that different people and<br />
communities enjoy.<br />
<strong>Technology</strong>, to a large extent, offers the actual ability to live different kinds of lives that<br />
a person or community has reason to value. <strong>Technology</strong> development is thus oriented<br />
towards freedoms and opportunities, and incorporates particularly important features<br />
for the making of public policies and its insistence on public discussion and interactive<br />
public reasoning.<br />
We hope that guided by these key objectives the consultation will promote collaborative<br />
partnerships among diverse group of stakeholders across the technology system<br />
from technology development to adoption. We are pleased that regional country<br />
representatives are attending the consultation and thus are optimistic that a regional<br />
network for improving technology with equity would emerge from the meeting.<br />
I wish you all productive deliberations and a fruitful outcome during the consultation as<br />
well as strengthening regional interactions on technology for sustainable livelihoods.<br />
Be assured that FAO would be pleased to be a reliable partner in such efforts.<br />
Again thank you all for your participation and cooperation with FAO to promote<br />
technologies for sustainable livelihoods.<br />
16
Dr. R. Chidambaram<br />
Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India<br />
Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India,<br />
Vigyan Bhavan Annexe, Maulana Azad Road, New Delhi 110 011<br />
Email: rajachid@nic.in<br />
Inaugural Remarks<br />
I am grateful to the organizers for inviting me to participate in this National<br />
Consultation.<br />
My work has been more in the field of nuclear science, but recently I have become<br />
interested in rural development. Professor <strong>Swaminathan</strong> said that technology is at the<br />
core of development. It has been said that yesterday violence was power, today wealth<br />
is power and tomorrow knowledge will be power. But already, knowledge is becoming<br />
the source of power. When we say knowledge, we are talking of information technology,<br />
biotechnology, nano technology and the convergence of these technologies. Because<br />
technology is power, countries and companies try to control technology and impose<br />
intellectual property rights.<br />
On the other hand, there is today a strong movement toward open access to knowledge,<br />
which can help the poor and vulnerable sections of society. Any advance in science<br />
must be important to science or society. A scientist is interested in natural phenomena<br />
and how nature works. But knowledge should be related to society. Therefore, the<br />
paradigm of basic research, applied research and technology has changed. It may<br />
be called directed basic research. You have to allow the highest intellects to work<br />
on fundamental problems; you can’t direct the research of a Ramanujan or a Raman.<br />
But there are areas in the long-term interest of society that have to be considered.<br />
The interest of industry is short-sighted in that it invests in only those areas which<br />
bring quick returns to the stakeholders and shareholders. So basic research in the<br />
interest of society must be supported substantially by the government.<br />
The government must act on the principle of technology foresight and invest in areas<br />
which are likely to benefit a large section of society. Directed basic research must<br />
have a national perspective in the long-term interest of society. There must then be<br />
pre-competitive applied research with a focus on industry and generic problems of<br />
industry, controlled by the core group of R & D. We have to look at problems in a<br />
consortia mode, where the academic and industrial communities are involved.<br />
The steps in the process of development, therefore, are directed basic research, precompetitive<br />
applied research and proprietary product development. When there is a<br />
partnership between science and industry, we need some interfaces. Scientists in the<br />
laboratory are not the best people for grassroot intervention. For that we need ‘people<br />
scientists’, like Anil Joshi, who can take the advances in science to the common man.<br />
There is a chain of research and delivery which stretches from the laboratory to<br />
society with the help of industry. The greatest problem here is delivery. The solutions<br />
17
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
that have been developed do not reach the people. To do this, we need the interface<br />
of people who are familiar with the problems of rural India, who are trusted by the<br />
people and whose advice will be accepted.<br />
Dr. <strong>Swaminathan</strong> has achieved much in this area through self-help groups and micro<br />
credit. Whether technology is used for rural or industrial development, it must employ<br />
technology foresight, which is different from technology forecast. It adds to the forecast<br />
of considering the possible advantages of any technology, an assessment of social,<br />
economic and environmental considerations. So we are able to say, as in the case of<br />
fast breeder reactors, that it is technology which is not merely good, but technology<br />
that is important for India.<br />
How do we measure the progress of science and technology in a country? Not merely<br />
by the number of research publications, not even by the number of patents, though<br />
they are important, but by the application of the technology on the shelf to improving<br />
the productivity, stability and sustainability of the prevalent farming system. A telling<br />
example of this is the use of power from streams to run mills for grinding flour in the<br />
hill regions.<br />
There should be an appropriate technology-driven delivery system and related public<br />
policy, which is what we are discussing in this meeting. We have to focus on downsizing<br />
technology which is already being used in industry to apply it in rural areas, without<br />
losing the advantage of economy. I have tried to do this in my official capacity. I call it<br />
rural technology delivery. The scientist cannot take his invention to rural communities,<br />
but his work must benefit them, so we need the interface of government or a voluntary<br />
organization. Essentially, it is a synergizing or catalyzing mechanism.<br />
There is also the question of global climate change. Global warming has already<br />
started and the government has set up committees to look at mitigating technologies<br />
because developing countries like ours cannot afford to compromise on progress.<br />
So in the 11 th plan we will look at all the aspects of science and technology, especially<br />
possibilities for progress and implementation of technology for the benefit of society.<br />
We will concentrate on rural technology delivery. Five centres for rural technology<br />
delivery are to be set up for this purpose.<br />
To conclude, I would like to repeat that my idea of a developed India is improvement in<br />
the quality of life in our rural areas. This cannot happen without effective mechanisms<br />
for rural technology delivery. This is what we have to work for.<br />
18
Technical Papers
Role of the State in the Technological Development<br />
of Indian Agriculture<br />
Dr. R. Rukmani<br />
Principal Coordinator, M. S. <strong>Swaminathan</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong><br />
3rd Cross Road, Taramani Institutional Area, Chennai - 600 113<br />
Email: rukmani@mssrf.res.in<br />
Technical Papers<br />
This paper is an attempt at exploring the role played by the Indian state in the<br />
agricultural development of the country. A large number of steps have been taken by<br />
the Government of India to promote agricultural growth to achieve self sufficiency in<br />
food grain production and reduce the country’s dependence on food grain imports.<br />
Several strategies were adopted by the state to modernize the agricultural production<br />
system in the country. While agricultural production and productivity in the country<br />
has increased since the 1950s, there has been a slowing down in agricultural growth<br />
from the 1990s and agriculture is in a severe crisis today. While the policies pursued<br />
by the Indian state were responsible for promoting agricultural growth in the first four<br />
decades since Independence, the neo-liberal policies followed since the early 1990s<br />
has contributed greatly to the current agrarian crisis in the Indian economy.<br />
This paper is organized in two sections: section 1 discusses the major developments<br />
in agricultural production, with specific reference to technological progress since the<br />
early 1950s and the positive contribution of the state in aiding this growth process while<br />
section 2 highlights the state’s contribution to the current agrarian crisis. The paper<br />
attempts to bring out the importance of the role played by the state in determining the<br />
agricultural growth pattern of the country.<br />
1. Major Developments in Agricultural Production in India<br />
Adoption of modern technology in crop cultivation has been a very important feature<br />
of agricultural development in the post Independence period in India. At the time of<br />
Independence, productivity in agriculture was very low and India faced severe food<br />
shortages. The planning process in Independent India laid emphasis on development<br />
of agriculture and on increasing food production in the country. The First Five<br />
Year Plan laid out 31 % of its total outlay for agriculture and irrigation leading to<br />
significant investments in major and minor irrigation works as well as reclamation and<br />
development of new land for cultivation (Chandra, 2000)¹. During the third Five Year<br />
Plan, the agricultural strategy focused on intensive development of specific areas<br />
through package programmes such as the Intensive Agricultural Area Programme<br />
and Intensive Agricultural District Programme. Agricultural output over the period<br />
1949 to 1965 grew at the rate of 3 % per annum and the growth was primarily through<br />
an expansion in area under cultivation and irrigation. During the mid 1960s, in order<br />
¹ Chandra, Bipan., Mridula Mukherjee and Aditya Mukherjee. 2000. India After Independence: 1947-2000. New Delhi: Penguin<br />
Books<br />
21
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
to achieve self-sufficiency in foodgrains, the Government of India decided to spread<br />
the cultivation of semi-dwarf, High Yielding Varieties (HYV) of wheat and paddy,<br />
based on germplasm received from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement<br />
Centre (CIMMYT), Mexico, and the International Rice <strong>Research</strong> Institute (IRRI), the<br />
Philippines, (<strong>Swaminathan</strong>, 1993)² The propagation of High Yielding Varieties was<br />
taken up as a full fledged programme from 1966 onwards.<br />
The importance given to seed as the focal point of the modern agricultural strategy<br />
of India, necessitated the expansion and strengthening of the agricultural research<br />
system in the country. The National Agricultural <strong>Research</strong> System (NARS) in India<br />
functions in two tiers, one at the central level and another across different States.<br />
At the central level, the Indian Council of Agricultural <strong>Research</strong> (ICAR) is the apex<br />
body responsible for the organisation and management of research and education<br />
in all disciplines of agricultural sciences³. At the other level, the State Agricultural<br />
Universities (SAU), overseen by the State governments, address State-specific<br />
problems. In 1957, All India Co-ordinated <strong>Research</strong> Projects (AICRPs) were initiated<br />
under ICAR. The AICRPs, considered an important intervention in agricultural research<br />
in India, are involved in building nation-wide co-operative, inter-disciplinary research<br />
networks linking the ICAR institutes with the SAUs to focus attention on specific crops<br />
(or commodities) of national importance. They carry out multi-location development<br />
and testing of new technologies and varieties. By 2004–05, 91 AICRPs and networks<br />
with 40 SAUs had been created.<br />
As Table 1 shows, by 2004-05, ICAR had, under its direct administration, 48 Central<br />
<strong>Research</strong> Institutes (CRI), 31 National <strong>Research</strong> Centres (NRCs), 5 national bureaux<br />
and 12 project directorates. CRIs have been set up with a mandate to carry out<br />
basic and applied research on a single crop or on selected groups of crops or in a<br />
geographic area or on a specific issue. Most CRIs have a network of regional stations<br />
covering diverse agro-ecological areas for developing area-specific technologies. The<br />
NRCs, on the other hand, have been established to work with a mission approach,<br />
on a particular crop (for instance, sorghum, soybean, groundnut, etc). ICAR has<br />
established 5 national bureaux to collect, conserve, evaluate and document genetic<br />
resources of crops, animals, fish and soil. Transfer of technology in the ICAR system<br />
is through the establishment of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs), where the technical<br />
literacy of farmers is improved through front-line demonstrations and on-farm testing.<br />
There were 496 KVKs across the country by 2004–05.<br />
With the establishment of infrastructure for systematic research in crops, research<br />
efforts have been directed towards developing varieties in almost all crops in India. The<br />
Central Variety Release Committee (CVRC), set up under the Ministry of Agriculture,<br />
² <strong>Swaminathan</strong>, M.S. (ed) 1993. Wheat Revolution – A Dialogue. Madras: Macmillan India Limited<br />
³ The Imperial Council of Agricultural <strong>Research</strong>, established in 1929, was renamed as the Indian Council of Agricultural<br />
<strong>Research</strong> (ICAR) in post-Independent India.<br />
22
Table 1. ICAR Institutions, 2004–05<br />
Technical Papers<br />
Division Institutes National National Project<br />
Bureax <strong>Research</strong> Directorates<br />
Centres<br />
Crop Science 10 2 7 6<br />
Horticulture 10 12<br />
Animal Science 7 1 7 4<br />
Fisheries 6 1 1<br />
Natural Resources<br />
Management<br />
8 1 3 1<br />
Agricultural Engineering 6<br />
Agricultural Extension 1 1<br />
Agricultural Education 1<br />
Total 48 5 31 12<br />
Source: Indian Council of Agricultural <strong>Research</strong> (ICAR). 2006. Handbook of Agriculture. New Delhi.<br />
receives proposals for release and notification of varieties from breeders, through<br />
their respective institutes under ICAR or SAUs. 4 CVRC scrutinises the performance<br />
of a variety and if it is found suitable for more than one State, it is then released as an<br />
improved variety for the country as a whole. If a variety is suitable only for one State,<br />
it is then released as a State variety by the respective SAU.<br />
The ICAR system, with its elaborate network of research activities, has developed<br />
and released more than 3300 high yielding varieties and hybrids pertaining to various<br />
crops-almost all major and minor cereals, pulses and non-food crops (ICAR 2006). 5<br />
Table 2 provides details on the number of varieties and hybrids released for nine<br />
crops by the public research system over the four decades since the mid-sixties.<br />
The most important aspect of the varietal improvement programme in India is that<br />
the germplasm received from international research institutions have been used to<br />
develop varieties suitable for Indian conditions. For instance, semi dwarf rice varieties,<br />
Taichung Native-1 from Taiwan and IR 8 from IRRI were introduced in the country in<br />
the 1960s. Closely following the release of IR 8, the first Indian dwarf variety Jaya<br />
(developed by the Directorate of Rice <strong>Research</strong>) with as good a yield performance but<br />
slightly earlier in maturity was released in 1968. In heralding India’s Green Revolution,<br />
the role of Jaya is as important as that of IR 8.<br />
4 The word ‘breeders’ here refers to State or Central departments or institutions that are licensed to produce breeder<br />
seeds<br />
5 Indian Council of Agricultural <strong>Research</strong> (ICAR). 2006. Handbook of Agriculture. New Delhi.<br />
23
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
24<br />
Table 2. Varieties and Hybrids Released by the Public <strong>Research</strong><br />
System in India<br />
Crop Reference Number of Number of Number of<br />
Period Varieties Hybrids Cultivars<br />
Rice 1965-2004 693 18 711<br />
Wheat 1965-2004 303 - 303<br />
Maize 1961-2004 69 80 149<br />
Sorghum 1964-2002 77 31 108<br />
Sunflower 1972-2004 18 16 34<br />
Soybean 1970-2004 82 - 82<br />
Potato 1960-2005 32 - 32<br />
Cotton 1970-2005 218 56 274<br />
Sugarcane 1970-2006 203 - 203<br />
Source: 2007. Measures of Impact of Science and <strong>Technology</strong> in India: Agriculture and Rural Development.<br />
M. S. <strong>Swaminathan</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong> (MSSRF) Chennai<br />
In the case of wheat, four semi-dwarf varieties from CIMMYT were grown in 1963<br />
and 1964 on a trial basis at different centres in India. Out of different dwarf wheat<br />
varieties obtained from Mexico, Sonara 64 and Lerma Rojo-64A were found superior<br />
with regard to adaptability and yield. However, these varieties did not become popular<br />
as the grains were red in colour. Subsequently, from advanced breeding materials<br />
received from CIMMYT efforts were taken by the Indian Agricultural <strong>Research</strong> Institute<br />
to produce multi-lines of commercial varieties, like Kalyan Sona, Sonalika and<br />
Sharbati Sonara. As regards maize, the Indian maize germplasm, in general, lacked<br />
the requisite degree of genetic diversity needed for the successful development of<br />
high yielding maize hybrids, even though some of the indigenous maize varieties<br />
were good. As direct introductions from the North American and Caribbean regions<br />
did not suit Indian conditions, Quality Protein Maize (QPM), has been developed using<br />
CIMMYT lines. In the case of sorghum, while the first variety, CSV 1 (Swarna), was a<br />
direct introduction from the USA in 1968, subsequently new varieties were released<br />
by crossing temperate and tropical germplasm.<br />
Various plant breeding techniques have been used to develop varieties and hybrids of<br />
crops with desirable characteristics. While improving crop yields is an important aspect<br />
of varietal improvement, other dimensions of the programme include improving quality,<br />
developing resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, altering the duration of maturity,<br />
and developing photoinsensitivity. As far as rice is concerned, major achievements<br />
have been in developing varieties with shorter maturation, with resistance to pests
Technical Papers<br />
and diseases and improvement in grain quality. In wheat, the significant impact of<br />
plant breeding efforts has been evidenced by a steady increase of yield levels as well<br />
as in release of late sown varieties. Improving quality has been the major aspect with<br />
regard to maize, sugarcane and oilseeds. Improving the protein content in maize, the<br />
sucrose content in sugarcane, and the oil content in soybean have been important<br />
achievements. In sorghum, apart from concentrating on grain sorghum, the programme<br />
has concentrated on developing varieties exclusively for green fodder. Moreover, the<br />
varietal improvement programme has also been concerned with altering the maturity<br />
period for a given agro-climatic zone. This has happened in the case of soybean and<br />
has resulted in a tremendous increase in the area cultivated with the crop. Varieties<br />
suitable for processing, as in the case of potato, have also been an important focus.<br />
While seed was the focal point of the modern agricultural technology promoted since<br />
the 1960s, the approach, however, was a package programme referred to as the<br />
seed-water-fertiliser technology. Improved crop varieties performed effectively only<br />
in combination with water and fertiliser and this necessitated the development of<br />
the agricultural input sector as well. Several public institutions were promoted and<br />
various strategies were initiated to improve input supply (seeds, chemical fertilisers,<br />
implements and machinery), credit and marketing. National Seeds Corporation was set<br />
up in 1963 with responsibilities in the area of seed production. Agricultural Refinance<br />
Corporation was also established in 1963 to facilitate commercial banks’ lending for<br />
agriculture. Further, institutions such as the Commission on Agricultural Costs and<br />
Prices and the Food Corporation of India were set up to ensure remunerative prices<br />
to farmers, to maintain buffer stocks, and to contain the prices for consumers.<br />
Public sector investment in technology development in agriculture, combined with<br />
significant investment in irrigation and power, resulted in a rapid increase in agricultural<br />
output in the country. Over the five decades since 1950-51, foodgrain production<br />
increased from around 54 million tonnes in the early 1950s to about 195 million tonnes<br />
by the late 1990s. Within foodgrains, production of cereals increased fourfold, while<br />
the progress made by pulses has been very marginal. Major non-food crops, such as<br />
oilseeds, sugarcane and cotton lint, have also registered a rapid boost in production,<br />
increasing at an annual compound growth rate of more than 2 % over 1951–52 to<br />
2001–02 (see Table 3).<br />
Over the five decades from 1951–52 to 1999–2000, the area under cultivation as<br />
well as area irrigated has increased: while net sown area has increased by 21 million<br />
hectares, net irrigated area has increased by 35 million hectares. Increase in gross<br />
cropped area is of the order of 56 million hectares, indicating an increase in cropping<br />
intensity from 1.11 in 1951–52 to 1.34 in 1999–2000 (see Table 4). Development and<br />
release of short duration varieties in various crops appear to have contributed towards<br />
an increase in double or multiple cropping, resulting in a rise in cropping intensity.<br />
25
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
Table 4. Area under Cultivation and Irrigation in India, 1951–52 to 1999–00<br />
(million hectares)<br />
Triennium centred Net Sown Gross Net Irrigated Gross<br />
around the year Area Cropped Area Area Irrigated Area<br />
1951–52 120.53 134.26 21.01 23.01<br />
1961–62 134.98 155.25 25.07 28.63<br />
1971–72 139.04 164.38 31.49 38.56<br />
1981–82 140.72 174.04 39.97 51.01<br />
1991–92 142.45 184.56 49.32 64.97<br />
1999–2000 141.59 190.43 55.98 76.92<br />
Source: as in Table 2<br />
Table 5 indicates the development over the years in the adoption of high yielding<br />
varieties with regard to cereals. With the adoption of high yielding varieties, consumption<br />
of fertilisers in the country as a whole increased rapidly, from 13 kg per hectare on<br />
an average in 1970–71 to 95 kg per hectare in 1999–00. Apart from an increase in<br />
the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the other major change experienced in<br />
Indian agriculture has been the use of machinery for various agricultural operations.<br />
Over the three decades from 1971–72 to 2002–03, the adoption of different types of<br />
power-operated agricultural machinery has increased and this has been facilitated<br />
by supportive policies that made access to rural credit relatively easy. The number of<br />
26<br />
Table 3. Production of Foodgrains and Major Non-Food Crops in India<br />
(million tonnes)<br />
Triennium<br />
centred around<br />
the year<br />
Total<br />
Cereals<br />
Total<br />
Pulses<br />
Total<br />
Foodgrains<br />
Total<br />
Oilseeds<br />
Sugarcane Cotton<br />
Lint*<br />
1951–52 45.33 8.67 54.00 4.97 56.56 3.22<br />
1961–62 69.63 12.00 81.63 7.22 101.96 5.33<br />
1971–72 92.60 10.94 103.54 8.62 121.60 5.82<br />
1981–82 119.47 11.33 130.80 10.48 176.71 7.47<br />
1991–92 161.72 13.03 174.75 19.11 241.03 10.32<br />
2001–02 182.96 11.86 194.81 17.98 291.58 9.41<br />
Note: * Refers to production in million bales of 170 kg each<br />
Source: as in Table 2
Technical Papers<br />
Table 5. Area under High Yielding Varieties of various crops in India<br />
Percentage of<br />
area cultivated Quinquennial averages centred around year<br />
with HYVs for<br />
crops 1970–71 1975–76 1980–81 1985–86 1990–91 1996–97<br />
Rice 15.11 32.45 45.04 56.14 63.69 73.99<br />
Wheat 38.26 66.39 72.36 82.13 86.67 89.43<br />
Maize 7.83 18.87 26.68 31.00 44.07 57.14<br />
Sorghum 4.60 12.20 22.20 37.80 49.30 83.30<br />
Note: Data for maize and sorghum are for individual years and not quinquennial averages. Maize and sorghum<br />
percentages in the last column refer to the year 1997-98.<br />
Source: as in Table 2<br />
power sprayers and dusters used for fertiliser and pesticide spraying has increased<br />
17 times over the last three decades. Machinery used for ploughing like cultivators,<br />
disc harrows, mould board ploughs, etc. have also increased rapidly. The number of<br />
tractors in the country has increased nearly sixteenfold over the three decades since<br />
1971. From about 1.4 lakh tractors in 1971, the number rose to 5.1 lakhs in 1981 and<br />
to 23.61 lakhs in 2003. (MSSRF.2007) 6<br />
Adoption of high yielding varieties on a significant scale by farmers, combined with<br />
modern methods of cultivation has pushed up the yield of almost all crops. Table<br />
6 indicates that yield across all crops has registered a rapid increase over the five<br />
decades. Yield of food grains has increased three times and that of oil seeds, sugar<br />
cane and cotton have doubled from 1951-52 to 2001-02.<br />
In sum, the major achievement of the agricultural strategy in post-Independent India<br />
is the significant expansion of crop output made possible by a conscious decision of<br />
the government to adopt mutually reinforcing packages of technology, services and<br />
public policies. The role of the state has been extremely important in the promotion<br />
of research, dissemination of technology, creation of an atmosphere conducive for<br />
adoption of technology, and investments in irrigation and rural development.<br />
While the performance of the agricultural sector has been significant if the entire<br />
post-Independence period is considered, an analysis of agricultural growth across<br />
decades indicates that the agricultural sector has fared dismally over the 1990s.<br />
Though agricultural output has been registering positive growth over the five decades<br />
since 1950-51, the rate of growth of production has declined across all crops during<br />
6 M.S.<strong>Swaminathan</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong> (MSSRF).2007 Measures of Impact of Science and <strong>Technology</strong> in<br />
India: Agriculture and Rural Development. Chennai<br />
27
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
the 1990s compared to the 1980s. Food grain production declined from a growth<br />
rate of 2.94 % per annum in the 1980s to 1.09 % in the 1990s and that of sugarcane<br />
from 3.15 % to 1.99 % while oilseeds and cotton lint registered an absolute decline<br />
in production in 2001–02 compared to 1991–92. The decline in the rate of growth of<br />
crop output over the 1990s is due to a decline in the rate of growth of yield of crops.<br />
The annual rate of growth of yield of food grains declined from 3.16 % per annum in<br />
the 1980s to 1.55 % in the 1990s. Annual growth rate of yield of oilseeds declined<br />
from 2.81 % in the 1980s to 0.62 % in the 1990s while that of sugarcane declined from<br />
1.26 % to 0.26 % and that of cotton lint from 3.79 % to -2.02 % over the same period.<br />
(MSSRF, 2007) The declining rate of growth of yield and the declining rate of increase<br />
in agricultural output during the 1990s had an impact on the growth performance of<br />
the agricultural sector.<br />
Analysing the growth performance of the agricultural sector over the five decades<br />
in the country (see Graph) it is clear that there has been rapid growth in this sector<br />
with the initiation of new agricultural strategy since the 1960s. Agricultural growth<br />
increased from 1.51 % during the1960s to 2.95 % in the 1980s. However, in the<br />
1990s agricultural growth remained more or less stagnant compared to the 1980s,<br />
contributed largely by a declining rate of growth of agricultural output. Since late 1990s<br />
there has been a rapid fall in agricultural growth rate from 3.23 % to 1.97 % in the<br />
early 2000s. Clearly, the positive and proactive role played by the state in improving<br />
agricultural output appears to have taken a beating in the 1990s with the onset of<br />
Economic Reforms.<br />
28<br />
Table 6. Yield of Foodgrains and Major Non-Food Crops in India<br />
(in kg per hectare)<br />
Triennium Total Total Sugarcane Cotton Lint<br />
centred around Foodgrains Oilseeds<br />
the year<br />
1951–52 546 (100) 445 (100) 31,539 (100) 87 (100)<br />
1961–62 699 (128) 494 (111) 42,961 (136) 117 (134)<br />
1971–72 848 (155) 519 (117) 48,902 (155) 128 (147)<br />
1981–82 1,030 (189) 578 (130) 57,497 (182) 160 (184)<br />
1991–92 1,406 (258) 762 (171) 65,142 (207) 232 (267)<br />
2001–02 1,641 (301) 811 (182) 66,825 (212) 190 (218)<br />
Note: Figures in brackets give the index w.r.to the year 1951-52<br />
Source: as in Table 2
Technical Papers<br />
Source: Chand,Ramesh. 2007. “Strategies to Accelerate Agricultural Growth”. Paper presented at the NCAP-ISAE National<br />
Seminar on Agrarian Distress: Problems and Remedies, organized by National Centre for Agricultural Economics and<br />
Policy <strong>Research</strong> and held at New Delhi, August 1-2<br />
2. Some Concerns on the Changing Role of the State<br />
The Economic Reforms that have been implemented in India since the early 1990s,<br />
have had wide ranging implications for the country’s agricultural sector. Some of the<br />
processes that had a direct impact on agricultural production and productivity are as<br />
follows:<br />
First, there has been a sharp reduction in the funding received by agricultural<br />
research and education over the 1990s. “Total government funding for agricultural<br />
research and education increased in real terms (1999 prices) from Rs. 2.5 billion<br />
in 1961 to Rs. 7.9 billion in 1980. This further rose to Rs 25 billion in 2000. The<br />
government funding grew at the rate of 3.2 % per annum in 1970s, 7 % in 1980s but<br />
slowed down to 4.6 % in 1990s,” 7 Suresh Pal further shows that the expenditure on<br />
agricultural research and education as a percentage of agricultural gross domestic<br />
product increased significantly during the 1960s and 1980s but remained around<br />
0.4 % during the 1990s. “This slowdown in research intensity is worrying, given that<br />
the average intensity for all developing countries is 0.6 % and 1 % globally. China.<br />
spends 0.43 % of her AgGDP on research as against 0.29 % in India (excluding<br />
education).”(ibid)<br />
Stagnancy in funding for agricultural research in recent years probably underlies the<br />
absence of any technological breakthrough in varieties in the 1990s. It was observed<br />
earlier that while most of the crops registered rapid improvement in yield levels in<br />
the 1980s, the rate of growth of yield declined in the next decade, the 1990s. This<br />
7 Pal, Suresh., Prasoon Mathur and A K Jha. 2005. “Impact of Agricultural <strong>Research</strong> in India: Is it Decelerating?”<br />
National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy <strong>Research</strong>. Policy Brief 22.<br />
8 Nagarajan, S. 1998. “Perspectives on Wheat Demand and <strong>Research</strong> Needs”. In Nagarajan et al. 1998. Wheat <strong>Research</strong><br />
Needs Beyond 2000 AD. New Delhi: Narosa Publishing House.<br />
29
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
appears to be associated to the fact that there has been no breakthrough in technology<br />
in the 1990s even to sustain the growth levels achieved during the earlier decade.<br />
According to S Nagarajan 8 , “In rice for the last twenty five years, no genotype has<br />
been developed with yield potential greater than IR 8 and Jaya (released in 1966<br />
and 1968). The new varieties developed for different rice-growing ecosystems in<br />
the post Green Revolution phase have not provided any genetic gain in yield. The<br />
major achievement of the program has been in developing varieties with shorter<br />
maturation, resistance to diseases, insect pests, grain quality and to abiotic stresses.<br />
The success has been in varietal diversity and quickly replacing the ones that become<br />
susceptible.”(Nagarajan. 1998) As far as wheat is concerned he comments that where<br />
has been no breakthrough since 1995.”( Nagarajan. 2006). 9<br />
Second, expenditure incurred on agriculture and rural development (minor irrigation,<br />
power,fertilizer etc) as a percentage of Net National Product was 1.57 in 1974-75 in<br />
India, rose to 3.80 in 1986-87 and from then on it has been declining and has reached<br />
1.95 in 2000-01. Implementation of a deflationary policy with regard to development<br />
expenditure in rural areas impacts the supply side factors (agricultural production and<br />
productivity) as well as the demand side factors (employment and income).<br />
Third, access to credit from formal institutions has dwindled for farmers. The share of<br />
agricultural credit in total commercial bank lending rose from around 10 % in the mid<br />
1970s to a peak of 18 % at the end of the 1980s.But it steadily declined and by 2004-<br />
9 2006. “Sustaining Wheat Production and Ensuring Food Availability”. Paper presented at the seminar on Crop Biofortification<br />
for Alleviating Micronutrient Malnutrition organized by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, and MSSRF,<br />
at the M S <strong>Swaminathan</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong>, Chennai, February 13-14.<br />
10 Ministry of Finance. Report of the Expert Group on Agricultural Indebtedness. 2007. New Delhi: Government of India.<br />
30<br />
Source: Suresh Pal, Prasoon Mathur and A.K. Jha, July 2005<br />
(Chairman: R Radhakrishna)<br />
Fig. 1 Trends in government funding to agricultural research and education in India
Technical Papers<br />
06 it was around 11 %. From 1996 to 2005 more than 1000 branches of banks in rural<br />
areas have closed down (MoF,2007) 10 .<br />
In addition to the factors that directly impacted on agricultural production such as low<br />
levels of investment in agricultural research, a cutback in public investment in rural<br />
areas and a dwindling of credit from the formal system to farmers, there have been<br />
other features of the neo-liberal policies that contributed to the agrarian crisis. For<br />
instance, there has been a decline in profitability in farming in the recent years. An<br />
analysis carried out by the Expert Group on Agricultural Indebtedness clearly shows<br />
that income from pure agriculture is increasingly becoming inadequate to meet even<br />
the basic consumption requirement of farm households, in particular the marginal<br />
and small farm households (MoF,2007) 11 . The volatility of crop prices combined with<br />
a weakening of public procurement of crop output, lead to a decline in the incomes<br />
of farmers. Moreover, the agricultural sector is also assaulted with a deceleration in<br />
export growth of agricultural commodities after 1996, while imports tended to increase<br />
(MoF, 2007) 12 .<br />
In sum, the systematic reduction in protection given to farmers, combined with a<br />
cutback in public investment in rural areas as well as low levels of investment in<br />
agricultural research, have contributed to the agrarian crisis that is gripping the<br />
economy. If the neo-liberal policies pursued by the state are not reversed there is a<br />
danger that all the ‘achievements’ that have been elaborated with regard to the growth<br />
of agricultural output and crop yield since the 1950s will be allowed to collapse over<br />
the coming years.<br />
11 MoF 2007 ibid<br />
12 MoF 2007 ibid<br />
Rural Development Expenditure as a % of NNP<br />
Source: Ministry of Finance. Economic Survey, various years,<br />
New Delhi : Government of India<br />
31
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong>: The Precision Farming Experience<br />
of TNAU in selected districts of Tamil Nadu<br />
Dr. C. Ramasamy<br />
Vice-Chancellor, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore<br />
Email: c_ramasamy@yahoo.com<br />
Introduction<br />
Agricultural extension is a significant social innovation and an important force in<br />
agricultural development. Over the years, extension has been consistently viewed<br />
as a public good and therefore financed by the public sector in India. Public<br />
expenditure on agricultural extension and its control has been justified on the basis<br />
that support for agriculture leads to reduced food prices and increased food security<br />
which benefit the whole population (van den Ban, 2000)¹. Traditionally, technology<br />
transfer mechanisms at SAUs were through KVKs, interaction with officials of State<br />
Development Departments for technology transfer and training the extension personnel<br />
of development departments.<br />
Involvement of State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) in technology transfer increased<br />
considerably with the initiation and spread of Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs). At present<br />
there are 415 KVKs in the country. SAUs initiated training programmes (for officials<br />
and farmers), demonstrations and exhibitions and these were strengthened with<br />
the establishment of the Directorate of Extension in each SAU. The Directorate of<br />
Extension (of SAUs) implements and coordinates extension activities through its three<br />
major units, viz., Training Unit, Communication Centre and Farm Advisory Services.<br />
<strong>Research</strong> Extension Linkage<br />
Several linkage mechanisms at the State and Regional levels exist in Tamil Nadu to<br />
provide strong ties between research and extension system. The Scientific Workers<br />
Conference (SWC), on the subjects of Agriculture, Horticulture, Agricultural Engineering<br />
and Forestry, is an annual feature, in which the State level officials of the Extension<br />
system and the scientists of TNAU participate. This forum provides an opportunity to<br />
finalize the entries for inclusion in Multi Location Trials (MLT) and Adaptive <strong>Research</strong><br />
Trials (ART). The <strong>Research</strong> Council is convened once a year to review the research<br />
activities of TNAU and to suggest future thrust areas in research and for setting<br />
research agenda. The Extension Education Council (EEC) meets every year to review<br />
the extension activities carried out by TNAU and to suggest improvements. Senior<br />
officials of the State Department of Agriculture, the Director of Seed Certification and<br />
TNAU scientists, besides nominated members, participate in these meetings.<br />
The Regional <strong>Research</strong> and Education Advisory Council (RREAC) is convened twice<br />
1 van den Ban, A.W. 2000 ‘Different Ways of Financing Agricultural Extension, ODI Agricultural <strong>Research</strong> & Extension’<br />
Network Paper 106 b. London: Overseas Development Institute.<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
every year in each agro-climatic zone of the state. This meeting is attended by TNAU<br />
scientists, Joint Directors of Agriculture of the Zones and farmer representatives. The<br />
main purpose of the meeting is to discuss location specific problems and generate<br />
useful technologies to solve the problems. The Monthly Zonal Workshop (MZW) in<br />
which the scientists of TNAU and district level Subject Matter Specialists participate.<br />
is held every month. At this one-day workshops the messages that are to be passed<br />
on to the farmers in the ensuing month are finalized.<br />
Public extension has played a pivotal role in realizing self sufficiency in foodgrain<br />
production, but in the recent past, it has been disappointing in ushering the muchneeded<br />
transformation in terms of market-oriented agriculture. In the globalized<br />
context, agriculture has become a global movement. Increase in per capita<br />
income, concern for food safety, preference for value added food, organic food,<br />
convenience food, herbal medicines, neutraceuticals, etc., have broadened the scope<br />
of the agriculture sector. Growth in retailing and capital and commodity markets,<br />
improvements in logistics, gradual emergence of supply chains, new institutional<br />
arrangements, access to international markets, expanding avenues for use of modern<br />
technologies for information and communication, technological developments in<br />
value addition, food quality and safety etc., offer great scope for entrepreneurship and<br />
employment. Besides, food and nutritional security, especially for the less endowed<br />
segments of the population, is also on the top of the agenda of the government for<br />
ushering inclusive development. There is tremendous scope for encountering the<br />
challenges for achieving market-led agricultural development through the adoption<br />
of technologies such as precision farming, green house technology, organic farming,<br />
use of bio-inputs, food quality and safety, etc.<br />
In this regard, it is imperative to orient the agriculture sector to a market-led<br />
production system. In the market, there are several players involved in fulfilling the<br />
needs of the consumers, viz., farmers, traders, transporters, processors, retailers,<br />
etc. These separate organizations are linked with materials, information and financial<br />
flows. These organizational units along a supply chain have to be integrated to fulfill<br />
customer demands with greater efficiency (Stadtler and Christoph, 2000)². It is<br />
essential to produce what we can sell rather than producing what we can produce.<br />
The changing environment necessitates relevant polices, production technologies,<br />
institutions, technology transfer processes that effectively utilize modern information<br />
and communication technologies etc., that could improve the competitive capability<br />
of Indian agriculture. In this paper, new initiatives of the TNAU, Coimbatore, for<br />
technology transfer are discussed.<br />
The new initiatives were introduced to cover all the stakeholders of TNAU apart from<br />
farmers, i.e., input suppliers, agricultural services providers, extension personnel in<br />
marketing, developing entrepreneurs, etc. The scope of extension service from TNAU<br />
² Stadtler, Harmut and Christoph Kilger 2000. Supply Chain Management and Advanced Planning: Concepts, Model,<br />
Software and Case Studies, New York, Springer.<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
transcends technology transfer and includes the creation of institutional arrangements,<br />
enriching human resource and promoting agribusiness.<br />
Stakeholders Meeting: There are several players involved in agriculture, either directly<br />
or indirectly, who are capable of influencing the process of agricultural development,<br />
such as Government development departments, private firms, NGOs, entrepreneurs<br />
and farmers. They stake claim either as service providers or service users. Realizing<br />
the importance of stakeholders, in recent times TNAU has conducted stakeholders<br />
meeting. Representatives from each stakeholder group participate in the meeting<br />
to discuss the issues encountered by each group and identify means for effectively<br />
overcoming constraints and meet each other’s needs<br />
Seed Villages: Despite implementation of the organized seed programme, the Seed<br />
Replacement Rate (SRR) has only reached the level of 15 % and 85 % of the seeds<br />
used are farm saved. To improve the stock of farm saved seeds for enhancing crop<br />
productivity, the “Seed Village Scheme” is being implemented with assistance from<br />
the Government of India. In the Seed Village Scheme, TNAU has received Rs. 81.925<br />
lakhs to supply University labelled seeds of paddy, maize, blackgram and Gingelly<br />
varieties to the farmers @ 50 % subsidy and also to impart seed production training<br />
for about 22,000 farmers (including SC/ST and Women farmers). Each farmer will<br />
be supplied with the seeds of any one of the above crops for an area of one acre.<br />
Training will be given on seed production technologies in three stages i.e., at the<br />
time of sowing, at the time of flowering and at the time of harvesting. Farmers in<br />
each village can form groups and establish seed farms after completing certain formal<br />
procedures. The scheme is implemented through 13 KVKs and three Agricultural<br />
<strong>Research</strong> Stations (ARS in Bhavanisagar, Vaigai dam & SWMRI, Thanjavur) situated<br />
in different regions of Tamil Nadu.<br />
Distance Education: The advantage of distance education is that it helps to reach<br />
the target group for whom the information would be of interest and is applicable.<br />
The target group includes various segments of learners namely, entrepreneurs, State<br />
Extension Personnel / field service providers, NGOs, Self Help Groups, Private sector<br />
Institutions and especially school dropouts, small and marginal farmers and women<br />
in rural areas. The University provides three PG Diploma prgrammes, three PG<br />
programmes and 16 certificate courses.<br />
Electronic Media: Realizing its importance, TNAU in collaboration with EID Parry Ltd.,<br />
has established Agri Portals in Cuddalore district.<br />
Weather Forecast: A weather forecast information web page has been dedicated<br />
to the farmers of Tamil Nadu (http://agmet.tnau.ac.in/acrc/index.html). The bulletin<br />
is available for four days and the current day is day 1 and is being regularly updated<br />
at 10.00 AM. The surface weather parameters viz. temperature, wind and relative<br />
humidity are available as charts at 0830 and 1430 IST for the whole of Tamil Nadu.<br />
The rainfall forecast is available for 24 hrs ending 0830 IST, which is the regular<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
measurement time for rainfall. The quantitative forecast for all the above weather<br />
parameters are also provided for all the 385 blocks in Tamil Nadu, under their respective<br />
districts. It contains district name, block name, central latitude and longitude of the<br />
block, maximum and minimum temperature of the day, relative humidity and wind<br />
speed at 0830 and 1430 IST and rainfall for 24 hours. The model forecast accuracy is<br />
expected to improve, when we are able to use the satellite linked Automatic Weather<br />
Station data provided to TNAU by ISRO and vegetation data available in the open<br />
source from other satellites. This information could be effectively used by officials of<br />
development departments and other service providers to formulate location specific<br />
agro-climate based advisory services.<br />
Agri Clinics and Agri-Business Centres: The main aim of the scheme is to train<br />
agricultural graduates in agribusiness so that they can establish small agri-clinics or<br />
agribusiness centres (ACCABC) at the village level and provide extension services to<br />
farmers. The ACCABCs are financed through bank loans, and the central government<br />
provides 25 % of the cost as subsidy. The agri-clinics provide testing facilities,<br />
diagnostic and control services and other consultancies on a fee-for service basis.<br />
The programme is implemented jointly with Small Farmers Agri-business Consortium<br />
(SFAC) and MANAGE has attracted a large number of unemployed agricultural<br />
graduates.<br />
Four training programmes have been conducted since 2002, and a total of 82<br />
agriculture and allied science graduates trained. Among them, 40 graduates have<br />
already established Agri Clinics and Agri Business Centers and other related ventures<br />
in Tamil Nadu. The trained candidates have formed State level associations and<br />
created a National Federation of Agripreneurs with its headquarters at Bangalore.<br />
The purpose of the association and federation is to cross network the business<br />
interests of Agripreneurs cutting across boundaries and serve as a representative<br />
forum for the cause of Agripreneurs in policy making bodies. The federation is actively<br />
involved in negotiating terms with the Central Government for increased participation<br />
in extension and other outreach activities of the related departments. The Tamil Nadu<br />
State Agripreneurs Association was inaugurated on February 17 th , 2003.<br />
Domestic and Export Market Intelligence Cell (DEMIC): TNAU, Coimbatore, has<br />
established DEMIC for collecting data, analyzing it and disseminate market information.<br />
The main objectives of DEMIC are to disseminate timely, comprehensive, current<br />
and future price intelligence on agricultural commodities for better scientific decision<br />
making by the farming community, traders, firms and researchers and suggest policies<br />
to the government. To achieve this, it undertakes forecasting of supply, demand and<br />
prices of major agricultural commodities and analyses of markets at the regional,<br />
state and national levels. DEMIC disseminates the information on a regular basis<br />
through newspapers, radio, television and website (www.tnagmark.nic.in). In addition<br />
to information on prices, supply and demand, other useful information disseminated<br />
are export procedures, export standards, agricultural export zones, food processing,<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
post harvest technology, etc. An e-mail newsletter “DEMIC Info Series”, focusing on<br />
technical and market related information about domestic and international markets,<br />
has been developed.<br />
Diploma in Agricultural Extension Services for Input Dealers (DAESI): In Tamil<br />
Nadu alone there are about 17,000-20,000 agri-input dealers. They have become<br />
one of the important sources of information to the farming community, though they<br />
are not equipped with adequate scientific knowledge. Considering that this dealer<br />
network has spread out in almost all major villages of the country and is an important<br />
mechanism to reach out to the large farming community, it was felt necessary to<br />
expose them to a diploma course and build their capacity in handling field problems<br />
and extension communication abilities, while increasing their skills in dealing with<br />
inputs and discharging regulatory responsibilities. Therefore, the DAESI was launched<br />
throughout the country. Currently, two states viz., Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh,<br />
are offering the diploma and other States are yet to join in this venture. As on date, in<br />
TNAU two batches have completed and the third batch of input dealers is undergoing<br />
the course.<br />
Agricultural <strong>Technology</strong> Management Agency (ATMA): ATMA is a district level<br />
autonomous institution with participation from all the key stakeholders involved in<br />
agricultural activities for sustainable agricultural development in the district. ATMA<br />
is responsible for all the technology dissemination activities at the district level. It<br />
has linkages with all the line departments, research organizations, non-governmental<br />
organizations and agencies associated with agricultural development in the district.<br />
<strong>Research</strong> and Extension units within the project districts such as ZRS or substations,<br />
KVKs and the key line Departments of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Horticulture<br />
and Fisheries etc., are the constituent members of ATMA. Each <strong>Research</strong>-Extension<br />
(R-E) unit would retain its institutional identity and affiliation but programmes and<br />
procedures concerning district-wise R-E activities would be determined by the ATMA<br />
Governing Board to be implemented by its Management Committee (MC).<br />
Role of TNAU in Implementation of ATMA<br />
• ATMA - State level Masters Training programme, organized at TNAU in collaboration<br />
with MANAGE, Hyderabad trained more than 60 extension functionaries of line<br />
departments, TNAU scientists and KVK scientists for preparation of Strategic<br />
<strong>Research</strong> and Extension Plan (SREP) for the concerned districts and for facilitating<br />
similar training programmes on ATMA at the district level.<br />
• TNAU scientists have helped the line department officials in preparing SREP<br />
documents and other activities related to ATMA for the concerned districts.<br />
• As contemplated in the scheme, the Strategic <strong>Research</strong> and Extension Plan<br />
(SREP) has been prepared jointly by the Extension Functionaries of Agriculture<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
and Allied Departments, Farmers, NGOs etc., through PRA exercises in sample<br />
villages of the different Agro Ecological Situations in each of the nine districts.<br />
• The State Agricultural Management and Extension Training Institute (SAMETI)<br />
has been established at the Directorate of Extension Education, TNAU, as a<br />
registered society for organizing capacity building programmes for the extension<br />
functionaries of the state line departments.<br />
• Masters Training Programme on Public - Private Partnership have also been<br />
organized in collaboration with MANAGE, Hyderabad for the benefit of District<br />
ATMA implementing agencies.<br />
Tamil Nadu Precision Farming Project<br />
Tamil Nadu Precision Farming Project (TNPFP) is a Tamil Nadu State sponsored<br />
turnkey project implemented at Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri districts in 400 ha with<br />
a total budget of Rs.7.20 million for a period of three years. It is a State mega demo<br />
to train the farmers and empower them as agri-entrepreneurs. The project has<br />
adequately prepared the farmers for market-driven production at a time when MNCs<br />
like Wall Mart, Carry Four, Tesco, WoolWorth, Reliance, Barti -Telecom are all set for<br />
invasion into the retail vegetable market in India.<br />
Objectives: The objective of the project is to improve the standard of living of the small<br />
farmers by emphasizing market-led horticulture and by empowering farmers through<br />
training and institutional arrangements.<br />
Work Plan and Activity Chart of TNPFP - The process: The mechanism to identify the<br />
beneficiary farmer was the first step. The district Collector, with the collaboration of<br />
line departments, called for applications from farmers. The fields were scrutinized by<br />
TNAU scientists on technical grounds and potentials of the clusters. The list of project<br />
farmers was prepared without any criticism from the rest of the community. There was<br />
a tripartite agreement between farmer, TNAU and the State Department of Horticulture,<br />
which acted as a binding mechanism at the gross root level. The project farmers<br />
were brought under an association called ‘Precision Farmers Association’, registered<br />
under the Societies Act. There are 12 such associations at present. Consolidation<br />
of holdings was not done as the farm holdings were too small and there was little<br />
compatibility among the farmers.<br />
This cluster approach was adopted for operational conveniences and to ensure<br />
better logistics. This mechanism helped to identify the suitable variety for the season,<br />
mobilize institutional support and undertake exposure visits to markets. The same<br />
mechanism helped to solve the man-made problems during the implementation of the<br />
project. It also rendered support to collective marketing through mutual consultations<br />
and discussions. There were proactive farmers, active farmers and indifferent farmers<br />
in each cluster at the beginning of the project but their awareness level at the end<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
of the harvest of the first crop improved enough to accept the change in perception<br />
and mindset. They regularly meet in the first week of every month to discuss the<br />
markets and interact with buyers and input suppliers. The Association is slowly getting<br />
empowered and it acts as the redressal mechanism for the problems of the farming<br />
community.<br />
The process has finally led to the establishment of a producer company called<br />
“Dharmapuri Precision Farmers’ Agro Services Ltd”, registered under the Companies<br />
Act and this is the first Producer Company in Tamil Nadu where 150 farmers of<br />
Dharmapuri district are member-share holders.<br />
Special features Empowerment of Farmers and Farmers’ Forum: The beneficiary<br />
farmers were organized under various commodity Forums: viz., Adhiyaman Precision<br />
Farmers’ Forum, Dharmapuri, Rajaji Precision Farmers’ Forum, Krishnagiri, etc. There<br />
are twelve such associations at present. The organizations are registered under<br />
the Societies Act. The Forum has helped them to buy the inputs directly from the<br />
manufacturers (cutting the cost down to minimum) and strengthened their bargaining<br />
power while selling their produce.<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
Insurance cover: The tomato growers were largely worried about loss due to the<br />
hail storms in summer and theft of coils in the motors of the drip system. A meeting<br />
between the Farmers’ Forum and the United India Assurance officials was organized<br />
and eventually, the insurance cover was extended to the crop with a low premium of<br />
four per cent.<br />
Market tie-ups: Market tie ups for the crops raised were negotiated between the<br />
Farmer’s Forum and the buyers like M/s. Planet Pickles, M/s. Green Global Company,<br />
M/s Rasi Seeds, M/s Magritta Exports. The buyers are now frequenting the production<br />
site for tie up for purchase of vegetables, as the quality of the produce is always good.<br />
The produce from Precision Farm excelled in quality and commanded a premium<br />
price in all the markets. Further M/s. International Food Staff Company Agri Biotech<br />
(P) Ltd of Sri Lanka has discussed with Precision Farmers Association executives<br />
and the MoU for forward contract for vegetables for export is in progress. Safal<br />
market has rated the banana from the Precision farming site as of super quality, a<br />
new grade status. Dole, Barti Telecom, and Reliance Fresh are now negotiating with<br />
the associations for buy back tie up.<br />
Reduction in pesticide usage: The farmers are now aware of the intricacies of pesticide<br />
quality, the dosage, the time of spray and method of preparation. The practice of going<br />
for 16 rounds of combination sprays have been avoided and a judicious combination<br />
has been put into practice. The drip and fertigation technology advocates dry soil for<br />
a depth of 3 cm and this helps to reduce the weed growth and spore multiplication.<br />
Promotion of brand value: The Precision Farmers’ Association has developed a logo<br />
and brand of their own and in each crate, the logo is pasted. The logo is now gaining<br />
popularity and the buyers offer higher rate for crates with this logo.<br />
Farmers’ Corporate: The corporate has four virtues, which make them successful and<br />
is as follows: Quantity: They have the capability to honour any order of high volume;<br />
Quality: They do the cultivation professionally there by the physical and nutritive<br />
qualities are ensured; Uniformity: The first lot and last lot are strikingly uniform and<br />
Timely delivery: They are able to deliver in time. These virtues viz., quantity, quality,<br />
uniformity and timely delivery are inculcated in the minds of the farmers and the<br />
Farmer’s Forum is now gaining the corporate qualities and thus becoming a Farmers’<br />
Corporate, a new model to emulate in countries like India where holdings are too<br />
fragmented and empowerment through Farmers’ Forum is the only way.<br />
Farm documentation and record maintenance: Each farmer has been maintaining a<br />
Daily Muster Schedule to record all the activities of the week, including inputs used and<br />
the harvests made. This record also helps to work out the economics of production<br />
and arrive at the cost benefit ratio. The newer laws in EU demand traceability which<br />
is essentially through maintenance of records at the farm level. The records were<br />
signed both by scientists and the farmers and it is a document to ensure food safety<br />
in the long run.<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
Impact Analysis<br />
Economic impact: A study was undertaken to compare the performance of a TNPFP<br />
farmer and a non-project farmer in the same area. The gross income of crops<br />
for project farmers ranged from Rs. 1,20,000 to Rs. 5,00,000/ha. Among the 13<br />
crops cultivated under TNPFP in Krishnagiri district, the highest gross income was<br />
obtained in Chrysanthemum (Rs. 5,00,000 lakhs/ha) followed by marigold. Among the<br />
vegetables, paprika (Bajji Chilli) has given the highest gross income of Rs. 2,92,500/<br />
ha. The increase in net returns ranged from 43 to 221 % among the crops grown.<br />
Among the different crops, the increase in net returns was the highest in cucumber<br />
(221 %). In sugarcane, a yield of 275 MT /ha was recorded. In general, the profit margin<br />
was higher in all the crops under TNPFP. This was achieved by increased yield and<br />
reduced labour cost, particularly for irrigation and weed management. Besides higher<br />
yields, improvement in the quality of the produce is also visualized. For example in<br />
cabbage, the produce fetched a higher price in the market than the conventionally<br />
grown crop because of medium size heads with more compactness. Similarly in<br />
Goldenrod, the extraordinary stalk length and increased brightness in colour led to<br />
market preference. This has brought the buyers to make a beeline to the project site<br />
for buy back tie up.<br />
Expansion of drip System: The precision farmers have invested on their own to expand<br />
the area under drip irrigation to the extent of 30 %. Further, TNAU proposes to take<br />
up this programme in 1,120 ha during 2007-08 with funding support from National<br />
Horticulture Mission and micro irrigation project.<br />
Resolving indebtedness: Indebtedness is a traditional illness of the farming community.<br />
Irrespective of the category of farmer, marginal, small, medium or big, everyone<br />
suffered from this illness. They could not resolve their long-pending debts. But a<br />
few farmers were able to resolve their indebtedness through the income realized from<br />
crop cultivation under the precision farming system. Now they are relieved, breathe<br />
freely and are economically equipped to proceed with subsequent cropping.<br />
Improvement in life-style: Many changes have been visualized in their life-style. At<br />
this juncture, a small share of the money was utilized for personal development from<br />
the income obtained by this project. Purchase of motorcycles, TV, VCD, and other<br />
consumer durables has been witnessed. The farmers are economically prepared<br />
enough to change themselves according to the changes in modern life. Besides, they<br />
have also started to consume better and nutritious food items, and improve their dress<br />
habits. In a nut-shell, TNPFP has helped them to lead a decent life in the modern<br />
sense.<br />
Post Harvest management: TNPFP has also sensitized the farmers on post-harvest<br />
operations such as sorting grading, packing and marketing. They realized better<br />
market prices for their quality produce from TNPF system because of their quality<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
consciousness. Hence now they have switched over from ordinary packing to quality<br />
packing and use of gunny bags to use of plastic crates. The plastic crates used are red<br />
in color with their own logo ; a green triangle with a tomato inside. The traders gave<br />
higher prices for products carrying this logo and the farmers were able to understand<br />
and appreciate the brand image. Thus, the farmers have become agrientrepreneurs<br />
from the level of agriculturalists.<br />
Dharmapuri Precision Farmers’ Agro Services Limited: The precision farmers<br />
association at Dharmapuri has established its own Agro service dealership for seeds,<br />
fertilizers, pesticides, etc. In future, they would be able to procure and distribute better<br />
inputs in required quantities at the required time at reasonable prices, with a good<br />
margin to the concerned association member farmers. The firm was incorporated<br />
under the Company’s Act and has started functioning from 01.02.07. It is a total<br />
empowerment of the farmers to become entrepreneurs.<br />
Conclusion<br />
Through the TNPFP, farmers had an enhanced yield of about 60 % in almost all the<br />
crops, attracted market tie up for their produce, got insurance cover and banking<br />
support, and above all, the produces are gaining the brand image in all the markets<br />
due to modern marketing practices and better quality. The State government had<br />
scaled up the programme in seven more districts in 700 ha. The State government<br />
has agreed in principle to scale up the programme in 1,110 ha for field crops, 150 ha of<br />
banana and 30,000 ha in sugarcane. The World Bank has now sanctioned a project in<br />
the name of “Irrigated Agricultural Modernization and Water Resources Management”<br />
with inbuilt precision-system based, market oriented, cropping on the success of the<br />
TNPF project with a budget of Rs. 2500 million for TN State and TNAU will operate<br />
the precision farming system in all river basins covering 60,000 ha.<br />
Thus through TNPFP, TNAU has clearly demonstrated a model for market oriented<br />
agriculture that promotes very high adoption of modern technologies, marketing<br />
practices and institutional arrangements by resource constrained small farmers, even<br />
if it involves higher investment. The project highlights the scale economies realized<br />
through backward integration process (purchase of inputs) and the bargaining<br />
power of the farmers (assured marketing and remunerative prices) through farmers<br />
associations and Farmers Corporate. The project is a holistic model that addresses<br />
the procurement, production and marketing needs of farmers.<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
42<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> to Cotton Farmers in<br />
Vidarbha Region of Maharashtra<br />
Mr. Atul Sharma<br />
Project Officer, Community Polytechnic, Pipri, Wardha<br />
Email: asharma@sancharnet.in<br />
Insecticide resistance in cotton pests particularly Helicoverpa armigera, diminishes<br />
the utility of insecticides in pest management. Resistance management strategies<br />
aim at optimizing the use of insecticide in a manner that maximizes their efficacy,<br />
minimizes intensity of their selection pressure and mitigates the adverse effect on the<br />
ecosystem and the environment.<br />
The dissemination of the technology was carried out as a farmers’ participatory<br />
programme in nine villages of Wardha district with the collaboration and technical<br />
guidance of CICR, Nagpur in about 1200-1500 ha land of 650 farmers for three years<br />
from 1998-2001.<br />
The farmers were assisted in cotton pest management throughout the cropping<br />
season by conducting regular meetings, imparting knowledge on IRM (Insecticide<br />
Resistance Management) strategies and insecticide use. The IRM technology,<br />
designed for implementation, is a relatively simple but knowledge-intensive package.<br />
It includes training in the identification of insect pests and their natural enemies, the<br />
application of economic threshold levels in spray decision and use of recommended<br />
sprays based on susceptibility levels and general agronomic management.<br />
This experiment brought down the number of sprays from 12 - 13 to 0 + 01 without<br />
any reduction in the yield. The success of this collaborative exercise with CICR<br />
Nagpur, represented by then Plant Protection Division Head, Dr. S. K. Banerji, Senior<br />
Scientist, Dr. Sheoraj and Dr. Keshav Kranthi, inspired the scientific community and<br />
policy makers as well. Ministry of Agriculture, GoI in 2002 took the initiative to take<br />
this “Wardha Model” of cotton pest management to selected districts of all 10 cotton<br />
growing states under <strong>Technology</strong> Mission on cotton (TMC –MM-II).<br />
Prior to the IRM the pest management status in Central India can be described as<br />
follows:<br />
• Farmers were not aware of insect pest and beneficial insects and their<br />
importance.<br />
• No agencies were there to inform about identification of insects, about ETL and<br />
resistance problem.
Technical Papers<br />
• Spraying at regular intervals with expensive chemicals and mixture of chemicals<br />
was commonly practiced.<br />
• More number of sprays was equated with effective plant protection.<br />
• Farmers were not able to take spray decisions, but were influenced by so-called<br />
“progressive farmers”.<br />
• Farmers found it difficult to follow the recommendations of Departments and<br />
Universities regarding ETL<br />
• Even after such heavy use of pesticides, farmers were not confident about<br />
bollworm control.<br />
Cotton pest management was particularly affected due to insecticide resistance,<br />
which was a consequence of excessive use of insecticide on the crop. Pyrethroid<br />
resistance was found to be a function of the intensity of its use on Helicoverpa<br />
Pyrethroid resistance in South India was found to be moderate at 25 to 207 in Tamil<br />
Nadu during 1992 to 1999. However in Andhra Pradesh resistance was found to be<br />
as high as 2,000 to 6,500 fold.<br />
Several efforts were made all over the world to devise a region-specific Integrated Pest<br />
Management (IPM) system. However, poor efficacy of insecticide due to insecticide<br />
resistance in insects and performance inconsistencies of bio-pesticides and biological<br />
control had been making IPM unsustainable.<br />
Rationale of the IRM technology<br />
A total of 1,326 species of insects have been recorded on cotton. Records show<br />
that cotton crop harboured just a few insect pests but sheltered many species of<br />
natural enemies that fed on the insect pests and kept their population below economic<br />
threshold levels under pesticide free situations. Some key factors of the IRM strategies<br />
were to reduce use of insecticides initially for at least 60 – 70 days after sowing, by<br />
using sucking pest particularly jassids tolerant or resistant cultivar.<br />
Use of organophosphates should be avoided, as they are broad – spectrum<br />
insecticides, and strongly disrupt natural enemy population. Most of the chemicals<br />
like, monocrotophos, chlorpyriphos dimethoate, metasystox, accephate etc of this<br />
group do not qualify for IOBC (International Organization for Biological Control) safety<br />
ratings and are generally categorized as harmful to beneficial insects.<br />
It was again important to define the economic threshold levels to properly time<br />
the insecticide application. Unfortunately, most ETLs followed by Departments of<br />
Universities are not very farmer friendly. For example, scouting for ETLs of one egg<br />
per plant or one larva per plant or 10 % damage to fruiting parts is cumbersome.<br />
43
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
In the situation when farmers cannot identify insects and are not aware of their<br />
different stages i.e. eggs, larvae, pupa and adult, it was very difficult to scout for eggs/<br />
larva. The major contribution by IRM strategy, in my opinion, is the scouting method.<br />
Instead of scouting for eggs/larva plants with flared up squares are considered infested<br />
plants. Levels of 50 % infested plants during peak square phase and levels of 90-100<br />
% infested plans during the peak boll formation phase are considered as economic<br />
threshold levels of the conventional insecticide; endosulfan qualifies for a reasonable<br />
slot initially in the season for an eco-friendly insecticide resistance management.<br />
About 110-140 days after sowing, if 90-100 % plants are showing flared up squares,<br />
organophosphates or carbonates can be used, as an effective larvicide. These<br />
insecticides are very effective for bollworm control but have low ecological selectivity<br />
and can be harmful to beneficial insects. The population of beneficial insects in<br />
cotton ecosystem are generally low during this time and hence the application of<br />
organophosphates and carbonates is rational. In India and elsewhere, resistance<br />
problem has been most severe in H.armigera to pyrethroids, therefore the management<br />
strategies over emphasize the management of pyrethroid resistance.<br />
Thus avoidance of pyrethroids on the first new generations of H.armigera in cotton<br />
and restricting the use to later generation of bollworms may help in preventing the<br />
resistance problem in India (Russell et al 1998). With the scale up of this programme in<br />
the 10 th five year plan by MoA, GOT under TMC-MM-II, Community Polytechnic Pipri,<br />
Wardha has been entrusted with the responsibility to disseminate this technology in<br />
the adjacent district Yavatmal, besides Wardha district.<br />
The important features of IRM Programme are :<br />
• Strategies were demonstrated in farmers’ own field.<br />
• Technical backup support was provided throughout the cropping season.<br />
• No free material input was provided.<br />
• Whosever was willing could participate in the programme.<br />
• Imparting confidence amongst the farmers through knowledge based strategies.<br />
(identification , scouting for ETL, selection of chemical resistance).<br />
• Simplicity of scouting for ETL.<br />
• Drastic reduction in the spray expenditure of the participating farmers.<br />
• Make them realize that health and environment issues are also related to cotton<br />
production.<br />
Procedures and methods followed to disseminate the IRM technology: Preparatory<br />
44
Technical Papers<br />
work; initial meetings to acquaint the farmers with the IRM programme; selection of<br />
willing farmers and enrolment of farmers; selection of village youth as local field works<br />
and their training and rapport building measures<br />
Rapport building measures: Availability of plants (fruits and forestry) at cost in IRM<br />
village; availability of bio-fertilizers at cost; demonstration of improved agricultural<br />
tools and demonstration of improved cook stoves.<br />
Demonstration and training for farmers: Identification of insect pests and beneficial<br />
insects; scouting methods for sucking pests and bollworms; information about<br />
insecticide groups and their merits/demerits; dose of insecticide and type of nozzles<br />
to be used and demonstration of different types of pheromone traps.<br />
Publicity and awareness campaign: Hand bills for different window strategies; Posters<br />
to stop indiscriminate spraying; wall paintings (depicting 08 strategies per village);<br />
banners at market places; school activity book and labels of beneficial insects for<br />
school children; slide /CD show regarding insect pests and beneficial; Street plays;<br />
Bhajan competition on IRM theme song and ‘Shivar feri’ (know your field).<br />
Efforts made to reach more farmers: Treated IRM as an educational programme in<br />
its totality. Efforts were made to educate farmers not only about cotton crop pest but<br />
also about insects in general, their distribution of dominance in animal kingdom, ability<br />
to develop resistance, role of beneficial insects and chemical hazards to ecosystem;<br />
involvement of school children for identification of insects to reach more farmers i.e.<br />
from child to parent approach; participation of women was ensured through SHGs<br />
as they literally handle each cotton plant in the filed, during different operations like<br />
sowing, weeding, fertilizer application and finally picking. (It is like doctor taking care<br />
of a patient) and dealers of pesticides of the area were also informed about IRM<br />
strategies and need of the programme.<br />
Impact of the programme<br />
Status of farmers enrolled for training for the year 2006-2007<br />
District Less than<br />
1 ha<br />
1-4 ha 4-10 ha More than<br />
10 ha<br />
Total<br />
Wardha 42 843 633 83 1,601<br />
Yavatmal 11 686 456 62 1,215<br />
Total 53 1,529 1,089 145 2,816<br />
45
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
S.No. Details 2002<br />
-2003<br />
1 No. of taluka<br />
46<br />
Wardha<br />
Yavatmal<br />
2 No. of villages<br />
Wardha<br />
Yavatmal<br />
3 No. of farmers<br />
Wardha<br />
Yavatmal<br />
4 No. of ha<br />
Wardha<br />
Yavatmal<br />
5 % reduction in spray<br />
cost<br />
Wardha<br />
Yavatmal<br />
6 Per ha saving spraying<br />
cost over non IRM<br />
villages<br />
Wardha<br />
Yavatmal<br />
Impact of IRM at a glance<br />
02<br />
02<br />
11<br />
09<br />
120<br />
96<br />
53<br />
39<br />
57<br />
77<br />
2003<br />
-2004<br />
02<br />
02<br />
21<br />
11<br />
221<br />
126<br />
94<br />
95<br />
71<br />
77<br />
NA 292<br />
887<br />
2004<br />
-2005<br />
06<br />
02<br />
25<br />
21<br />
1,351<br />
1,157<br />
994<br />
1,364<br />
61<br />
67<br />
1,810<br />
804<br />
2005<br />
-2006<br />
05<br />
02<br />
41<br />
32<br />
2,370<br />
1,740<br />
2,490<br />
1,418<br />
75<br />
58<br />
1,341<br />
1,047<br />
2006<br />
-2007<br />
04<br />
03<br />
68<br />
62<br />
2,203<br />
2,365<br />
3,048<br />
1,528<br />
79<br />
61<br />
1,080<br />
1,312
Development Efforts and <strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> –<br />
Extent of Inclusiveness<br />
Dr. P.S. Geethakutty<br />
Professor & Head, Centre for Gender Studies,<br />
National Institute of Rural Development,<br />
Rajendranagar, Hyderabad – 500 030, Andhra Pradesh, India<br />
Email: geethakutty@gmail.com<br />
Technical Papers<br />
The human and social context perspectives needed in a developing nation’s development<br />
efforts necessitate the process of technology development and technology transfer to<br />
be a customer-facilitating process. This is possible only through identifying the users,<br />
their capabilities, assets, and constraints. India being a nation with a high percentage<br />
of rural, resource-poor population, how far are its programmes of rural and agricultural<br />
development streamlined as inclusive? How far are the mass of people who are<br />
vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity helped with appropriate technologies to sustain<br />
their livelihoods through development programmes? How close are the technologies<br />
able to support and ensure the sustenance and sustainability of resources for the<br />
rural millions? How close are the responsible actors of the development system to<br />
identifying the ultimate users and facilitate the technology utilization as customised?<br />
These are certain questions on which any serious discussion on inclusive approaches<br />
in the context of technology delivery should ponder. This paper is an attempt to look<br />
at the related issues of the development programmes in the nation and the focus of<br />
the paper is to look at technology as an essential resource for rural livelihoods.<br />
<strong>Technology</strong>, Development Sectors and Support Services<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> in its simplest definition is a means to material development and the<br />
goal of technology development is to improve living conditions through ensuring<br />
livelihoods and providing quality living environment. DFID and FAO view the approach<br />
of sustainable livelihood as people-centred, holistic and dynamic. It builds on the<br />
strength that all households are viewed as possessing essentially, human capital,<br />
nature capital, social capital and physical capital. The strategies of living any family<br />
adopts will evidently depict how these assets are utilised for the well being by each<br />
household, adjusting to their physical, social, economic and political environments.<br />
The contexts in which households operate involve a number of threats that render<br />
them vulnerable to negative livelihood outcomes. The households are viewed as<br />
sustainable if they can cope with the threats without compromising their future ability<br />
to survive shocks to their livelihoods.<br />
In this context, the development efforts of the nation are to be analysed. First of all,<br />
how far are they addressing the technology capital required for rural households?<br />
Apart from the sectors which are expected to do the technology development<br />
and technology delivery for certain commodities of farming related activities, do<br />
47
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
the development efforts care and integrate the technologies as a component and<br />
resource for livelihood development and its sustainability? It is a fact that India of late<br />
has started to give thrust to poverty alleviation strategies with a focus on livelihood<br />
security, institutional reforms, development of resource deficient areas, special<br />
measures of employment, empowerment of poor, including women, and safety nets.<br />
There are various programmes also under these thrust areas for self employment,<br />
wage employment, housing, water and sanitation, watershed development, rural<br />
connectivity, education information, etc. But to make these programmes really cater<br />
to the needs of the people as appropriate and effective relevant technologies is<br />
essential.<br />
It is worthwhile to analyse how far these programmes are expected to be integrating<br />
related technologies as an essential component. Are they in fact providing the necessary<br />
skill, knowledge and support services required for its utilization as a livelihood? Is the<br />
programme of micro credit ensuring the participant goes for micro-enterprise with<br />
related technologies? Is the development programme enabling the participant to<br />
analyse the market to choose the enterprise and equip the individual to acquire the skill,<br />
knowledge and information? Is the programme enabling and escorting the individual<br />
to access finance, quality inputs, value addition, market and market information? A<br />
typical development system may wonder if these are responsibilities of the system.<br />
But it is to be understood that, vulnerabilities, shocks, resource poorness, exclusion<br />
from the institutions, mystification of development offices, vulnerabilities and the low<br />
managerial and aspiration levels of the rural poor necessitate this enabling, escorting<br />
and handholding by the agencies involved. In this context, a serious issue that has to be<br />
raised, which often remains dormant or ignored, is the lack of integration or convergence<br />
of technology development, technology delivery and necessary support services.<br />
First of all, let us take the various technology-based development departments (which<br />
remain commodity oriented largely) like agriculture, horticulture, sericulture, fishery,<br />
animal management, agricultural engineering, forestry, processing in the field etc. It is<br />
to be noted that among these parallel departments of NRM themselves there does not<br />
exist any understanding or co-ordinated effort. Then, there is the lack of dovetailing<br />
between these technology-based development departments and the parallel, support<br />
service-oriented, rural development programmes. It can be noticed that in India, in<br />
the agricultural and allied development departments, technology support is largely<br />
confined to the land owning categories and the rural landless (including women as<br />
they lack land rights) are overloaded. It seems their related systems of research and<br />
extension are continuously under the blind belief that they are responsible only to the<br />
land owning farmers and not to other stakeholders like labourers or women, who are<br />
also in fact major actors in the scene.<br />
Similarly, the rural development systems can also be observed to be largely led by<br />
the notion that the efforts of rural development are meant to serve only the poor and<br />
hence are in no way related or dependent on agriculture development. It is a fact that<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
largely the people of the rural sector are not living in a water tight compartment of any<br />
single sector confined to production, like crop, animal, fish or forest, as most of them<br />
depend on many of these enterprises or labour opportunities and are in need of the<br />
technologies, skills, inputs, local development, water, credit, food, market, shelter, food,<br />
sanitation, health, childcare, education information and infrastructure facilities. They<br />
are in need of the delivery of these technologies and development support holistically<br />
and meaningfully. How far is this happening through the nation’s development effort?<br />
It is an irony that the convergence of the above identified development departments,<br />
which is a simple necessity for the rural folk, is not happening in reality. The rural<br />
mass do not live in watertight compartments of any commodity/support service based<br />
department, but in the reality of integrated life in the complex milieu of the rural socioeconomic<br />
and political system. Hence it is essential to recognise the need and effort<br />
for bringing the meaningful convergence of technology-based development efforts<br />
and parallel support service system right from the grassroot level.<br />
<strong>Technology</strong>, Gender and Social Inclusiveness<br />
The second equally important dimension of inclusiveness to be taken care of in the<br />
context of technology development and delivery is gender and social inclusiveness.<br />
How far is the technology development system aware of the real customers the face<br />
of the ‘users’ of the technology, their life realities, and socio-economic and gender<br />
concerns. It is to be admitted that not only the lack of convergence of the development<br />
systems themselves are excluding the real users from benefiting from the development<br />
efforts meaningfully, but the gender divide is also a major barrier in various forms.<br />
Even though such an analysis is to be presented holistically here the discussion is<br />
largely limited to the technology dimension alone.<br />
In the context of development and sustainable livelihoods, the majority of rural women<br />
are in a disadvantageous position. The sustainable livelihood approach demands a<br />
close look at the factors of capabilities, resources and opportunities available to the<br />
rural women; this taken up in any given situation will reveal the realities about the lack<br />
of inclusiveness of the various categories of women and the issues they face in the<br />
context of technologies needed for their living and livelihoods. The situation should<br />
persuade the R&D and the related research agenda setters and extension system to<br />
repeatedly analyse the following. If technology is a necessary and critical resource<br />
for development, in the present development system are they addressing the issues<br />
of women and their gender roles? Are there enough technologies to reduce the<br />
drudgery and occupational health hazards of women involved in productive sectors<br />
and operations? Are there technologies to improve the effectiveness of women’s<br />
performance with productive works? If any technologies are evolved for women’s<br />
work are they made suitable and friendly for women’s use or are they again kept<br />
as male oriented? Are the related systems of development and extension social<br />
system, and women themselves, aware of enabling the women to use the available<br />
women-friendly technologies through training, finance, ownership, and institutional<br />
49
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
arrangements? Is there enough gender sensitivity among these institutions – functions<br />
and functionaries-to bring these concerns into the agenda of reforms? It is to be<br />
recognised that engendering or gender mainstreaming of technology development<br />
and delivery systems should be effected through necessary capacity building and<br />
policy advocacy. The technologies are to be evolved and delivered without adverse<br />
gender impacts – are they suitable for women and men, reached by women and<br />
men, owned by women and men and beneficial of both women and men participants?<br />
How women are being deprived of the technologies through lack of access to the<br />
institutions, skill, capital, credit, training, land ownership, market, profit, equal wages,<br />
support services, ergonomically suited implements, etc., are to be taken care of in<br />
these efforts. These issues are to be addressed through gender mainstreaming by<br />
building the right mindset, proactive actions to change policies, designs, by-laws,<br />
timings, criteria, norms, etc. These necessary changes can be initiated individually<br />
or in chain, which in turn can bring about sweeping transformations directly and<br />
indirectly in the development and utilization of technologies by women along with<br />
men. There are lessons of success in these lines from isolated corners of the nation<br />
by scientists, extension personnel, CBOs, commodity boards, NGOs etc., wherein<br />
possibilities of breaking the status quo have been proved and have succeeded in<br />
reaching and enabling the rural communities through integrated approaches of<br />
development projects, to access, use and own the technologies. Their experiences<br />
are to be recognized as our signposts and the way forward to take up social and<br />
gender inclusive interventions in the context of an inclusive development approach.<br />
50
Technical Papers<br />
Approach to Rural Development “Economy Decentralization”<br />
Dr. Anil Joshi<br />
Founder, HESCO<br />
Vill-Ghisadpadi, P.O. Mehuwala, Via Majra, Dist. Dehradun 248 001<br />
Email: dranilpjoshi@yahoo.com; hescol@nde.vsnl.net.in<br />
The Gandhian concept of development had its inspiration in the villages having their<br />
own resources, directed to meet the optimum needs of the poorest of the poor. Gandhiji<br />
was of the view that the process of development of the nation must begin from its<br />
villages. In a country like India, where villages are in the majority, the prosperity of<br />
the nation can be ensured only when farmers are considered as development units.<br />
The economic liberty of the region, village or individual is the ultimate answer to the<br />
prosperity of the nation. But the scenario currently prevalent in the country is quite<br />
different. Overcrowded cities and deserted villages indicate two major gaps in our<br />
plans. Migration has brought about a dearth of strong hands in the villages, resulting<br />
in overcrowded cities, putting tremendous strain on the economy and resources in the<br />
cities and ecology of the region in both rural as well as urban areas. This is not only<br />
true of one region, but this scenario is discernible ubiquitously in the entire country.<br />
The picture is more gloomy in the U.P. hills, now Uttaranchal state. Here, continuous<br />
migration due to job scarcity has adversely affected the ecosystem. The people are<br />
forced to accept any job which sustains them. The migration has become so intense<br />
that rarely any strong menfolk can be seen in the villages. Out of total population of the<br />
hills, it is hardly 1.6 to 4 % who are involved in cottage industry or in any other activities.<br />
A minuscule number of able bodied people find jobs as labourers in the Government<br />
Department, which constitutes only 4 %. Ultimately with menfolk migrating to the cities<br />
and towns of the plains, women are left with all kinds of responsibilities, whether it<br />
is family chores or any other related job. These factors have halted the progress of<br />
the economy of the region. These developments indicate that our focus should be to<br />
start economic development processes based on available regional resources having<br />
the following basic issues: availability of resources; awareness about the natural as<br />
well as human resource; access to technologies: upgrade/traditional/innovative and<br />
local/commercial market need<br />
When all the above components are directed to work in harmony, the prosperity of the<br />
region can be ensured. In the context of the U.P. hills, un-utilized resources, in situ,<br />
have been the main cause of intensive migration. The resources are numerous here,<br />
whether conventional or nonconventional. They have never been identified in the line<br />
of the above principle. There has always been an outflow of these precious assets for<br />
other to take benefit of. The poor profit to the locals has been the major factor to bring<br />
distress and lack of faith in local resources. The reasons for such an unrest were<br />
unawareness of local people, lack of know-how of appropriate technologies and new<br />
market avenues.<br />
51
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
What is in fact needed is a decentralized technology for using local resources and<br />
to market them. This would need integration of local human and natural resources<br />
with the available decentralized technology and a market. This would suffice local<br />
market needs besides generating a large number of local jobs. This may also lead to<br />
the production of surplus, which can open as separate market avenues for the areas<br />
where such products are not available. Again, in the context of the mountains, some<br />
of the resources are particular to the area and environment specific, bestowed by<br />
nature, for e.g. agriculture, horticulture, herbs or any other. Such resources could find<br />
a niche market. This opportunity must be properly tapped.<br />
Local Resources<br />
Stretched over an area of 51.79 thousand sq.km., with a population of 59 lakh,<br />
Uttaranchal is in a trauma of distressing ecology and economy. Full of resources,<br />
dense forests, storming rivers and naïve humanity, Uttarakhand has been in turmoil<br />
particularly in the last decade. The suppressed voice and disheartened faces have<br />
begun to develop resentment which has been accumulated due to continuous<br />
disregard in the past. These grudges are noticed in every human who has been the<br />
resident of the mighty Himalayas.<br />
Is it not ridiculous that a region which provides the country for its indispensable needs,<br />
is devoid of minimum necessities for its inhabitants? This long neglect has stirred<br />
vexation in people of all walks of life. By and large, if we analyse the reasons for this<br />
resentment, we find only an inappropriate approach to overall development in the past<br />
that has infused such indignation in the people of this region. The logic behind such<br />
grudges is obvious, it cannot be overlooked that the poor approach to planning has<br />
been the main cause. The facts highlighted below display the truth.<br />
The land considered for Uttaranchal as per plan layout was to support 116 persons/<br />
sq.km., as against 546 persons/ sq.km. In the other parts of the state such data, which<br />
forms the basis of planning, are misleading. It is an eyewash because assessment<br />
of pressure on Uttaranchal land is calculated on the basis of total available land in<br />
the hills against its population. The facts are overlooked as the 67 % of the land is<br />
under forest cover and it is only 33 % land that is left. According to this, the pressure<br />
assessed comes to 354 person/ sq.km. If land is taken as direct support to the people’s<br />
food-need, it is not amazing to find that out the available land, it is only 12.75 % that<br />
is under cultivation. This implies that it is only 6518 sq.km., of land that can be placed<br />
as cultivable land in the Himalayas, to support 58.74 lakh people. This means that<br />
the pressure of dependence is 916.60 person/km. Our development approach should<br />
consider this above mentioned data before deciding on any plan. The focus of the<br />
plans already underway is more inclined towards the 18.30 % people who live in<br />
cities. The 81.70 % people who form the true population of Uttaranchal are outside<br />
concrete planning. The economic scenario of the region reveals that only 1.49 %<br />
52
Technical Papers<br />
people are involved in cottage industry. The main occupation is agriculture, involving<br />
63.78 % people and hitherto is bereft of appropriate technology practices. Irrigation<br />
technologies, improved seeds, appropriate composting and plant-based insecticide<br />
should have been given top priority in the plan, as agriculture is the main occupation<br />
here.<br />
It is notable that in spite of a large section of people being involved in agriculture,<br />
important grains have to be imported from the plains. It is because of inappropriate<br />
inputs. It is an irony of fate that the Himalayas, which represent God’s abode for<br />
blessings, have starving human population. Its resources need a great deal of<br />
planning whether it is water, forest or minor produce. These resources have never<br />
been tapped properly to generate local employment. Lack of appropriate technology<br />
packages and awareness has prevented village folk from harvesting profit out of the<br />
precious resources.<br />
Resources in the mountain are plenty ranging from different forest produce to water<br />
resources. Land and water, although the major assets of the Himalayas, have failed to<br />
meet the local needs of its inhabitants, water is scarce for drinking and for irrigation.<br />
Another unfortunate feature of this irony is waterpower. Large dams are being completed<br />
and planned but traditional Gharats (watermill) have never been appreciated by the<br />
planners. More than a thousand watermills are running at the same pace as they were<br />
in 1947. This can be a single resource that can bring a revolutionary uplift in energy<br />
supply.<br />
Forest that is spread over 67 % of the land of Uttarakhand has been of least use<br />
to its residents. Out of this resource, villagers get 0.5 % in the form of fodder and<br />
fuel. These great forests have become an unnecessary liability for Himalayan folk, for<br />
others to use.<br />
The major horticulture products like apples, citrus fruits and potatoes are sold to the<br />
market to meet the immediate needs of the locals. It has never been thought that<br />
storage techniques and decentralized processing can make a novel impact on the local<br />
economy. The area under horticulture is 7.4 lakh hectares (3.85 %), which produces<br />
about 3.98 lakh tonne as compared to 4.6 lakh tonne produced by neighboring H.P.<br />
This attractive production figure has not delivered any incentive to dwellers but in H.P.<br />
almost a similar fruit production has ushered in a thriving economy. It is the reason why<br />
inhabitants of Uttarakhand do not find orchard development a gainful preposition.<br />
Another important resource that forms the ribs of Government revenue is herbs. This<br />
resource could become an economy pursuit for the Government and contractors.<br />
Corporate body like Bhaisaj Sangh are swindlers. The approach of this Sangh has<br />
always been misleading. Himalaya, the source of herbs, does not have a single patent<br />
53
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
right on its medicinal plants. The fate of its medicinal plant is likely to be paralyzed<br />
in the absence of an appropriate package. Villagers are not aware of herbs as an<br />
important economy asset. Their involvement in strengthening these resources has<br />
never been in the plan approach.<br />
Coming to a major resource available in the villages it is traditional wisdom only that<br />
has marginal use. None of the cottage industries have been encouraged. The wool,<br />
which had been a major asset of the tribals, is no longer more produced locally but<br />
is imported from the plains. This has escalated the cost and has ultimately affected<br />
the activity adversely. The potential and sustainability of an environment resource is<br />
considered to be governed by: the role of the resource and how it can be defined i.e.<br />
whether the resource is being used for basic requirements (employment leading to<br />
income generation); the use of the resource is regular or occasional; the condition of<br />
the resource base (in the case of land resources, soil fertility, stability and productivity)<br />
depending upon climatic variations and the scale of demand placed on the resource.<br />
Human Resources<br />
Five decades of independence have failed to induce an appropriate rate of<br />
development in India. This is especially apparent in the villages. Rural India, today<br />
needs to develop, sustain and stabilize not only its environmental resources but also<br />
its rich and diverse human resource. In general, the development, sustainability and<br />
stability of any resource, environmental or human, depend on its judicious, mutually<br />
beneficial, well-planned use. The potential and sustainability of the human resource<br />
depends upon: The presence of the environmental resource; human skills and the<br />
scale of demand placed on the human skills.<br />
An age-old scenario of a village community reveals that earlier, villages had remarkable<br />
sustainability and interdependence on each other as well as within a village itself for<br />
their needs-be it common or an individual need. The sustainability scenario of a village<br />
cluster was chiefly based on geographical limitations. Distance was an important<br />
factor and interdependence within a cluster of villages served community needs. A<br />
community of 5-6 villages used to live in harmony and interdependence-both for basic<br />
need resources as also for human skills. By and large, skilled rural human resources<br />
can be grouped into two major categories: technically skilled human resource and<br />
culturally skilled human resource.<br />
Mason, carpenter, blacksmith, sculptor, basketweaver, watermill owner, physician,<br />
midwife, cobbler, tailor, barber, coppersmith, gold smith, cotton comber, oil-expeller,<br />
woodcutter, ploughmaker, wood utensil maker, gold extractor, communicator, cowherd<br />
and shepherd are technically the skilled human resource of a hilly region. Similarly<br />
priest, community cook, exorcist, demigod, dramatist, oculist, guest entertainer, and<br />
broker are culturally skilled resources.<br />
54
Technical Papers<br />
Within a cluster of villages, every resource was available, every skill was available.<br />
Further, in early times, village folk used the “barter system” for fulfilling their needs.<br />
In brief, this meant an exchange of resources (such as grain, fruit or vegetables) or<br />
skill (such as the skills of a barber, mason, tailor etc.) for fulfilling the needs within<br />
a village or among a cluster of villages. Slowly however this scenario of harmony<br />
and interdependence changed, mainly due to the advent of readymade imported<br />
products.<br />
The unplanned and indiscriminate economic growth of the urban sector has spilled<br />
over an adverse impact not on the rural environmental resources but also the rural<br />
human resources. A number of development modules have been planned for the rural<br />
sector but the rural human resource has been largely ignored.<br />
Indiscriminate use of local resources and separation of the associated human resources<br />
from their natural rights (for whatever reason) have chiefly been responsibile for<br />
eroding the intra and interdependence of rural people and their values and for causing<br />
a massive interdependent employment void in the villages or a cluster of villages.<br />
Local Market<br />
Here is a case study done in a couple of villages around a town called Gauchar. The<br />
survey was carried out to assess the pattern of dependence of villages for different<br />
daily need products from the near by town. The study revealed that a total of 18 needs<br />
are there (Table-1). Out of this (the above value taken initially as 100 %) the local<br />
community depends on some of the products partly (61.1 %) and in some absolutely<br />
(38.9 %). The products where there is a part dependence can, up to some extent be<br />
upgraded and where there is absolute dependence can also be replaced form local<br />
resources, provided the technology is available. The present survey has revealed that<br />
there is a possibility of producing need-based products from local resources (Table-2).<br />
Besides, some of the other resources that can provide outside markets as surplus after<br />
meeting local requirements are given in (Table-3).<br />
The available technologies for such an approach has also been considered. It reveals<br />
that the human skill available with the community can be trained with the new wisdom<br />
of S&T for resource use.<br />
Thus, the major reasons behind degrading village sustainability may be summarized<br />
as ignorance, neglect and lack of the Gandhian philosophy towards local resources,<br />
a lack of decentralized technologies and strong local markets. The Gandhian concept<br />
of resource use for the local market with upgraded local technology could not be<br />
synchronized. It is the reason why in most cases, inappropriate technology, raw<br />
material scarcity and poor local market became limiting factors for the local economy<br />
to flourish and this ultimately led to an exodus.<br />
55
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
Today, policy interventions are needed which will encourage a sustained management<br />
of the local resources and human resources, as well as local market. The local, rural<br />
people will have to be empowered culturally and technically so that they can have legal<br />
access to their natural resource in association with its management responsibility.<br />
This review reflects the possibilities of a resource independent community in the<br />
rural areas of the country if human and natural resources are tapped in an integrated<br />
manner, with due respect to local and outside community needs. This would be a<br />
decentralized approach of development, which will be sustainable.<br />
56<br />
Table 1. Dependence Pattern on Resources<br />
S. No. Items Local<br />
Dependency (%)<br />
1. Cereals 60 40<br />
2. Pulses 50 50<br />
3. Fruits 10 90<br />
4. Oil 40 60<br />
5. Spices 50 50<br />
6. Clothes<br />
� Cotton<br />
� Wooden<br />
� Medicines<br />
� Synthetic<br />
7. Construction material (House) 60 40<br />
8. Others<br />
� Candle/ lamp<br />
� Tooth Paste<br />
� Soap, Detergent<br />
� Cosmetic<br />
� Leather Articles<br />
� Match box<br />
� Stationary<br />
100<br />
75<br />
85<br />
100<br />
100<br />
90<br />
90<br />
100<br />
100<br />
100<br />
100<br />
Local<br />
Availability (%)<br />
--<br />
25<br />
35<br />
--<br />
--<br />
10<br />
10<br />
--<br />
--<br />
--<br />
--
Table 2. Possibilities of Replacement of Dependency<br />
Technical Papers<br />
S. No. Items <strong>Technology</strong> Available for<br />
1. Clothes<br />
2. Others<br />
� Cotton clothes<br />
� Synthetic clothes<br />
� Candle<br />
� Lamp<br />
� Kerosene<br />
� Torch<br />
� Stove<br />
� Cosmetics<br />
� Leather articles<br />
� Match box<br />
� Stationary<br />
Table 3. Surplus Produce for Other Area<br />
S. No. Surplus Produce Marketing <strong>Technology</strong><br />
Available<br />
Raw Processed<br />
1. Spices � � �<br />
2. Pulses � � �<br />
3. Fruits � � �<br />
4. Herbs � � �<br />
5. Oil Seeds � � �<br />
6. Millets � � �<br />
The above explanations raise certain issues that need to be reviewed in the resent<br />
context. Some questions need to be addressed immediately that can enrich S&T<br />
policy for the hills<br />
� Are we aware of rural resources?<br />
� Are technologies to use them available?<br />
� Is there any scope of improvement to ensure technology for better returns?<br />
� Does technology developed in the past match expectation ?<br />
� If not, how often has it happened that technology invented community skills have<br />
not been locally useful?<br />
�<br />
--<br />
�<br />
--<br />
--<br />
--<br />
--<br />
�<br />
�<br />
--<br />
�<br />
57
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
The above queries will decide the S&T rural policy for mountain states. There are<br />
three clear sectors where S&T in rural India should move. These are technology<br />
development, products and technology, and marketing. The processes of technology<br />
development immediately necessitate certain inputs. In the rural context, technology<br />
development must be in close partnership with the local community. It is mainly<br />
because some major issues are addressed, like appropriateness of technology is<br />
ensured and respect to local wisdom with new knowledge is achieved; immediate<br />
feasibility is taken care of and ensured repair and fabrication is possible.<br />
The above issues become further useful while dissemination of technology is worked<br />
out. This is also important for how technology can be transferred to the community. Thus<br />
simple mechanism of transfer of technology will necessitate knowledge of resource<br />
availability in the given region, demonstration and training, training on productivity and<br />
marketing strategies, training from community to community, and organizational set<br />
up. After technology development, skills of the local community should be involved<br />
for marketing of technology. The product from technology must be targeted to the<br />
local market initially and later to the urban. <strong>Technology</strong> thus can only set diverse<br />
employment opportunities. All above, such issues need discussion, essentially among<br />
the social workers and scientists who have been successful technology carriers in<br />
the recent past. Rural development task forces can be instrumental in providing<br />
increased access to rural services through S&T and may have responsibilities like<br />
sourcing of technology; success case studies and their promotion; technology gaps<br />
in rural Uttaranchal in different development sectors and strategies and partners for<br />
technology transfer.<br />
58
Technical Papers<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> System - a Hub and Spoke Model - a<br />
case study in Sunderbans, West Bengal<br />
Dr. Ramalakshmi Datta & Dr. B.K. Datta<br />
Vivekananda Institute of Biotechnology, Nimpith Ashram<br />
South 24 Parganas 743 338, West Bengal<br />
Email: vkdattasranvib@rediffmail.com; bkdattasramvib@rediffmail.com<br />
All the wealth of the world cannot help one little Indian village, if the people<br />
are not taught to help themselves. Our work has to be mainly educational both<br />
moral and intellectual.<br />
Swami Vivekananda<br />
Vivekananda Institute of Biotechnology (VIB) works mainly to reach the people at<br />
the grassroot level with relevant science and technological advancement. This effort<br />
would throw some light on its method of technology delivery and how it works for<br />
the rural farmers and the people at the bottom line to make them aware of scientific<br />
advancement and its application to improve their living conditions. “Sunderbans” is<br />
now a daily item in the menu of South Calcuttans. It is available in each Mother Dairy<br />
milk booth in South Kolkata. The fresh mushroom grown by the mushroom growers<br />
in the remote villages of Sunderbans is now reaching the Kolkata market in the brand<br />
named “Sunderbans” through a chain linked by VIB and the Mother Dairy.<br />
A few years ago, rotting neem fruits on the roads under the neem trees was a common<br />
sight. Today it is a rare thing to be seen. The village men and women have realized the<br />
importance of Neem Seed Kernel Aqueous Extract (NSKAE). They have learnt how to<br />
Who are the Nodal Persons (NP)?<br />
The NPs are selected unemployed rural youth from each Gram Panchayet of the target<br />
blocks, preferably with an agricultural family background and with a qualification of 12 th<br />
class (Science).<br />
They are trained at Vivekananda Institute of biotechnology (VIB) on relevant agri –<br />
biotech trades such as Biofertilizer <strong>Technology</strong> & Horticultural Biotechnology.<br />
After the training these trainees go back to their area and invest their knowledge / skills<br />
to address, manage and solve the problems faced by the rural people and farmers and<br />
in turn earn an additional income.<br />
The institute also provides them an identity, which elevates their status and increases<br />
their acceptance in the villages.<br />
They are the knowledge workers who are competent to develop the skill amongst<br />
the village youth/farmers and they are the agri- biotech entrepreneurs who generate<br />
income not only for themselves but also for others.<br />
59
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
prepare it and apply it on their fruit and vegetable crops and paan (betel vine) from the<br />
VIB’s Nodal Persons in their Gram Panchayat. Sri. Sitanshu Maity and Sri. Niranjan<br />
Das of Namkhana get better price for their betel leaves in the market because of the<br />
size, lustre and taste – thanks to NSKAE.<br />
A nodal person (NP) of VIB is selected after an initial benchmarking. He / she has to<br />
have a good knowledge regarding the target area, its problems and its potentialities.<br />
He has to undergo training at VIB on different technologies which are thought through<br />
different training modules.<br />
The Components of Biofertilizer <strong>Technology</strong> includes modules such as soil testing &<br />
fertilizer recommendation, production & application of Azolla in rice fields, production<br />
& application of blue green algae in rice fields, production and application of microbial<br />
inoculants, vermicomposting, production & application of Vesicular Arbuscular<br />
Mycorrhizae (VAM) and Components of Horticultural Biotechnology includes plant<br />
propagation (macro propagation), plant propagation (micro propagation), seed testing,<br />
seed production, pomology, olericulture, floriculture. A compulsory module on plant<br />
protection is also included.<br />
After the training the NP reaches back to his or her Gram Panchayat (GP) with a<br />
package of practices for the farmers of the villages under that particular GP. The<br />
package of practices would include products such as vermiculture; vermicompost;<br />
BGA & Azolla; carrier based culture of microbial inoculants; nursery of micropropagated<br />
and conventionally propagated plantlets biopesticides and VAM as well as services<br />
like plant pest and disease problems; cropping pattern / crop selection; cultivation<br />
practice and soil testing and fertilizer recommendation.<br />
Fig.1 shows a part of the hub and spoke model which an NP at a GP level creates<br />
along with the farmers at the grassroot level and the VIB. A similar model is functioning<br />
at the Sagar Women <strong>Technology</strong> Park initiated with support from Ministry of Women<br />
and Child Welfare and DST, Govt. of India and implemented by VIB. Ms. Bina Khanra<br />
Das, Ms. Uma Pradhan, Ms. Sutanushree Manna, Ms. Debashree Panda, Ms. Sumita<br />
60<br />
Fig.1 A part of the Hub and Spoke model
Technical Papers<br />
Karmakar, Ms. Sonali Santra, Ms. Somashri Das and Ms. Somana Mishra are the<br />
women entrepreneurs working as NP.<br />
Some of the NP have expanded vertically, taking up other technologies also, like<br />
biogas technology. They dreamt of opening up centers where the farmers of their target<br />
area could undergo skill development training programs on relevant agricultural skills<br />
and get the required products and services. These NP needed assistance in terms<br />
of knowledge as well as logistics. With support from United Nations Development<br />
Programme and DST, Govt. of India, VIB could promote four such centers in various<br />
districts of West Bengal and are called Vivekananda Center For SKILLS (VCS).<br />
One such nodal center of VIB is VCS 1 in Patharpratima in Sunderbans under the<br />
leadership of the Sri. Chinmay Maiti. This knowledge and skill development center for<br />
farmers is located in the heart of Patharpratima block of Sunderbans. VCS, as it is well<br />
known to these farmers, is the place where they get the solutions to their farm related<br />
problems, and information regarding new methods of farming and where they interact<br />
with the academicians and researchers directly. Patharpratima block is a group of<br />
islands. It comprises 15 GP. VCS, Patharpratima has a target to reach the farmers in<br />
10 GP, fully equipped classroom; team of experts; identified skills; demand for new<br />
skills; more than 600 farmers have undergone the training till now; the charge varies<br />
from Rs. 30/- to 50/- per day and the multi skill package involves 60 skills.<br />
VCS Patharpratima also reaches the farmers at the grassroot level through the nodal<br />
persons who have been trained at VIB. They are Sri.Mrinmay Pramanik, Sri.Debashish<br />
Ghorui, Sri.Gaurhari Acharya, Sri.Niranjan Giri, Sri.Siddhartha Barman,Sri. Kamal<br />
Jana, Sri.Shyamsundar Satpati, Sri.Manoranjan Kar and Sri.Biswajeet Pradhan Sri<br />
Narayan Jana, Sri Nishikanta Maity and Sri Abalakanta Bhuinya are a few of the farmers<br />
who have undergone training at VCS, Patharprotima on aspects like importance of<br />
soil testing, application of biocontrol agents, biofertilizers and organic manures on<br />
their vegetable crops, betel vine and paddy. Apart from that, they also got NSKAE<br />
and other similar escort services for their field application. They are now glad to be<br />
associated with VCS, which has benefited them, their family & their neighbourhood<br />
as a whole.<br />
VIB has formulated the course curricula and provided quality instructional manuals<br />
and promotional materials to the VCS. VIB is also providing the necessary resource<br />
persons for the initial period. Another important point is noteworthy, i.e the concept of<br />
escort services. The escort services provide the farmer access to different services<br />
at his doorstep and help the center to survive in the initial years. Being benefited by<br />
the training, the farmers are now coming forward to pay for undergoing the training at<br />
VCS. The skill areas are decided on the basis of awareness and promotional programs<br />
conducted at the field. As new areas are included VIB simultaneously consults the<br />
concerned/included resource persons in the national / state laboratories / universities<br />
and prepares the training material accordingly.<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
Prof. Ramesh Chand of National Center for Agricultural Economics and Policy<br />
<strong>Research</strong> has said, “If we have to make agriculture attractive again, we not only need<br />
to increase productivity but also think of uplifting the farmers, their knowledge and<br />
skills.” Vivekananda Center for SKILLS with its training model and modules for the<br />
grassroot level people, especially the farmers, is a new concept. Here, the farmers<br />
are paying to get the training whereas the standard practice in this region is to receive<br />
free training under the Govt. sponsored subsidized programs. Though it is in its initial<br />
stages, it is expected that the program will be a success and the center will be an<br />
asset to the grassroot level community.<br />
It would be apt to conclude with a statement of Prof. M.S.<strong>Swaminathan</strong> : “The advent<br />
of biotechnology has generated new opportunities for skilled employment in villages,<br />
through biological software industries, such as the manufacture of biofertilizers,<br />
biopesticides and the establishment of biomass refineries” and we should tap this<br />
opportunity.<br />
62
Enhancing Livelihood Security through<br />
Capacity Building for Organic Farming.<br />
Dr. K. Vijayalakshmi K and Dr. A.V. Balasubramanian<br />
Trustee and Director, Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems, Chennai<br />
Email: ciksorg@gmail.com; ciks@vsnl.com<br />
Technical Papers<br />
Background<br />
India is the home of great diversity, of both wild and cultivated crops. However, in<br />
recent years, there has been a marked decline in the variety and diversity of cultivated<br />
crops such as rice and cereals. With the advent of the Green Revolution, the emphasis<br />
has been to a large extent on the increase of yield; consequently a small number<br />
of paddy varieties selected solely for their capacity to give high yields in response<br />
to the application of high doses of fertilizer are being promoted. As a result, today<br />
the genetic base has narrowed down considerably. Industrialized agriculture favours<br />
genetic uniformity. Typically, vast areas are planted with a single, high yielding variety<br />
- a practice known as monoculture - using expensive inputs such as irrigation, fertilizer<br />
and pesticides to maximize production. In the process, not only traditional crop<br />
varieties, but long-established farming ecosystems are obliterated. Genetic uniformity<br />
invites disaster because it makes a crop vulnerable to attack - a pest or disease that<br />
affects one plant quickly spreads throughout the crop.<br />
Growth of the Efforts<br />
The Centre’s initial effort in on-farm conservation was in collaboration with NGOs in<br />
different parts of Tamil Nadu. In Valayamapattu village, it actively collaborated with the<br />
‘Save the Eastern Ghats’ Movement for setting up the community seed bank. After a<br />
year CIKS expanded this programme to Tiruporur in Kanchipuram district with the help<br />
of the Grammiya Munnetra Sangam (GMS), to Nedumbaram village at Tiruttani with<br />
the assistance of the Centre for Development of Disadvantaged Peoples (CDDP), to<br />
the Mosavadi village, Vandavasi, with the help of the VISA Peace Centre and to the<br />
Manampathy village, Uthiramerur, with the help of the Women’s Welfare Development<br />
Association (WWDA). In the year 1998, it started its work in the Kattankalathur block<br />
of Kanchipuram district (the then Chengalpattu district) in a major way with the support<br />
of the Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural <strong>Technology</strong> (CAPART).<br />
Subsequently, this work has expanded to more than 125 villages spreading over the<br />
districts of Kanchipuram, Tiruvallur, Tiruvannamalai and Nagapattinam. CIKS has<br />
also been supported in this effort by different funding agencies like the IDRC, UNDP,<br />
COMPAS project and Ford <strong>Foundation</strong>.<br />
Survey and Collection of Indigenous Varieties<br />
The Centre’s initial effort was to get access to indigenous varieties. In every area of its<br />
work, detailed survey was taken up by CIKS field workers to find out the indigenous<br />
63
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
varieties of paddy already available in that area. It found that at least in some villages<br />
some farmers had the tradition of conserving these varieties for self consumption. CIKS<br />
collected / purchased the seeds from these seed savers. Besides this, gazetteers,<br />
district reports and travellers accounts, gave information about the traditional varieties<br />
that were grown in these areas before the hybrids came in. An attempt was made to<br />
get these varieties back to the farmers from other parts of the taluka / district or other<br />
parts of Tamil Nadu if these varieties were still available.<br />
Seed Collection through Biodiversity Contests, Bija Yatra and Participation<br />
in Fairs and Festivals<br />
Efforts were also made to collect indigenous seeds by involving youth particularly<br />
students, by announcing contests (Essay & Oratorical Competitions) on this subject.<br />
By means of this CIKS was able to not only collect information about the varieties<br />
but also to create awareness about the importance of conserving these varieties in<br />
farmers’ fields amongst village students, who are the future farmers of our country. A<br />
Bija Yatra was undertaken by several voluntary organisations to document information<br />
regarding the indigenous varieties available with the farmers and also information on<br />
indigenous varieties. CIKS was also part of this bija yatra and collected information<br />
and seeds during this yatra.<br />
CIKS also participated regularly in agriculture fairs and festivals, where it displayed<br />
its varieties and also exchanged varieties with farmers. Information regarding the<br />
Centre’s efforts was distributed in the form of pamphlets which brought the Centre<br />
in touch with more farmers who were interested in conserving these varieties and<br />
also with farmers who were conserving these varieties. CIKS has also made some<br />
attempts to get access to some indigenous varieties from the rice research stations<br />
of Tamil Nadu such as Tirurkuppam, Ambasamudram and Aaduthurai. In every area<br />
of CIKS’ work detailed surveys were made and an inventory of farmers in different<br />
villages who cultivate these varieties were made. This inventory contains information<br />
like the reasons for preservation of these varieties, special characteristics of these<br />
varieties, mode of cultivation, etc.<br />
Farmers Seed Banks for Seed Exchange Distribution and Utilisation<br />
In every village where the Centre works farmers have been organised for exchange<br />
of seeds and exchange of information. This is called an organic farmers sangam<br />
(association). Several meetings with the farmers were held in different villages regarding<br />
the importance of the indigenous varieties. Farmers set aside part of their land towards<br />
conservation of indigenous grain varieties. They are provided with the initial supply of<br />
seeds which has been procured by CIKS from that area and surrounding areas from<br />
farmers who already grow it. These farmers who are part of the programme are given<br />
the technical knowhow of manuring their field organically, treating pests by natural<br />
control methods, use of vermicompost, etc. The farmers are provided seeds with the<br />
understanding that at the end of the season they return twice the quantity of seeds<br />
64
Technical Papers<br />
that they have taken from the seed bank. Farmers are also provided with bio inputs<br />
like biofertilisers (Azospirillum, Acetobacter etc) and neem seed cake.<br />
Detailed documentation of every farmer is being maintained by CIKS. It has detailed<br />
information about the crop at every stage, the type and quantity of inputs used, pest<br />
control techniques used, characteristics of crop, yield obtained and other details.<br />
Initially, farmers were cultivating indigenous varieties in a part of their land. Currently,<br />
farmers have come forward to convert their entire land into organic fields. In several<br />
villages farmers are cultivating organically as a group. Patches of land which are<br />
adjacent to each other are all under organic cultivation. Our centre is monitoring<br />
these lands and does the internal inspection for them and gets it ready for certification<br />
by an external certifying agency. Farmers would now get a certificate as a group for<br />
organic cultivation. We are also making efforts to see that the organic products are<br />
marketed effectively and the farmer gets a good price.<br />
A Marketing Support Programme for Conservation of Indigenous<br />
Varieties<br />
During the course of CIKS work on conservation of indigenous varieties, one of<br />
the important constraints that the farmers met was that of finding a market for their<br />
varieties. It was very depressing to note that they did not get a reasonable return in<br />
the regular market. To overcome this, CIKS evolved a programme of linking up the<br />
consumers with the farmers. Arogyam is a programme which has registered members.<br />
These members ensure the purchase of organically grown indigenous varieties. This<br />
programme is done on the initiative of the Centre and it provides a good market<br />
for the farmers cultivating indigenous varieties organically. This pilot programme on<br />
marketing has shown that it would be possible to make available organic products to<br />
the consumer at rates on par with the existing inorganic products and also provide<br />
the farmer a reasonable return. CIKS currently has other plans to strengthen the<br />
marketing network. It is exploring the possibility of establishing a farmers’ institution<br />
for taking care of the marketing activities.<br />
In Situ Conservation Centres<br />
During the course of its work in the last 10 years on indigenous seed conservation,<br />
CIKS has collected more than 130 varieties of paddy suitable for cultivation in Tamil<br />
Nadu. There is a network of farmers who cultivate these and conserve them year after<br />
year. The farmers choose to cultivate one or two varieties depending on the soil type,<br />
irrigation facility and agro climatic region to which they belong. However, all these<br />
varieties have to be conserved year after year. They also need to be conserved in<br />
more than one region so that they are not destroyed due to the vagaries of climate.<br />
Besides this the Centre experiments with any new variety that it gets and cultivates it<br />
at least for a few seasons before passing it on to the farmers. Sometimes the Centre<br />
also gets access to rare varieties and the amount it gets may be a handful (say a few<br />
grains). These have to be cultivated with great care and propagated. In addition to<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
all these, CIKS needs places where these varieties are cultivated year after year and<br />
farmers can come and take a look at the standing crop and decide for themselves<br />
what they would cultivate. For all these purposes in situ conservation centres have<br />
been established in the experimental farm of CIKS and selected farmers fields. In<br />
these in situ conservation centres more than 50 varieties are grown at a time.<br />
During the Centre’s work with indigenous paddy cultivation it realised that the very<br />
concept of home gardens was fast vanishing. When it did a survey to find out the<br />
reasons, CIKS realised that the introduction of high yielding varieties and subsequent<br />
loss of local varieties was one of the main reasons for the disappearing home gardens.<br />
Women farmers could not afford the high price of hybrid seeds for home gardens<br />
and even if they did buy the seeds paying a high cost, the germination capacity of<br />
these seeds was very low. They could not use it for the next season. CIKS made an<br />
intervention in this area also and succeeded in bringing back at least 50 indigenous<br />
vegetable varieties which are cultivated in the home gardens of these women. These<br />
women cultivate the vegetables organically and the Centre provides training for<br />
the same. It has also trained women to produce good quality seeds. Every family<br />
involved this programme produces at least Rs.300/- worth vegetables. This adds<br />
to the nutritional security of the family. In addition to cultivating vegetables in these<br />
gardens women are also encouraged to cultivate herbs which can be used in curing<br />
common ailments. They are provided training in organic cultivation of herbs and also<br />
the knowhow of preparing some of the medicines for self help. This is a 100 % women<br />
based programme.<br />
Training, Outreach Programmes and Production of Educational<br />
Material<br />
The Centre provides constant training to the network of farmers in organic cultivation<br />
of indigenous varieties. They are also trained to prepare plant based biopesticides on<br />
their own. Farmers are also trained in various composting techniques. This helps them<br />
to become self sufficient as far as farm inputs are concerned and also saves them a<br />
lot of money. Outreach programmes are conducted regularly to increase awareness in<br />
other sections of the village community. Essays and oratorical competitions are held<br />
in schools. CIKS has also produced a number of publications in the form of books,<br />
posters and films on organic agriculture and biodiversity conservation.<br />
Organic Farmers Sangam<br />
After nearly 10 years into this programme, CIKS has come up with certain models for<br />
the maintenance and sustainability of the effort. Currently, it has nearly 3,000 farmers<br />
spread in about 125 villages, who conserve these varieties organically. There are<br />
more than 800 households which maintain integrated organic home gardens. In every<br />
village, CIKS is in the process of forming organic farmers sangam or groups. So far it<br />
has established 37 organic farmers sangam. These sangam have members who come<br />
together for the common cause of organic farming and indigenous seed conservation.<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
The sangam members pay a monthly subscription which is maintained in a bank account.<br />
Elected office bearers take care of and give directions to the working of the sangam.<br />
The sangam maintain the village community seed bank. Storage structures for the<br />
seed bank are initially provided through the programmes with a beneficiary contribution<br />
and later it is maintained by the sangam. The borrowing and returning is controlled by<br />
the sangam. Sangam may also be provided with certain agricultural implements like<br />
sprayers, tarpaulin sheets for drying grains and so on, which are hired out for a nominal<br />
rate. Some sangam also run biopesticide units as an income generating activity. The<br />
basic knowhow and the infrastructure is provided by the Centre.<br />
Constraints and Limitations<br />
The following are some of the constraints and limitations that we have encountered<br />
in this effort.<br />
• Almost all of us start doing intense filed work in limited areas with the thinking that<br />
we should test out and “demonstrate models”. The hope is that such models can<br />
be used to influence thinking and activity of other groups and more importantly<br />
the Government. However, influencing Government policies generally proves to<br />
be more challenging and difficult than we envisage. Moreover, this kind of work<br />
also seems to need a team with skills and talents of a very different kind than<br />
that needed for field work. Hence, by and large, we tend to be restricted to small<br />
areas which we may indeed get expanded even substantially (by the standards of<br />
NGO efforts) but the impact remains very limited.<br />
• A different kind of problem arises during the formation and nurturing of farmer’s<br />
institutions. The traditional organisations of rural people have their own forms,<br />
values and styles of operation. However, one is also forced to set up or nurture<br />
modern institutions such as societies or trusts since quite often we need institutions<br />
that can be identified as a “legal person” to deal with the government, banks<br />
etc. These structures of-course may be parallel to the traditional institutions and<br />
not replacing them. Nevertheless this poses a dilemma since the norms and<br />
procedures relating to modern institutions are quite different. This means one<br />
has to be renegotiating the work of the institutions about making of decisions,<br />
distribution of power, etc.<br />
• One other factor of great concern is the very low level of preference and extremely<br />
poor answerability of various Government institutions, particularly those relating<br />
to agriculture and extension services. A large number of funding agencies that<br />
support NGO efforts expect (quite reasonably) that our efforts relating to agriculture<br />
must attempt to link up with efforts of the Government. However, in practice, this<br />
often proves to be very frustrating. One can think of several examples where<br />
these linkups have lead to the “Governmentisation of NGOs” with the attendant<br />
loss of flexibility and ability for quick response, which are indeed the strength of<br />
NGOs.<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
Conclusion<br />
Despite all these limitations one feels that there is still a lot that is positive. It is<br />
heartening to see that the farmers have generously contributed land, materials and<br />
labour for setting up biopesticide units and seed banks. There is also a gradual but<br />
definite change in the environment, which is now more supportive for sustainable<br />
agriculture efforts. There is a growing realization among the general public about health<br />
benefits of organic foods. Increasingly, the Government and many other agencies are<br />
providing support for such efforts. “Organic” has moved away from being an “off beat”<br />
to a serious alternative proposition. All these are indeed signs of great hope.<br />
68
Renewable Energy: Balancing Livelihood<br />
and Environmental Sustainability<br />
Dr.A.D. Karve & Dr. Priyadarshini Karve<br />
President, Appropriate Rural <strong>Technology</strong> Institute,<br />
Maninee Apartments, Survey No.13, Dhayarigaon, Pune 411 041<br />
Email: adkarve @vsnl.com<br />
Technical Papers<br />
Appropriate Rural <strong>Technology</strong> Institute (ARTI) was founded by a group of scientists,<br />
technologists and social workers in April 1996. Its main aim is to develop and transfer<br />
innovative rural technologies to rural people for income generation and improving the<br />
quality of their life. So far, more than 25 technologies have been developed, mainly in<br />
two areas of importance to rural population, viz. agriculture related technologies, and<br />
household energy related technologies.<br />
ARTI has also developed several novel approaches for dissemination of its<br />
technologies. It has created two commercial organizations for this purpose. The agrihorticultural<br />
technologies are commercialised through Sahyadri Technical Assistance<br />
and Industrial Co-operative Ltd, and the energy technologies are commercialised<br />
through Samuchit Enviro-Tech Pvt. Ltd. (SET).<br />
Rationale Behind the Energy Technologies<br />
Biomass represents a very handy form of renewable energy. It is plentifully available<br />
in rural India in the form of agricultural waste, weeds and roadside vegetation, and<br />
also in urban areas as garden waste, kitchen waste, waste paper, cardboard and<br />
urban leaf litter. Burning biomass in a traditional stove or in the open air creates air<br />
pollution, due to imperfect combustion of pyrolysis gases, but use of improved stoves<br />
and conversion of waste biomass into high quality fuels has solved this problem. The<br />
cleanly burning biomass based fuels in solid form are wood chips, densified pellets of<br />
light, torrefied or charred biomass and charcoal. Liquids consist of ethanol, vegetable<br />
oils, lard and biodiesel. The gaseous forms are represented by wood gas, coal gas,<br />
pyrolysis gas and methane. These fuels can be easily produced by using relatively<br />
simple technologies, practicable even at the village level. Therefore, producing<br />
cleanly burning high value fuel products based on biomass, and fabrication and sale<br />
of cooking devices using biomass based fuels, can form the basis of many sustainable<br />
rural enterprises.<br />
The technologies developed by ARTI are based specifically on waste biomass,<br />
generated by urban centres as well as by agri-horticultural activity in rural areas.<br />
ARTI’s Household Energy Technologies*<br />
Improved Laxmi Stove: This two pot hole fixed stove with chimney is an improved<br />
version of the Laxmi stove that was being promoted by ARTI and several other<br />
* Photos given in inside back cover<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
Technical Backup Units during National Programme on Improved Chulha. The stove<br />
has a metallic grate at the bottom of the firebox, with an air tunnel below the grate. This<br />
ensures adequate air supply to the fuel and better combustion. The inner dimensions<br />
are properly matched with the chimney to ensure good air flow through the stove body.<br />
The shape and size of the pot holes have been optimized to ensure minimum leakage<br />
of air and smoke around the cooking vessels. The chimney consists of three interlocking<br />
pieces, which can be easily dismantled, cleaned, and reassembled from within the<br />
house itself. The stove can be operated using wood sticks or woody biomass as fuel.<br />
Sampada Gasifier Stove: This is a portable metallic stove. The fuel should be in the<br />
form of dry woody twigs or small blocks/chips of wood. The fuel is burned under a<br />
limited supply of air in a special fuel chamber, where it pyrolyses. The pyrolysis gas<br />
produced in this chamber is combusted by providing additional secondary air to it. For<br />
longer duration use, there is a provision for adding fuel through a side opening. The<br />
special feature of the stove is that charcoal is left behind in the fuel holder after the<br />
stove operation. Thus, the stove not only delivers clean cooking but also produces a<br />
valuable by product in the form of charcoal.<br />
Vivek Sawdust Stove: This is a portable metallic stove specially designed for using<br />
sawdust and other powdery biomass as fuel. The fuel needs to be packed in the<br />
stove, around a metallic cylinder. The cylinder is then removed leaving an L shaped<br />
cavity in the packed biomass. A small burning stick of wood is inserted through the<br />
inlet near the bottom. The exposed layer of biomass in the vertical tunnel ignites, and<br />
the heat is utilized for gasification of the inner layers. The pyrolysis gas comes into<br />
the tunnel and rises up, igniting just under the cooking pot placed on the pot holders.<br />
Due to its optimal design, the stove produces a clean blue flame. One full charge of<br />
fuel (about 2-3 kg sawdust) keeps the stove burning for about 2 hours.<br />
Sarai Cooking System: This is a portable stainless steel device operating on the<br />
combination of the principles of steam cooking and retained heat cooking. This has<br />
been hailed as one of the cleanest ways of using charcoal for household cooking. In<br />
the medium sized system, just about 100-125 gm of charcoal is sufficient for cooking<br />
dal, rice, and a vegetable or meat for a family of 5 persons. The charcoal to be used<br />
can either be ordinary wood charcoal, or charcoal left over in a wood burning stove,<br />
or char briquettes made from agricultural waste. The Sarai system comes in two sizes<br />
– the medium size is for a family of 4-5 persons, whereas there is a large size for a<br />
family of 8-10 persons. In case rice is the prime food, it is recommended to go for the<br />
large size version even for smaller family sizes.<br />
ARTI Biogas System: This is a floating drum type biogas system made of plastic. The<br />
feedstock consists of material having high nutritional value, such as waste grain flour,<br />
left over food, food waste, non-edible fruits, seeds and rhizomes, spoiled vegetables<br />
and fruits, spoilt milk, non-edible oil cake, etc. The standard model consists of a<br />
digeter of 1000 lit, and a gas holder of 750 lit. This system can produce about 800 lit<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
of biogas every 24 hrs, using just 1 kg of feedstock. This will keep the biogas burner<br />
on for about 2 hrs, adequate to cook a meal for a family of 4-5 people. The system<br />
can be scaled up to utilize larger amount of feedstock, and to satisfy larger cooking<br />
requirement.<br />
Charcoaling <strong>Technology</strong> – Rural: Several hundred million tonnes of agricultural waste<br />
is either burned in situ or allowed to rot in the field. Transporting agricultural waste<br />
from hundreds of small farms to a central processing unit was found to be too costly.<br />
Therefore a portable kiln was designed by ARTI for charring the agrowaste at the farm<br />
site itself. This kiln generates about 50 kg char or about 100 kg torrefied biomass<br />
in an eight hour shift. The char or the torrefied biomass is transported to a central<br />
processing unit, where it is mixed with a suitable binder and extruded into cylindrical<br />
briquettes.<br />
Charcoaling <strong>Technology</strong> – Urban: ARTI has designed a small, portable charring kiln<br />
for charring urban waste, such as cardboard and wooden crates, paper waste of<br />
various kinds, leaf litter, lopped branches of trees and trimmings of lawn and hedges<br />
etc. This kiln can be easily carried around, even in a bicycle riksha. It can produce<br />
daily about 35 kg of char from the biomass mentioned above.<br />
A Sustainable <strong>Technology</strong> Dissemination Strategy<br />
ARTI has been developing and disseminating sustainable rural technologies for the<br />
past 12 years. Our general strategy is presented below, using the char briquettes<br />
technology as an illustration :<br />
Step 1: Identification of a problem or a new concept for rural development: ARTI<br />
workers identified sugarcane trash as a potential source of fuel. Maharashtra has<br />
4,50,000 ha under sugarcane, which generate annually 4.5 million tonnes of dry<br />
leaves called sugarcane trash. Being highly lignified and silicified, these leaves are<br />
not consumed by cattle. They are also hard to decompose, and therefore they interfere<br />
with the agricultural operations of the next season. Therefore, farmers get rid of the<br />
trash by burning it in situ. Converting it into fuel briquettes by compression requires<br />
heavy machinery and high energy. Such a unit cannot be moved from its location.<br />
Transporting light biomass from hundreds of small farms to a centrally located unit<br />
was found to be too costly.<br />
Step 2: Conceptualization of technology design: It was therefore decided to char<br />
this material. Charring reduces the weight of the target biomass by 70 % and also<br />
adds value to it. Char can thus bear the cost of transport .from the field to a central<br />
briquetting unit. The traditional charring kiln that is used for making wood charcoal<br />
was not found to be suitable for sugarcane trash, as it turned all the trash into ash. A<br />
method was devised to pyrolyse the trash under exclusion of oxygen. The next step in<br />
the technology development was to design a cooking system that would use charcoal<br />
in a highly efficient manner. Charcoal was extensively used as cooking fuel about<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
60 years ago. A survey of the cooking utensils of that era led to the discovery of the<br />
simple steam cooker.<br />
Step 3: Developing a laboratory scale working model: This was achieved in the case<br />
of the charring kiln by using a technique called the oven-and-retort system, in which<br />
biomass filled in a closed container, called a retort, is heated from outside in a kiln, called<br />
the oven. The char obtained from this kiln is mixed with starch paste and extruded into<br />
cylindrical briquettes, which are dried in the sun. A centrally located briquetting unit<br />
can serve as the mother unit for several kilns being operated at different locations,<br />
independently of each other. Designing a highly efficient cooker was achieved by<br />
fabricating a modern stainless steel cooker that combined a non-pressurised steam<br />
cooker with the hot box principle. This devise is called the Sarai cooker.<br />
Step 4: Replicating the model using locally available materials, skills and processes:<br />
Local village level fabricators could easily copy the kiln by using steel sheets from<br />
scrapped 200 litre barrels. Stainless steel water containers of cylindrical shape are<br />
ubiquitously available in the market. They served as retorts in this model.<br />
The briquette extruder could be fabricated by modifying commercially available meat<br />
grinders. They come in different sizes, from small manually operated models to larger<br />
models fitted with 1 h.p. electric motor. The cooker was fabricated by assembling<br />
utensils that are normally available in the market. Only the charcoal brazier and the<br />
outer jacket of the cooker needed to be fabricated.<br />
Step 5: Assessing socioeconomic feasibility through multilocational field testing:<br />
Members of a co-operative called Sahyadri Technical Assistance and Industrial<br />
Cooperative Ltd. operated the kiln for two seasons in Tehsil Phaltan, Dist. Satara,<br />
using sugarcane trash, wheat straw and many other categories of agricultural waste.<br />
The co-operative also marketed the char briquettes and the Sarai cooker in Pune<br />
and surrounding areas. The business proved to be economically successful. The<br />
economics of this business is as follows: During the dry season, and using two kilns<br />
in tandem, a team of 4 persons can produce daily about 100 kg of briquettes, saleable<br />
at Rs.700. Assuming that the team worked for a period of 200 days, the gross earning<br />
of the team would be Rs.1,40,000 and, allowing 100 % depreciation on the charring<br />
equipment due to its corrosion, the net earning would be Rs.100,000. The income of<br />
each person in the team would thus be Rs.25,000, or more than Rs. 3000 per month,<br />
over the eight months’ period of working. During this period, each team would consume<br />
100 tons sugarcane trash, equivalent to trash from just 10 ha. The sugarcane crop in<br />
Maharashtra produces annually 4.5 million tons of trash, which can offer employment<br />
to about 1,80,000 rural persons in Maharashtra.<br />
Step 6: Developing a business model for dissemination of the technology in rural areas,<br />
as well as training modules for technology implementers: This work of disseminating<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
the technology was conducted in collaboration with ten NGOs operating in different<br />
parts of Maharashtra. Kilns were provided to these NGOs and potential entrepreneurs<br />
identified by the NGOs were trained in the technology of making char briquettes from<br />
the locally available biomass. The lesson learned from this exercise was that this<br />
business could become remunerative only if it was conducted continuously for a<br />
period of about 180 days in a year. This was possible only in the case of sugarcane<br />
trash because that was the only waste material that was continuously available for<br />
this entire period. The business model required the participating NGOs to carryout<br />
propaganda for the technology by arranging demonstrations in different villages in<br />
their respective areas of operation. The charring and briquetting equipment was given<br />
on loan to potential entrepreneurs, who wanted to try it out.<br />
Step 7: Hand over technology to socially oriented commercial entity and including<br />
training modules in awareness generation and training activities of the institute: This<br />
particular technology required rural entrepreneurs to produce char briquettes, but there<br />
did not exist any market for this product in the rural areas. It was therefore necessary<br />
for a commercial enterprise to buy the char briquettes from the entrepreneurs and<br />
to arrange for their sale in the cities. The NGOs were neither mentally nor physically<br />
prepared to conduct a business of this nature, as trading was alien to the NGO<br />
culture. Therefore, some members of ARTI established a firm called Samuchit Enviro-<br />
Tech P.Ltd. (SET) for providing economic backing to the budding entrepreneurs. SET<br />
gave buy-back guarantee to the char briquette entrepreneurs and arranged to sell the<br />
char briquettes to the persons using the Sarai cookers. SET also manufactures and<br />
sells Sarai cookers. The NGOs participating in this project continue with their role of<br />
training new entrepreneurs and conducting village level demonstrations in order to<br />
create awareness about this technology among potential entrepreneurs. SET pays<br />
a part of the profits as royalty to ARTI. ARTI uses this amount to pay the NGOs for<br />
their role in sensitizing the potential entrepreneurs and also to support the training<br />
programmes for entrepreneurs.<br />
Step 8: <strong>Technology</strong> improvement (for delivering better quality at lesser cost) continues<br />
based on customer feedback and is passed on to the commercial entity from time to<br />
time. Development of a smaller, cheaper and more easily portable kiln was the result<br />
of the demand from the users for a kiln of this type. Now that a kiln requiring capital<br />
investment of just 25 % of the original oven-and-retort type of a kiln is available, it is<br />
expected that a much larger number of persons would be attracted to this enterprise.<br />
Commercial Approach vs. Welfare Approach: National Programme on Improved<br />
Chulhas was one of the largest household energy programmes operated in India. It was<br />
operated as a welfare programme from 1984 to 2002, but it was ultimately abandoned,<br />
because it was found to be quite ineffective. In the year 2002, the Central Government<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
asked the state governments to carry the burden of subsidies on the improved chulhas,<br />
but the entire programme came to a total stand still, once the Central Government<br />
withdrew its support. Since January 2003, ARTI has been implementing a similar<br />
programme in the state of Maharashtra, under funding from Shell <strong>Foundation</strong>, U.K.<br />
under which the technologies described above are disseminated in the state through<br />
entrepreneurs. The users pay the full price to purchase either the fuel or the cooking<br />
devices. A total of about 140 rural energy entrepreneurs earn their livelihood under this<br />
programme. ARTI has already reached 1,00,000 clients under this programme and<br />
it is planned to reach one million clients by the end of 2009. SET plays a vital role in<br />
this programme as manager of supply chains. Royalty paid by SET to ARTI goes into<br />
a separate account called the sustainability fund. Shell <strong>Foundation</strong> is currently paying<br />
the salaries and the overhead expenses of the personnel involved in this project, but<br />
support from Shell <strong>Foundation</strong> would stop from the year 2010 onwards. The money<br />
accumulated in the sustainability fund and the royalty that would be received from<br />
SET would support this activity in future.<br />
In the National Programme, rural households received improved stoves under subsidy.<br />
However, this prevented the stove makers from operating in the open market, as<br />
nobody was willing to buy the stoves without subsidy. The life of an improved stove<br />
was about 2-3 years. Once the stove received under subsidy broke, the household had<br />
no access to an improved stove as the stoves were not available in the open market.<br />
Thus, with the welfare approach, it was not possible for the use of improved stoves<br />
to become a sustained practice. On the other hand, in the commercial approach,<br />
the emphasis is on making the improved stoves available in the open market in rural<br />
areas, and to make it a sustainable business activity. We believe that this approach<br />
has a greater chance of succeeding where the welfare approach failed.<br />
74
Water Security and Livelihood Security<br />
Mr. Jurgen Putz<br />
PALMYRA, Centre for Ecological Land use,<br />
Water Management & Rural Development, Aurobrindavan, Auroville - 605101<br />
Villupuram District, Tamil Nadu, India<br />
Email: palmyra@auroville.org.in<br />
Technical Papers<br />
To talk on Water and Livelihood Security in the context of <strong>Technology</strong> Development<br />
and <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods offers some interesting possibilities.<br />
If one looks up the word ‘<strong>Technology</strong>’ on the net under “Wikipedia” just under the<br />
heading you will find a picture of a man about to land on the moon. It goes on to<br />
say that the race’s use of technology began with the conversion of natural resources<br />
into simple tools. In fact technology has not advanced in equal measure across<br />
the board of human endeavors. Those who have gone to school longer and have<br />
enjoyed the benefits of higher education are usually the ones who later dictate terms<br />
to the underprivileged sections of society. They even make money off them. A lot of<br />
it. Whether a farmer can actually afford to obtain any technology or any product of<br />
it is another matter. Many farmers commit suicide out of desperation and amounting<br />
debts. If there was a technology that could turn the tide for them they would certainly<br />
have used it.<br />
Most have not: It has been found that improvement in information technology at the<br />
village level can go a long way in helping the farming community to take advantage<br />
of new developments and translate these newly discovered concepts into their daily<br />
operations. It is a sad truth that while some sections of our society are able and<br />
trained to make full use of technological advances, others lag behind. Especially the<br />
rural sector.<br />
Moonlandings are not for everyone economical and ecologically sustainable use of<br />
natural resources are: In fact, it has been said that if the misuse of these resources<br />
continues at present rates the very survival of the planet might be in danger. Now<br />
who is in-charge of natural resource management at ground level? These are village<br />
farming communities who have had hardly any advanced education in this field at<br />
all. In fact most of them left school before their first exams. Girls usually are made to<br />
leave first. I believe unprecedented efforts of all sections of society are necessary to<br />
assist the farming communities in becoming the best educated and most advanced<br />
section of society because it is they after all who sustain and nurture the nation more<br />
than anybody else. It is precisely there, on our soil and, below in our watertables,<br />
where the future is being decided, not ten thousand light years from home. Livelihood<br />
security can only be achieved by successfully mastering the art of water conservation<br />
and its equal sharing for crop production in its designated productive lands throughout<br />
the catchment and the command areas of a smaller tank-based watershed. Before<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
we go into some of its details let us take a look at the past. Let us go back a little in<br />
time and History.<br />
The Pallavas, in South India, about 1,500 years ago, were very proactive about water<br />
conservation, since the land was continuously subjected to a cycle of drought. Many<br />
large irrigation canals, tanks, lakes and wells were dug to provide water to the farmers.<br />
In order to minimize the effects of famine and drought, the Pallava rulers made special<br />
efforts to provide irrigation to the agricultural lands, and developed highly advanced<br />
systems of water harvesting and conservation.<br />
Canal irrigation was common during the Pallava Age and canals carried water from tanks<br />
or rivers to the adjoining fields. The rulers created a complex network of interconnected<br />
tanks and canals whereby monsoon rains were collected and stored. They thus laid<br />
the foundation for the canal-tank irrigation system that is still the mainstay of Indian<br />
agriculture today.<br />
The Pallavas also constructed many large, ornamental wells for irrigating the fields.<br />
They were aware that the interlinking of tanks and canals recharged the underground<br />
water and large volumes of ground water became easily accessible to farmers<br />
through open wells. In many areas where canal or well irrigation was not available,<br />
the farmers carried water to the fields from the nearby rivers and ponds in earthen<br />
pots and leather buckets.<br />
Since water was such a precious commodity, each village council set limits on the<br />
quantity of water used by farmers. Each farmer was entitled to a prescribed quantity<br />
of water by the village council. Farmers who used more water than this prescribed<br />
limit had to pay a water tax called neer-variyam. During times of famine, the Pallava<br />
kings levied a special tax called panja vari or famine tax on the affluent section of<br />
society. The kings used the revenue gained from this tax to provide relief to the<br />
people affected by the famine.<br />
During the Pallava times most of the professions and occupations were hereditary, and<br />
farmers, artisans and artists passed on their professional skills to their children and<br />
apprentices. For instance, weavers, sculptors, architects and medical practitioners,<br />
employed their sons and other boys of their community as apprentices so that they<br />
could work and learn the art, craft or trade from an early age Musicians and dancers<br />
also trained their students to play various instruments, train their voices, perform a<br />
variety of dance compositions and explore various theories of music and dance. These<br />
apprentice schools also taught the students Thamizh literature and arithmetic.<br />
In those days, only a few people attended formal schools. It was mainly the children<br />
of the upper castes who had access to formal schooling. At the age of six or seven,<br />
children from upper caste families attended the religious schools or paata-shaalas<br />
based in temples, pallis or Buddhist vihaaras.<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
Now in these few words we find an almost complete blueprint for implementing<br />
integrated Livelihood Security, 1,500 years ago. The question naturally arises what<br />
happened during the interval? Why was there no continuity and can we, in all our<br />
efforts which are made today, expect continuity now?<br />
His Excellency, the former President of India, Hon’ble Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, in<br />
his Water Vision 2070 has stated that human society has to pay a huge cost for<br />
the uncontrolled and unsustainable use of the precious water without giving any<br />
thought to our future generation. He has also sharply cautioned the people of India<br />
that there would be a situation in 2070 where there could be acid rains and people<br />
have to necessarily use the mechanical lungs operated by solar energy for human<br />
beings due to the continuing pollution and deterioration of the natural resources and<br />
environment.<br />
The World Bank had also clearly indicated that 3.25 billion people in 52 countries<br />
which account for one third of the worlds population, are going to suffer due to paucity<br />
of water in 2025. Similarly several water forums have cautioned about future water<br />
scarcity conditions and its unimaginable impact on the society.<br />
Among the different water using sectors, irrigated agriculture uses more than 80 %<br />
of the available water. Therefore, it is evident that the farmers who are the real users<br />
of irrigation water can effectively save water in large quantities, provided they are<br />
given timely awareness of the deteriorating situation and are facilitated with proper<br />
infrastructures and technologies in an integrated manner for the efficient use of<br />
irrigation water at farm level where nearly half of the supplied water is lost through<br />
conveyance and application losses.<br />
Among the different water using sectors, irrigated tank agriculture uses more than<br />
80 % of the available water. In this case we are talking about harvested surface runoff<br />
water. Inside the command area open wells may have been constructed out of<br />
which also irrigation takes place. The main source for this water is coming from the<br />
tank itself.<br />
There are two management areas for effective water management: one is supply<br />
management and another one is demand management. No doubt, demand<br />
management strategies should be developed for improving equity, efficiency and<br />
ecology in irrigation management. At the same time Water Harvesting Systems of any<br />
type need to be constructed and installed on a priority basis.<br />
Here it is to be pointed out that the natural resource management alone, without<br />
integrating the social resource management, will not serve the purpose of its intent.<br />
In this context, integrating the social resource management with natural resource<br />
management under the umbrella of participatory irrigation management becomes<br />
inevitable.<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
In Tamil Nadu, roughly one third of the total irrigated area fall under the category of tank<br />
irrigation with the majority of these tanks being rain fed tanks: A typical tank area may<br />
have a tank bed area of 150 acres; the command area (ayacut) is always somewhat<br />
similar, say between 130 and 155 in this case and land owned in the command area,<br />
by an individual farmer, may lie between 2.5 to 4 or 5 acres.<br />
Consideration needs to be given to the integration of natural resource management with<br />
social resource management by applying both the supply and demand management<br />
strategies for sustainable agricultural production and increasing the production<br />
potential per unit of water use on-farm from rain fed tanks<br />
Role of Women Pattadar Groups in Modern Agriculture Technologies<br />
Cultivation of paddy, because of its high irrigation-water requirement, may not be the<br />
most sustainable crop of choice, taking into consideration the global situation of water<br />
shortage, water requirements and an ever-growing population. However, economic,<br />
social and traditional reasons for cultivating the most popular food item in Asia are<br />
not to be denied either. It is therefore of great significance that a group of women<br />
comprising one of our many Women’s Groups have taken upon themselves the risk,<br />
adventure and ultimately the gain to do something different and in doing so increased<br />
the yield of the crop, an achievement all the more precious as it involves less water<br />
consumption than the traditional way. Adherence to a more scientific and conscious<br />
approach and implementation of the farming process has been the key here.<br />
Breaking barriers and developing new methods is usually associated with efforts<br />
pertaining to a range of scientific discoveries and their advancement. However,<br />
sustaining and materializing these discoveries at the “grassroot level” represents<br />
an achievement of magnificence for which every farmer, and especially the women<br />
farmers of the SHGs involved in spreading the unique method of SRI cultivation, need<br />
to be recommended, supported and appreciated for their path breaking efforts, which<br />
hopefully are being emulated by the world-wide farming community.<br />
A Typical Problematic Scenario Encountered in a Designated<br />
Project Area<br />
Inadequate control of sluice deliveries: Normally, the sluice command area farmers<br />
should have proper control at sluice heads for delivering water according to the needs<br />
of the crop. Hence, the most efficient control mechanism is required at the sluice<br />
heads. Presently, almost all the sluices are controlled by the plug- rod type of shutters.<br />
It is essential to convert them to screw type shutters so as to control the water for<br />
efficient use.<br />
To quote an example, even if one liter of excess water released over and above the<br />
required discharge rate of one liter/second leaks through the sluices it will cause a<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
wastage of 86,400 liters of water in a day of 24 hours. This excess, or leakage water,<br />
is sufficient to irrigate about 1 inch over 1 acre. Effective control of water at the sluice<br />
head itself is the primary need for the rational use of water and the first step to arrive<br />
at equitable ways of water sharing. In a nutshell, about 50 % of water delivered at<br />
the sluice outlet is lost on-farm in respect of tank irrigation systems thus restricting<br />
the on-farm efficiency to 50 % only. Any little increase in the percentage of irrigation<br />
efficiency will increase the area irrigated to that extent. The need of the day would<br />
be more crop per drop of water.<br />
Unlined earthen channels: Desiltation of the entire network of irrigation channels is<br />
to be undertaken on priority basis to ensure supply of water all the way to the tailenders.<br />
The de-silting of existing channels alone may not be sufficient in respect of<br />
farm channels which carry water right from the sluice head to the far off tail end. Very<br />
many research experiments and studies confirm that the water lost in conveyance<br />
on-farm is to the tune of about 20-25 % of the total water let out from the sluices. For<br />
increasing the on-farm efficiency as well ensuring equity, this loss during conveyance<br />
is to be brought to the minimum. In this area, channel lining plays a very important<br />
role. This does not necessarily mean that the entire channel length of farm channels<br />
needs to be lined although this would be ideal. In this context, there is evidence from<br />
studies which show that 15 % of lining allows for 40 % of seepage & 40 % of the lining<br />
at the head reach represents 75 % of the water lost by seepage in conveyance. Thus<br />
the lining component becomes very essential not only to save the seepage loss but<br />
also taking the water to the tail end farmers.<br />
Tail enders not getting water on par with head reaches: There is a practical and<br />
workable technology for ensuring the tail end farmers of their legitimate share of<br />
water, namely the parallel channel concept. This concept of laying parallel channels<br />
has dual functions; first, conveying water to the tail end directly, and secondly, the<br />
channel section parallel to the first one will irrigate a portion of channel command in<br />
head reach. The parallel channel directing water to the tail end area will also carry<br />
seepage and drainage water away from the upper portion. This arrangement, which<br />
is highly beneficial to the tail enders for simultaneous irrigation on par with head reach<br />
farmers, has to be provided afresh in the tank ayacuts.<br />
Absence of tail water re-use: In the present scenario of water scarcity conditions, no<br />
drop of water taken for irrigation from the tank should be allowed to escape out of the<br />
command. In this context the reuse of tail water is an inevitable strategy for increased<br />
water use efficiency. Thus, this important element has to be introduced as one of the<br />
demand management concepts.<br />
Problems and ill Effects of Field to Field Irrigation and Drainage<br />
The application of the water to the fields is the next area for concentration to ensure<br />
integrated irrigation water management. The present field conditions clearly show that<br />
the farmers are practicing field to field irrigation in most of the landholdings without<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
having any knowledge of the ill effects of the process in the degradation of the natural<br />
resources namely soil and water in the long run, besides affecting the crop yields.<br />
The studies in farmers fields and research stations clearly indicate the following ill<br />
effects of field to field irrigation and drainage:<br />
There is 25 % time loss, 13 % wastage of water, 6 % fertilizer loss; dependency on<br />
upland farmer for irrigation and the tail end farmer for drainage of his own piece of land;<br />
long term ill effects of water logging and salinity, which are the twin problems; pest and<br />
diseases are carried over to other fields along with the water, thereby causing loss of<br />
yield; over- irrigation and improper drainage result in the loss of productivity; disputes<br />
in water sharing and finally, deterioration of natural resources in the long run.<br />
Deepening of existing wells: The existing open wells in tank commands do not supply<br />
sufficient quantity of water for the well owners, even to give life saving irrigation to the<br />
crops. Absence of regular silt removal and maintenance may be one of the reasons<br />
for this. Another important reason is that the wells require periodic deepening for<br />
increasing output- capacities. The individual farmers alone cannot mobilize sufficient<br />
financial resource for this item of work. On the other hand, the deepening work taken<br />
up by some of the resourceful farmers inside the ayacut affects in turn the water level<br />
in the wells owned by small and marginal farmers nearby, who are unable to mobilize<br />
financial resources to do their own adjustments.<br />
Under these conditions, the optimal use of ground water cannot be achieved from<br />
these wells. It necessitates the inclusion of deepening of wells as one of the system<br />
elements under the supply management concept but also it necessitates the hard work<br />
of sitting down with the farmers to make them realize that the water resources belong<br />
to all of them collectively and not only to those who can afford to extract them.<br />
New community wells: The tank ayacutdaars, especially the tail enders and those<br />
who do not own wells, are suffering for want of irrigation water during initial and fag<br />
end stages of the crop production when there is be heavy demand and scarcity of<br />
water respectively.<br />
The purchase of water from neighbouring well-owners depends on two factors: one<br />
is the availability of water with the well-owner and the other is the compatibility of the<br />
rate per hour fixed by him. In most of the occasions, the critical stage of the crop<br />
forces the non-well owning farmers to purchase water at higher rates fixed by the<br />
well-owners. Though the cost of water is accepted as part of the expense, the non<br />
well-owner’s profit range is affected very badly. This situation gives rise to the thought<br />
of the construction of new community wells for the small and marginal farmers, who<br />
are the tail enders with poor socio-economic backgrounds. To increase the ground<br />
water resource, rain water harvesting and the diversion of rain water into the wells of<br />
the ayacutdars are considered to be an additional but important item while looking<br />
at the concept of supply management. Finally, livelihood security is not only about<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
successful management of natural resources alone. People have to respect and<br />
appreciate each other in accepting diversity in all different parts of life and thereby<br />
experience all the richness and spiritual uplifting that can be derived from not just<br />
preaching but actually living the life for which our continent has become a symbol all<br />
over the world for thousands of years.<br />
It is also about the general feelings of empathy of the different sections of society, or<br />
a village, towards each other.<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
82<br />
Approaches for Health Security in Rural India<br />
Dr. Nerges Mistry<br />
Director, The <strong>Foundation</strong> for <strong>Research</strong> in Community Health<br />
84-A, R.G.Thadani Marg, Worli, Mumbai 400 018, India<br />
E-mail: frchpune@giaspn01.vsnl.net.in<br />
The Background Scenario<br />
Despite the emergence of India as a global economic presence, health indicators<br />
generally remain dismal 1 . The double burden of a high prevalence of infectious<br />
and non-infectious diseases, is compounded by the low confidence in the public<br />
health services and the presence of a massive private healthcare infrastructure,<br />
many segments of which are solely profit oriented and exploitative, not to mention<br />
malpractice. Accessibility to health care has become restricted as a large number of<br />
people face economic destitution even if they access hospitals in the public health<br />
services. Medical manpower, in view of the lucrative career prospects, continues to<br />
be churned out with no planning for human resources.<br />
The case history of an old woman 2 seeking help from the national tuberculosis<br />
control programme demonstrates dangerous gaps in its functioning many of which<br />
will contribute to the development of widespread drug resistance. Despite the<br />
emphasis on undertaking institutional deliveries, women about to deliver continue<br />
to die after reaching public hospitals because of unavailability of medical manpower<br />
and appropriate infrastructure in these facilities. Socioeconomic and cultural factors<br />
deepen this inadequacy. Inequitable allocation of funds between rural and urban areas<br />
is noted by the allocation of Rs. 540 per capita per annum for urban areas in contrast<br />
to a mere Rs.80 for rural areas. 3 Until very recently the allocation of health and other<br />
developmental funds at the sub-district or block level was almost absent.<br />
The health outcomes there in the absence of efficient public distribution systems<br />
are likely to get worse, as optimal nutritional requirements will be unmet due to the<br />
declining availability of and accessibility to food 4 .<br />
An Approach for Health Security For Rural India<br />
Good health outcomes are based on multiple pyramidal issues such as social<br />
accountability, technical quality, continuity relevance of services, organisational<br />
1 Mid-term appraisal, X Five Year Plan, Govt. of India.<br />
2 Atre. S.R. and Mistry, N.F. 2005. Multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in India. An attempt to link biosocial determinants.<br />
J. of Public Health Policy. 26: 96-114.<br />
3 Reddy, K.N. and Selvaraju, V. 1994. Health Care Expenditure by Government of India 1974-75 to 1990-91 : Growth, Structure<br />
and Priorities by programme and by Sector. Seven Hills Publication, New Delhi.<br />
4 Jan Swasthya Sayog, Bilaspur 2006 Compilation of Public Health Documents
Technical Papers<br />
Head of Municipal Municipality Zilla Gram<br />
Expenditure Corporation Parishad Panchayat<br />
Department wise Class A Class B Class C<br />
General<br />
Administration<br />
75 64 73 79 22 3<br />
Health 158 47 29 25 16<br />
Education 164 42 47 41 170<br />
Building &<br />
Construction<br />
144 105 52 30 27 10<br />
Drinking<br />
water supply<br />
159 67 68 50 1 6<br />
Agriculture 5<br />
Animal<br />
Husbandry<br />
4<br />
Small<br />
Irrigation<br />
6<br />
Social<br />
welfare<br />
4<br />
Women &<br />
Child Welfare<br />
1<br />
Sanitation 193 75 77 58<br />
Other 271 98 69 59 6<br />
Total 1,164 498 415 342 256 25<br />
Source: Kutwad, G (1998) Personal Compilation, FRCH<br />
Headwise Per Capita Expenditure<br />
quality, availability of material resources, availability of Human Resources and physical<br />
accessibility. As early as 1858, Florence Nightingale at a conference in Leeds outlined<br />
the concept of women community workers for rural India. This was the first attempt in<br />
contemporary history to fill in the primary gap of human resources. In it lay hidden the<br />
many sub-concepts of simplification of medicine and the partnership of lay people in<br />
the generation of health care for the community. It also pivoted women as the main<br />
providers of health at this primary level because of their inherent caring instincts and<br />
nature.<br />
Table 1 shows the evolution of health policy in India since independence. It is<br />
noteworthy that an eminent jurist and not a doctor, Sir Joseph Bhore, enunciated the<br />
concept of self help in healthcare in the seminal Bhore Committee Report. While their<br />
recommendations were largely paid lip service, the essence was usually ignored or<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
shoddily implemented. The most recent of them all, the ICSSR-ICMR Report, 5 for<br />
which FRCH served as the secretariat, provided the blue print of a Comprehensive<br />
Community Healthcare System (CCHS) that was multi-tiered. 6 At its base is the<br />
neighbourhood/community health worker (CHW) at a dense ratio of one worker<br />
to 200-250 population. The upgraded Sahyogini, equivalent to the auxiliary nurse<br />
midwife of the public health system, had to have upgraded technical skills with the<br />
retention of her social skills as a member of the local community. The People’s Health<br />
Complex transformed the concept of the Primary Health Centre of the government to<br />
be a hospital-cum-training centre with extension functions including reverse referral<br />
services to the community. Above all this model transferred accountability of the health<br />
components to local governance structures of the communities viz. the Panchayats<br />
(Table -2).<br />
84<br />
Table 1. Evolution of Health Policy in India<br />
Bhore Committee (1946) Social physician concept - Local effort and spirit of Self help<br />
Mudliar Committee<br />
(1961)<br />
Building foundation of preventive health work associated<br />
with medical relief - MCH to be at fore front<br />
Srivastava Report (1974) Create bands of para professional from community itself<br />
ICSSR – ICMR HFA<br />
(1981)<br />
Democratic, decentralised and participatory people owned<br />
health model<br />
Table 2. Community Healthcare system (CHCS)<br />
Population Functionary Responsibility to<br />
200-250 CHF (70 %) Neighbourhood Gram Panchayat<br />
5,000 Sahyogini (80-85 %) Group Gram Panchayats<br />
30,000 People’s Health Complex *<br />
(90 %-95 %)<br />
( ) Approx. proportion of total services covered * Hospital – cum – Training Centre<br />
Panchayat Samiti<br />
Experiences in the Development of a Human Resource<br />
The cumulative experiences of the NGOs that has fed into the CHCS concept over<br />
the last 5 decades has been seminal. It has demonstrated the potential of the<br />
development of a minimally educated woman to being a multiskilled health worker<br />
5 ICSSR/ICMR Report. 1981 : Health for All : An Alternative Strategy. Indian Institute of Education, Pune<br />
6 Antia, N.H., Dutta, G.P. and Kasbekar, A.B. 2000. Health and Medical Care : A People’s Movement. <strong>Foundation</strong> for <strong>Research</strong><br />
in Community Health, Pune.
Technical Papers<br />
for the community. 7 The provision of efficient service delivery as a prerequisite to<br />
absorption of the principles of promotive and curative health care has been also a<br />
valuable learning. The training methods that have had the most far reaching impact<br />
have been those where technical skills have been supplemented by the addressal of<br />
harmful cultural values, societal norms and structural inequities.<br />
Of paramount importance has been the generation of non-conventional selection<br />
criteria for a CHW. The selection is based on community consensus for a married<br />
woman who is relatively relieved from child rearing chores and is able to muster<br />
family support for undertaking her role. Whilst mid-level school education adds value<br />
to her learning, formal education levels do not restrict her entry to this cadre. In recent<br />
years there have also been concerted efforts to develop learning material that can be<br />
applied to illiterate health workers who can perform field based functions on par with<br />
their more educated sisters but who may be more compromised in formal evaluation<br />
procedures.<br />
The application of a neighbourhood functionary (CHW) at an intensive ratio has<br />
implications in the community’s perception of being an extended family member.<br />
The high degree of doorstep accessibility that is provided to diverse strata of each<br />
community enhances social capital but also allows her time to undertake her own<br />
domestic chores. Her undertaking of part-time community functions also impinges on<br />
the level of her remuneration, which is a central debate in today’s scenario, as she<br />
has been portrayed as a volunteer in several NGO demonstration initiatives.<br />
The training of the CHW is grounded in adult learning principles. While the training<br />
of the CHW can be scopic in terms of health and medical care, many organizations<br />
have attempted to provide a wider perspective to the worker by integrating multiple<br />
functions of human and veterinary care, environmental and ecological education,<br />
communication and mobilization skills. The adoption of this wider form of training<br />
into a systemic approach is difficult in the short term as it leads to a lengthy training<br />
course which rural health workers may find difficult to adhere to. The answer probably<br />
lies in cyclical rounds of learning which start with needed skills and information but<br />
which can eventually incorporate ancilliary information. Any worthwhile learning<br />
however needs to be geared to confidence generation measures, sharing, networking<br />
and organizational skills and retention of traditional roots going hand in hand with<br />
advancement.<br />
Some techniques in the developing of training modules include the use of deviant<br />
examples, the shoutings of cross-cutting themes, the use of mythology and stories<br />
and choices for self-learning. These promote a participatory, experiential form of<br />
learning, retain interest among the trainees and are culturally compatible. The mixing<br />
of technical and social messages and learnings contribute to a complete understanding<br />
7 Gadkari, S. Vakil, A. 2003. Voices from Parinche : An experiment in empowerment of rural women. <strong>Foundation</strong> for <strong>Research</strong><br />
in Community Health, Pune.<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
of issues and help in fostering a problem solving capacity. During the learning phase,<br />
the generation and consistent use of community contact points is advantageous. It<br />
maintains the accountability process as well as generates visibility in the CHW’s work<br />
where her value to her community becomes apparent. Linkages with school children,<br />
village health committees and women’s groups also provide the health worker with<br />
support to consolidate a community base and counter adverse influences therein.<br />
The utilization of community health workers in a variety of marginalized settings<br />
has shown that people deviate from the exclusive use of private practitioners and<br />
therefore achieve savings in travel and wage costs, incurring also a lower level of<br />
payment of professional fees. 8 Community confidence in her takes some time to<br />
develop, the most reliable indicator being allowing her to tend to young children<br />
and infants. Giving a certification that assures the community of her competence is<br />
another additional feature that enhances her acceptance. The accreditation of training<br />
content and methods and trainee evaluation by institutions like open schools and<br />
paramedical councils would maintain quality in training, guard against dilution and<br />
instill a professional perspective in the trainee.<br />
The National Rural Health Mission – A Systemic Response<br />
The NRHM flagged off by no less than the Prime Minister in April 2005 is an<br />
acknowledgement of the government’s inability to provide accessible and equitable<br />
health care to rural India. Aiming to provide this initially to 17 health compromised<br />
States of the Union, the NRHM has the creation of an Accredited Social Health Activist<br />
as its central objective. The ASHA, born out of NGO experiences, is expected to be<br />
a panacea to many ills of the public health system, but is restricted in her potential<br />
due to several shortcomings. A major drawback is the lack of transference of overall<br />
vision of the venture at the peripheral level and the inability to visualize a system<br />
with conditions where the ASHA can function. There is no support of the ASHA built<br />
from within her community nor is there referral support for her from the line workers.<br />
She is viewed rather narrowly as a technological tool with little or no consideration<br />
for her personal and professional aspirations and ambitions. Clarity and continuity<br />
in the financing of the CHCS is also lacking with much of the financing being veered<br />
off to building of infrastructure at district levels and community health centres without<br />
the concomitant raising of human resources. The initiation of pilot experiments in<br />
community based monitoring in several parts of the country is a belated but welcome<br />
initiative. While 80 % NRHM funds are expected to flow below sub-district levels,<br />
district surveillance teams will have a hard job in ensuring fiscal discipline when<br />
funds are disbursed to monopolistic functionaries like the Sarpanch, the ANM and the<br />
Medical Officer with very little community control.. The devising of financial models<br />
8 Antia, N.H., Deodhar, S and Mistry, N.F. 2004. Developing an Alternative Strategy for Achieving Health for All – the ICSSR/<br />
86<br />
ICMR Model – The FRCH Experience. <strong>Foundation</strong> for <strong>Research</strong> in Community Health, Pune
Technical Papers<br />
of health security at the community level through community based and community<br />
implemented health insurance is being currently envisaged at the national level and<br />
is expected to increase community say in the type and quality of health services they<br />
would like to receive.<br />
The creation of a variety of paramedical resources at the sub-district level would<br />
develop a career path and specialization opportunity for the generalist CHW, provided<br />
manpower resources are carefully planned and there is an attempt at standardization<br />
of content and evaluation. Knowing local patterns of morbidities would aid in manpower<br />
planning, projection of logistics and the identification of appropriate referrals, all of<br />
which would be relevant and accessible to local populations. A prime requirement to<br />
achieve this scenario is a belief that rural persons have the ability and intelligence to<br />
fulfill these functions. Evidence provided by 50 years of NGO experiences in health<br />
and the excellent repertoire of data collected over the years by the Honey Bee initiative<br />
in Ahmedabad provides undeniable confidence for the belief that lack of education<br />
is not the cause for lack of native intelligence and wisdom. In any case it must be<br />
noted that in the next two decades at least local human resources for health will<br />
have to comprise of the minimally educated masses that reside there until such time<br />
that schooled paramedical cadres can be raised through the influx of quality based<br />
science and technical education. (Table-3)<br />
Health <strong>Technology</strong> Assessment for Rural Areas<br />
Undoubtedly human resources generated in the foreseeable future will need to be armed<br />
with appropriate technology. As the International AIDS vaccine initiative observes,<br />
“Overall enabling communities to access health information and services, question<br />
Table 3. Critical Factors for Success<br />
Worker-Population Ratio of 1:250 Selection Criteria<br />
Accountability to Community Remuneration by community, raising community<br />
and capacity for monitoring and & support<br />
Graded Incremental Training Focus on confidence & problem solving, training of<br />
able & supportive master trainers<br />
Responsive Referral System Orientation of line workers & doctors, radical<br />
changes in medical education and personnel<br />
management<br />
Clarity & Continuity in Financing Equitable allocation of resources, system costing<br />
and devising health assurance models for<br />
community<br />
Career path System consolidation, lateral linkage,<br />
professionalism and emphasis on quality<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
health providers and make independent informed decisions are the philosophical and<br />
the ethical bases of introduction of the new technologies.” The introduction and the<br />
absorption of new health related technologies will need a two-way approach at both<br />
health policy levels and at the point of public contact. The former will need the intense<br />
adoption of public health perspectives and the generation of technical standards that<br />
are reliably applicable. There is a great need to critically appraise the Indian Public<br />
Health Standards that are being currently applied if accessible health care is to reach<br />
out to vulnerable populations e.g. permitting the transfusion of only banked blood in<br />
rural areas denies the use of life saving surgeries to the rural population as blood<br />
banking facilities and blood safety procedures exist only at long inconvenient distances.<br />
It is in such picket-fence situations that innovative technological solutions will need<br />
to be applied. The adoption criteria of every new technology will have to encompass<br />
the local specifics of disease conditions and the affordability of the interventions as<br />
well as skilled service delivery. The twin issues of creating awareness and financial<br />
planning for long term application including donor funding are issues that need to be<br />
tackled right in the nascent stages of technology development.<br />
Possible roles of India’s Health <strong>Technology</strong> Assessment (HTA)<br />
Responsible incorporation of technologies<br />
88<br />
Develop of framework of cost-effective / benefit analysis based on rural condi<br />
tions and needs<br />
Publicly report data on quality of health care<br />
Identify factors for high volume, high quality work<br />
HTA (PD and T) of major conditions<br />
Great responsibilities would be vested in a national body for Health <strong>Technology</strong><br />
Assessment, if ever formed in this country. The current syllabus of the prestigious<br />
Public Health <strong>Foundation</strong> of India for its training courses strangely has no mention of<br />
this (personal observation). The institution of such a body would greatly strengthen<br />
public health and its surveillance, provide evidence for the curtailing of costs, control<br />
the exploitative side of private health care and generate ownership of health choices<br />
in Indian citizens. It is an idea that would effectively challenge exploitative medical<br />
practices and medical hegemony in the health scenario in this country that currently<br />
enjoy patronage at the highest levels. The question is whether we have the courage<br />
to go for it.<br />
“There is an alternative out there” says Nussbaum, a brilliant professor of philosophy<br />
who believes that progress in a developmental field such as health must focus on<br />
what people are actually able to do or be as opposed to stress on increase in wealth<br />
or GDP and then giving them a right platform to face the world. It is probably the right<br />
place to start in our search for health security for India and then continue with some<br />
imagination.
Social Milieu for <strong>Technology</strong> Transfer:<br />
An Asian Perspective 1<br />
Revathi Balakrishnan, Ph.D.<br />
Senior Officer, Gender and Diversity<br />
FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok<br />
Email: Revathi Balakrishnan@fao.org<br />
Technical Papers<br />
Introduction<br />
The purpose of the paper is to review the current social environment in which<br />
technology transfer takes place in Asian rural communities. The aim is to present an<br />
overview of emerging factors that shape the livelihood environment of farm households<br />
with implications for accessing, accepting and adopting technologies to improve<br />
livelihoods. Herein, the arguments presented focus only on the social context relevant<br />
to technology transfer, captured as a sub-theme under the technology delivery models<br />
for sustainable livelihood. The presentation moves away from the current orientation<br />
that focuses predominantly on the social and economic characteristics of the farm<br />
households as determinants of technology adoption behavior. But the discussion<br />
adopts a broader approach to understand the external change factors that affect the<br />
rural communities that should be recognized by the technology promoters. While<br />
much attention has been paid to the impact of globalization on the rural producers,<br />
the emerging issues related to population, migration and remittances that alter the<br />
farm households’ labour structure and resource access have not often been explicitly<br />
examined. These aspects change the social environment in which households<br />
undertake productive work and thus shape the barriers and possibilities for promoting<br />
technologies to improve rural livelihoods.<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> Fit or <strong>Technology</strong> Fix<br />
An essential aspect of technology consumption is the technology fit between the<br />
needs of the farm households and the technology/innovations. The technology fit<br />
would be determined by households’ ability to access technology and affordability of<br />
the technology. A farm household’s ability to access technology would be influenced<br />
by the various prevailing social and economic conditions in the community. Access<br />
to technology is in part determined by the availability of the appropriate technology<br />
and information about the technology for livelihood. Existing social and economic<br />
stratifications in the community may deter access to technology information and<br />
models for delivery may be flawed due to discriminatory biases against specific<br />
social groups or weaknesses in service delivery processes. <strong>Technology</strong> affordability<br />
should be perceived to be broader than the financial cost of procuring the technology<br />
1 The paper is a version not cleared by FAO and an unedited version. The ideas and arguments presented do not<br />
represent the official position of FAO/UN. The author is solely responsible for its contents. The paper or sections of<br />
the paper can be used only with prior permission of the author. The paper is work in progress.<br />
89
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
(economic affordability). It should also encompass such dimensions as time demand to<br />
use technology and capabilities and knowledge to use technology (human resource),<br />
space to operate (spatial dimension) and social approval (community and peer social<br />
group sanction of technology).<br />
The prevailing practices of technology transfer are generally supply driven, meaning<br />
that the technology delivery may be driven by the desire to provide technology albeit<br />
with good intentions, while ignoring the social and economic realities of technology<br />
acceptance or, as it is defined here, as the technology fit. One reason for ignoring the<br />
user perspective in technology take is that generally the technology transfer is a public<br />
sector driven process based on the assumption that technocrats know what is good<br />
for the farmers and governments’ intentions are to help the people. Increasingly it is<br />
acknowledged that technology delivery models should explicitly integrate the realities<br />
of the social milieu to achieve the objective of providing a technology system to support<br />
livelihood strategies in rural communities. “The Technical Strategy should be based<br />
on an analysis of the agro-ecological and socio-economic setting including technical<br />
potentials, precedents for change, trends, constraints and opportunities. The Technical<br />
Strategy should also take account of relevant issues concerning input supplies and<br />
markets; infrastructure; the environment and policies for resource management; and<br />
the evolving role and importance of farming and agriculture-based employment in<br />
the livelihood strategies of the target group”(IFAD, 2006) 2 . Hence technology and<br />
livelihood linkages should be examined in the context of the socio-economic realities<br />
of the environment in which the rural households work to make a living.<br />
Sustainable Livelihood and <strong>Technology</strong><br />
Livelihood is defined as a means of living, or of supporting oneself. From another<br />
perspective, livelihood is the living won by work. A livelihood comprises the capabilities,<br />
assets (both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of<br />
living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and<br />
shocks, and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, while not undermining the<br />
natural resource base. Livelihood outcomes are the achievements − the results − of<br />
livelihood strategies. Outcome categories can be examined in relation to the following<br />
categories: more income, increased well-being, reduced vulnerability, improved food<br />
security, more sustainable use of the natural resource base, social relations and<br />
status and dignity and self-respect. The term “livelihood strategies” denotes the range<br />
and combination of activities and choices that people make in order to achieve their<br />
livelihood goals (DFID) 3 .<br />
Though the author borrows the livelihood conceptualization that is most widely used<br />
by development professionals and developed by DFID to guide the argument, the<br />
2 International Fund for Agricultural Development. 2006. <strong>Technology</strong> Change for Livelihood Development.<br />
http://www.ifad.org/rural/learningnotes/pat/1.htm<br />
3 DFID. Sustainable Livelihood Guidance Note. livelihoods@difid.gov.uk<br />
90
Technical Papers<br />
author recognizes a gap in the framework. The gap is pointed to invisibility of a role<br />
for technology in livelihood strategies. The DFID model of sustainable livelihood does<br />
not explicitly recognize technology and innovation as important assets for realizing<br />
sustainable livelihood goals in farm households. The originators of the framework<br />
may argue that technology and innovation may be subsumed under human capital<br />
and physical assets, yet it is crucial that the role of technologies in achieving<br />
sustainable livelihood is explicitly addressed as the livelihood environment of the<br />
farm households undergoes transformation. An important aspect of transformation is<br />
increasing influence of technology in the rural environment and the changing nature<br />
of agriculture technology. A more explicit attention to interactions between institutions,<br />
technology and assets in livelihood analysis may be valuable in conceptualizing and<br />
managing programs for livelihood development and poverty reduction (Dorward et<br />
al. 2003) 4 . Therefore, it is important to assess the prevailing technology system in<br />
rural communities and the constraints (social and economic) experienced by various<br />
categories of social groups to access, adopt and assimilate technologies to improve<br />
livelihoods and sustain the natural resource base.<br />
Social Environment: Social and Economic Realities<br />
The narrow definition of social context is the indirect and direct influence of individuals<br />
who are in constant communication. Social contexts are the common influencing<br />
factors or factions that indirectly and directly influence individuals in a subculture or a<br />
nation-state. A subculture is a set of people with a set of behaviors and beliefs, which<br />
could be distinct or hidden, that differentiate them from the larger culture to which they<br />
belong. Yet, for this review, social context is given a broader interpretation by examining<br />
factors internal and external to the households that may have a bearing on technology<br />
transfer outcomes by influencing technology consumption behavior. These factors<br />
that influence technology transfer are diverse in nature, such as social, economic<br />
and demographic, while others assume macro dimensions (poverty, population,<br />
migration, globalization) including community characteristics (social stratification and<br />
social marginalization practices) and yet others may be limited to intra-household<br />
and individual aspects (gender roles and educational attainment among specific<br />
social groups). In this paper the social context or social environment is viewed as the<br />
various economic and social realities that impact the rural communities and hence the<br />
technology transfer process.<br />
Rural Poverty: Economic Reality Impeding <strong>Technology</strong> Transfer<br />
Asian societies continue to demonstrate economic duality marked by both urban<br />
prosperity and rural poverty. The urban-rural disparity in livelihood achievement<br />
characterizes the Asian economies. A considerable proportion of the Asian rural<br />
population depends on agriculture either directly or indirectly for livelihood. Many of<br />
4 Dorward, Andrew; Nigel Poole;Jamie Morrison;Jonathan Kyddand; and Ian Urey. 2003. Markets, Institutions and <strong>Technology</strong>:<br />
Missing Links in Livelihoods Analysis. 2003 Development Policy Review 21 (23) 319-32<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
the countries that are highly dependent on agriculture are also food deficit countries.<br />
According to Millennium Development Goals Achievement monitoring reports, Asia<br />
has made significant progress in reducing poverty, mostly through gains demonstrated<br />
by China and India. Yet, in many Asian countries poverty gaps persist predominantly<br />
as a rural phenomenon. The rural and urban disparity has widened over time in spite<br />
of impressive economic growth and poverty reduction in the last three decades. Most<br />
of the region’s poor live in rural areas. A majority of the poor are women (IFAD, 2002) 5 .<br />
A review of FAO resource maps for South Asia and East Asia that describe rainfall,<br />
growing period, farming systems and population density, as well as an analysis of<br />
farming systems illustrates the relationship between the realities of poor productive<br />
resources, the limited livelihood options and the incidence of poverty associated with<br />
the resource poor production systems in agriculture communities (Dixon, Gulliver,<br />
Gibbon. 2001.FAO) 6 .<br />
The rural-urban disparity in prosperity persists and population groups dependent on<br />
land based livelihood face high risks of poverty (Table 1). For the poor in Asia, the<br />
livelihood vulnerability context is that the rural environment fails to generate a broader<br />
set of options in income generating opportunities as the importance of agriculture in<br />
the national economies decreases.<br />
Region Rain<br />
fed<br />
Farmers<br />
Asia<br />
And<br />
The<br />
Pacific<br />
92<br />
Table 1. Poor in Asia Pacific and Rural Livelihood<br />
Small<br />
holder<br />
farmers<br />
Pastor-<br />
alists<br />
Artisan<br />
Fisher-<br />
men<br />
Wage<br />
labourers<br />
and land-<br />
less<br />
Indigenous<br />
people:<br />
Scheduled<br />
castes/<br />
tribes<br />
Female<br />
headed<br />
households<br />
X X X X X X X<br />
Source: International Fund for Agricultural Development: Rural Poverty Report 2001<br />
Displaced<br />
people<br />
The income poverty induced constraints to adopt technologies that could improve<br />
livelihood outcomes should be explored. Those who live in poverty experience<br />
affordability constraints associated with deficit in both time and funds. The household<br />
constantly seeking income earning work would often lack time to invest in learning<br />
new technologies and capabilities (including education) to take advantage of new<br />
technologies that could improve livelihoods. Poverty households, while struggling to<br />
maintain a livelihood, find little time for participation to absorb innovations.<br />
5 International Fund for Agricultural Development. 2002. Assessment of rural poverty Asia and the Pacific. Rome.<br />
6 Dixon, J. Gulliver, Ai. & Gibbon, D. 2001. Farming systems and poverty. FAO and World Bank. Rome and<br />
Washington, D.C.
Technical Papers<br />
Labour for Agriculture and Rural Production<br />
The labour force in Asian rural economies presents three facets, namely female<br />
workers, child labour and ageing rural population. The changing labour force structure<br />
presents challenges to technology promoters who develop technology strategies<br />
and delivery models with a traditional concept of “a farmer”. These realities of the<br />
local labour force for agriculture and rural economy defy the traditional concepts of a<br />
farmer. <strong>Technology</strong> promoters should recognize the technology needs of the current<br />
farming communities.<br />
Female Agriculture Labour: Women in Asia and the Pacific region practice agriculture,<br />
but women’s role in agriculture receives merely a mute and reluctant recognition in<br />
agricultural development strategies. Many historical factors imbedded within the<br />
prevailing scientific practice of counting people in agriculture, and social biases against<br />
accepting women’s toil as work, ignore women’s contributions in rural economies.<br />
Data on women’s participation in regional agriculture for the period 1995 to 2002<br />
demonstrate that female labour is a key component of the region’s agricultural labour<br />
force (UNDP, HDR global reports 2004 and 2005) 7 . If women’s contribution as unpaid<br />
family workers also were considered, then it could be concluded that women play a<br />
critical role in the region’s agricultural and rural economies. Hence, in recent times the<br />
debate on agricultural labour in the region focused on “feminization of agriculture”.<br />
Poor women pursue a number of survival strategies to earn enough cash to feed and<br />
maintain their families; and one indisputable facet of these strategies is the frequent<br />
and inordinate extension of working hours inside and outside the home. A review<br />
of available case studies provides evidence suggesting that poor access to basic<br />
services such as water and sanitation, coupled with the need to search for fuel and<br />
food supplements, draws out and intensifies the typical day of a rural woman, while<br />
adding innumerable difficulties.<br />
Child Labour in Agriculture Work: An analysis compiled from diverse studies of<br />
children’s role in regional agriculture shows that labour participation by children is<br />
substantial in countries for which information is presented; the majority of male and<br />
female children are involved in agricultural work (World Bank Development Indicators,<br />
2006) 8 . In India, child labour estimates vary. According to the national census of 1991<br />
estimation, the number of child labourers was 11.28 million (out of a total of 210<br />
million children aged 5-14 years) and about 90 % of these children lived in rural areas<br />
(ILO, 2005) 9 . Rural youth tend to be less skilled and less well educated than their<br />
urban counterparts, and they likely will be more adversely affected by technological<br />
7 HDR Global Reports. 2004 Table 27. Gender inequality in economic activity. New York: UNDP.<br />
HDR Global Reports. 2005. Table 28. Gender inequality in economic activity. New York: UNDP<br />
8 World Bank. 2006 World Development Indicators. available at http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdi2006/contents/<br />
index2.htm<br />
9 International Labour Organization. 2005. Combating child labour in Asia and the Pacific: Progress and challenges. Geneva<br />
93
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
changes. In general, lack of access to the most basic level of education is the major<br />
obstacle depriving many young people of the opportunity to increase the productivity<br />
of their human resources potential (Ghee, 2002) 10 .<br />
Aging Asian Farmers: Asia is one of the world’s fastest ageing regions with the<br />
proportion of elderly projected to double between 2000 and 2030 (Kaneda, 2006) 11 .<br />
Developed economies in the region such as Japan, Australia and New Zealand<br />
record a rapid rate of ageing and by 2050 the number of people over 60 years will<br />
be 25 percent of the population. From 1950 to 2005, with the exception of a few<br />
countries (Bangladesh, Maldives, and Nepal) most countries in the region recorded<br />
increase in the population aged over 60 years. In Thailand, some commentators have<br />
suggested that older farmers are less likely to mechanize, adopt new crops, and apply<br />
new technologies. Some have suggested that a sub-population of impoverished rural<br />
elderly may be emerging. Additionally, however, some intriguing gender differences<br />
emerge, for instance, older women are more likely to own the land they use, and less<br />
likely to have debts, than older men (John Bryant and Rosaria Gray, 2005) 12 .<br />
Implications of Changing Labour Composition: These changing labour facets in Asian<br />
rural economies present implications for developing technology delivery models for<br />
sustainable livelihood.<br />
The feminization of regional agriculture suggests that the agricultural technology<br />
systems should address women farmers’ needs as well as those of female agricultural<br />
labourers. As agricultural production systems evolve to be knowledge-intensive<br />
instead of labour-intensive, the investment to improve rural women’s literacy levels<br />
and access to new information is crucial to achieve gains in rural productivity through<br />
improved technologies.<br />
The combined forces of social ignorance and economic indifference lead to both explicit<br />
and implicit inequity in women’s access to various resources, including technologies<br />
which are necessary to support and improve their contributions to a wide range of<br />
activities. Deep-rooted attitudes further undervalue the worth of women within the<br />
household, resulting in gender biases that spill over into community interactions and<br />
the technology transfer arena.<br />
The persistent underestimation of rural women’s contributions results in technology<br />
transfer strategies that ignore rural women and ultimately undermine national efforts<br />
to promote sustainable livelihood. Indeed, official underestimation of women’s farm<br />
work leads to technology program initiatives that are based on inadequate information<br />
10 Ghee, L. T. 2002. Youth employment in the Asia-Pacific region: Prospects and challenges. Paper prepared for the Youth<br />
94<br />
Employment Summit. Alexandria, Egypt.<br />
11 Kaneda, T. 2006. A critical window for policymaking on population ageing in developing countries. Population Reference<br />
Bureau.<br />
12 Bryant, John and Gray, Rosaria . 2005. Rural population ageing and farm structure in Thailand. SD Dimensions.<br />
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Technical Papers<br />
about the agricultural sector’s human capital potential and constraints and that do<br />
not reflect the true status of the human resources available to achieve agriculture<br />
productivity and rural economic vitality.<br />
It is important to assess implications of child labour in agriculture and rural economies<br />
for promoting knowledge-intensive agriculture and technology-driven rural poverty<br />
reduction strategies. Future farmers may also be deprived of formal education that<br />
would limit the capacity to adopt and apply new technologies to improve livelihood.<br />
The impact of ageing among the rural population may limit the rural capacity to absorb<br />
and apply new technologies and knowledge-intensive agriculture practices.<br />
Migration as Livelihood Strategy<br />
Migration is a multifaceted and complex global issue touching every country in the<br />
world (IOM, 2005) 13 . Labour movement is attributed to migration to other countries<br />
(international) and migration within the country (internal). Most often people migrate<br />
from regions marked by poor resource environment and lack of alternative livelihood<br />
opportunities such as rural workers in poverty and loss of livelihood in agriculture.<br />
An emerging view is that migration from agriculture and rural communities does<br />
not necessarily have negative consequences but rather is a mixed blessing for the<br />
migrants and countries sending and receiving migrants.<br />
Migration within the country for purposes of seeking employment opportunities, and<br />
cross-border migration most often are rooted in aspirations to improve livelihoods<br />
and escape poverty. A facet of international migration is that migrants from poorer<br />
countries go to better developed countries seeking employment in agriculture and<br />
construction. The largest movement is mainly of unskilled and semi skilled workers<br />
employed in low-paid, low-status, so called 3-D (dirty, dangerous and difficult) jobs<br />
that are eschewed by local workers in the fast growing labour-short nations of Asia<br />
and the Middle East (Hugo, 2005) 14 . The economic significance of female migration<br />
is so high for some Asian governments that female labour export targets are included<br />
in their development programs. Sri Lanka is unusual in that its expatriate labour force<br />
has more women than men (IOM, 2005) 15 .<br />
The levels and patterns of internal migration vary among countries of Asia, in part as<br />
a consequence of the variations in economic and cultural structures (Guest, 2003) 16 .<br />
Rural to urban migration still dominates migration flow in most Asian countries<br />
because of the high proportion of population living in rural areas. Women increasingly<br />
13 IOM. 2005. World Migration: 2005. Costs and benefits of international migration. Geneva.<br />
14 Hugo, G. 2005. Migration in the Asia-Pacific region. Global Commission on International Migration.<br />
15 IOM 2005 ibid<br />
16 Guest, P. 2003. Bridging the gap: Internal migration in Asia. Paper Prepared for Conference in Comparative Perspective,<br />
Johannesburg, South Africa 4-7 June, 2003.<br />
95
<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
are involved in the movements and temporary migration continues to be an important<br />
component of migration flow. Economic motivations for migration dominate decisionmaking.<br />
Rural-urban labour migration in China nowadays is one of the most obvious as<br />
well as influential social factors profoundly changing the current system and the society<br />
as a whole. The number of migrants leaving their province to gain off-farm jobs in the<br />
urban areas is increasing (APMRN, n.d) 17 . People from impoverished communities<br />
migrate voluntarily within the country seeking opportunities to make a living. Hence<br />
the internal voluntary migration is a livelihood strategy in developing countries. Official<br />
statistics do not fully capture the migratory patterns, though “Poverty and physical<br />
mobility have always been interrelated” (Deshingkar and Grimm, 2004) 18 . Common<br />
causes for migration are unproductive land, drought, landlessness and proximity to<br />
towns. In China, South-East Asia and India temporary migration is increasing. Indian<br />
studies find that rural households migrate and the migrants improve their economic<br />
returns in spite of the risks and family disruptions. Women from rural areas also<br />
migrate with adult males or groups of women (Deshingkar and Grimm, 2004) 19<br />
Migratory Labour and Implication for <strong>Technology</strong> Adoption: Rural communities lose<br />
labour when their people increasingly opt for migration as a strategy to avoid livelihood<br />
risks in the agriculture sector. Most often the migrants could be those with minimal<br />
education and open to take risks, the very qualities that would make them good<br />
prospects to adopt new technologies. The migrants may not have the motivation to<br />
invest in technologies to improve land productivity, as migratory livelihood alternatives<br />
could be more attractive and provide higher cash returns. Yet, lack of a stable population<br />
in agricultural communities presents poor prospects of adopting new knowledge and<br />
technology to ensure economic security and environmental sustainability.<br />
In addition, with increasing youth migration, a rural community could be dominated by<br />
an elderly population that may not risk experimentation with new technologies.<br />
In households where male spouses migrate for seasonal or long term paid work,<br />
female heads of the households become the farmers and rural producers. Hence<br />
though women are the target group for technology transfer processes, these women<br />
may lack the required education or self confidence to attempt new technologies.<br />
It should be recognised that migration in and of itself is not negative since the returning<br />
migrants also bring back new knowledge and technology to their communities of<br />
origin. This group of returning migrants with knowledge of the outside world and who<br />
are proven risk takers could be a key group to be mobilized in the local communities<br />
for experimentation and adoption of innovations.<br />
17 Asia Pacific Migration <strong>Research</strong> Network. Not dated. Migration Issues in the Asia-Pacific –China. (available at http://www.<br />
96<br />
unesco.org?most/apmrnw10.htm ).<br />
18 Deshingkar, P. & Grimm, S. 2004. Internal migration and development: A global perspective. International Organization for<br />
Migration <strong>Research</strong> Paper 19. Geneva.<br />
19 Deshingkar, P. & Grimm, S. 2004. ibid
Technical Papers<br />
Migrants’ Remittances - Capital Flow: Remittances, the portion of international<br />
migrant workers' earnings sent back from the country of employment to the country<br />
of origin, play a central role in the economies of many labour-sending countries and<br />
have become a focal point in the ongoing debate concerning the costs and benefits<br />
of international migration for employment (Puri and Ritzema, n.d.) 20 . Over the past<br />
decade, the remittance flow into the region has increased substantially. “Migration<br />
also generates economic benefits for origin countries, the largest being remittances.<br />
While the impact of remittances on growth is unclear, remittances do play an important<br />
role in reducing the incidences and severity of poverty (with no significant effect on<br />
income inequality). Remittances directly increase the income of the recipient and can<br />
help smooth household consumption, especially in response to adverse events, such<br />
as crop failure or health crisis” (World Bank, 2006) 21 . Apart from smoothing income<br />
flows, remittances increase disposable income which is then invested in a variety of<br />
production and consumption uses (Deshingkar, 2004) 22 .<br />
Remittances by unskilled labour to rural families are important household resources.<br />
The potential of harnessing remittance to local development has given rise to studies<br />
and analyses related to remittances and microfinance (Bibliography on micro finance<br />
and migrant remittances). 23 There is growing awareness and evidence that remittances<br />
contribute to economic development in migrant sending countries at the local, regional<br />
and national levels (IOM, n.d.) 24 . A proposed policy option is facilitating the investment<br />
by migrants in self-employment and enterprise creation in labour-exporting countries<br />
(Puri and Ritzema, n.d.) 25<br />
Yet the financial potential of migrants’ remittances as sources of investment in<br />
technologies to improve livelihood in rural communities is not systematically studied<br />
or utilized. The impact of remittances in the rural communities could be harnessed to<br />
improve investment in technologies to improve livelihoods. The concept of technology<br />
advisory service centres to invest in rural enterprises, and agricultural improvements<br />
that could help rural households invest remittance funds in technologies, could be<br />
explored.<br />
20 Puri, Shivani and Ritzema, Tineke (Not dated) . Migrant Worker Remittances, Micro-finance and the Informal Economy:<br />
Prospects and Issues. http://www.gdrc.org/icm/remittance/shivani.html<br />
21 World Bank, 2006, ibid<br />
22 Deshingkar, Priya. 2004. Understanding the Implications of Migration for Pro-poor Agricultural Growth. Overseas Development<br />
Institute. Paper prepared for the DAC POVNET Agriculture Task Group Meeting, Helsinki, 17 – 18 June, 2004.<br />
23 Bibliography on micro finance and migrant remittances http://www.gdrc.org/icm/remittance/more-remittance.html<br />
24 IOM. Not dated. IOM and Remittances. Information Sheet.<br />
25 Puri and Ritzema, n.d., ibid<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
Conclusion<br />
The social context of the Asian rural communities is increasingly shaped by factors<br />
beyond the immediate control of communities. Demographic change in age structure,<br />
increased participation of women and children in agriculture and migration in<br />
search of economic opportunities, influence interactions in the communities. The<br />
Asian rural communities are functioning in a socio-economic environment marked<br />
by rural disparity manifested as extensive poverty. Income poverty is a deterrent to<br />
experimentation and application of new technologies. The changing facets of the<br />
Asian labour force in agriculture and rural economies are increasingly with women,<br />
children and elderly and such changes in labour structure should be recognised by<br />
the technology promoters. In addition, trends in migration, both internal and regional,<br />
result in a changed population structure in agriculture and rural communities that<br />
may hamper technology transfer processes. Alternatively the remittances received<br />
from the migrants can provide capital that could be invested in new technologies.<br />
These current social and economic dynamics in the rural context where technology<br />
transfer takes place should be explicitly recognised in the technology strategies for<br />
sustainable livelihood.<br />
98
Technical Papers<br />
Gender and Social inclusion for sustainable livelihoods:<br />
Insights from the case studies an Overview<br />
Ms. Mina <strong>Swaminathan</strong><br />
Advisor-Education, Communication and Gender<br />
M. S. <strong>Swaminathan</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong><br />
3rd Cross Road, Taramani Institutional Area, Chennai - 600 113<br />
Email : mina@mssrf.res.in<br />
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, there is considerable disenchantment in<br />
India with the outcomes of development in the second half of the twentieth century.<br />
While there have been numerous examples of progress that one can well be proud<br />
of, and much of this progress has been directly related to advances in science and<br />
technology, it is also true that on the whole, the rich have got richer and the poor<br />
poorer. Far from disappearing, inequality has increased sharply, reaching extremes<br />
that could never even be imagined earlier. Even worse, the number of the “unreached”<br />
has expanded enormously, while that of those who have gained has grown only<br />
modestly, so that today there are far more unreached than well-off or comfortable.<br />
In other words, the gap between the excluded and the rest is now wider than ever<br />
before, both in terms of relative numbers and in terms of the difference in life chances<br />
and quality of life. This is the dilemma faced by the country at the turn of the century—<br />
unprecedented opportunity for a few, and life at the margins of survival for many. It is<br />
obviously time to reconsider the development paradigm.<br />
The skewed nature of development has been further exacerbated by several other<br />
social and natural events and trends—population movements displacement due to<br />
development projects and rural-urban migration, natural resource degradation and<br />
ecological crises, cycles of disasters, and erosion of natural resources, but is also<br />
the outcome of earlier policies, such as the loss of people’s rights to land, forests<br />
and water, the failure to provide universal education and health care of adequate<br />
quality, inadequate redistribution of assets like land, and others which need not now<br />
be described in detail. What is important is the issue of how to provide sustainable<br />
livelihoods for all, in the context of widespread social exclusion.<br />
Who are the Excluded?<br />
In defining social exclusion, one can begin with a definition provided by Buvinic (2005)<br />
as “ the denial of equal access to opportunities imposed by certain groups in society<br />
on others”. 1 This definition draws attention to three main aspects of exclusion that<br />
groups are culturally defined, that exclusion is embedded in social relations, and that<br />
it results in various forms of deprivation and/or disempowerment.<br />
1 Buvinic, M (2005)Social Exclusion in Latin America in Mayra Buvinic and Jacqueline Mazza (eds) Social Exclusion and<br />
Economic Development John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.<br />
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In Indian society, there are broadly four axes of exclusion—caste/ethnicity, class,<br />
gender and location. As far as the first category is concerned, it includes far more than<br />
the Scheduled Castes (now more generally known as Dalits) and Scheduled Tribes<br />
notified by the Constitution, and also applies to a large and amorphous group of other<br />
castes and tribes, especially the many nomadic and wandering groups ranging from<br />
pastoralists to entertainers. While the first two groups account for about a quarter of<br />
the population (16.2 and 8.2 percent respectively in 2001) the percentage of the third<br />
group is not unambiguously defined. As to class, which is concerned with differences<br />
in income and wealth, again the statistics are constantly argued over by specialists,<br />
ranging from a quarter to 38 percent of the population. A recent prestigious study 2 for<br />
example estimates that 70 percent of the population today lives on less than Rs.20<br />
per day, at the edge of survival.<br />
Another dangerously threatened and little studied group in this category, which has<br />
grown by leaps and bounds in the last few decades, is the increasing number of<br />
“invisible” people or “new” nomads— migrants who move in search of livelihoods, living<br />
in makeshift camps, shanty towns and “unauthorized” urban settlements, sometimes<br />
for years together; in other cases, moving from place to place, mobile in different ways<br />
and for different periods and reasons, but all seemingly invisible to the authorities.<br />
As for gender, women in all groups together make up half the population, or a little<br />
less, (due to the adverse sex ratio) but obviously women in the excluded groups<br />
would be more seriously affected in all dimensions. Finally, location—by which is<br />
meant those furthest from the center, in remote and/ or inaccessible locations, who<br />
often lack even the simplest basic facilities. All these form the “excluded” and a little<br />
simple arithmetic will show that they are by far the majority.<br />
The Nature of Exclusion<br />
All these diverse excluded groups not only share common problems, but each also<br />
has certain disabilities and disadvantages specific to the group. For example, women<br />
in all categories lack rights to property and assets in their own names, and are much<br />
more poorly educated than the men in their own social group. Forest dwellers, mainly<br />
tribals, have been gradually disempowered and deprived of rights to the very land,<br />
forests, water and other natural resources that they have lived in, conserved, and<br />
nurtured for centuries. It is estimated that about 40 million people have been displaced<br />
in the last half-century by big dams and other development projects. As well, they lack<br />
access to education, health care and other services available to the more privileged.<br />
Dalits, traditionally landless, continue to remain so in large measure and to face, not<br />
only lack of the same basic facilities, but also continuing caste discrimination. And<br />
2 National Commission on Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (2007) Report on the Conditions of Work and Promotion of<br />
Livelihoods in the Unorganised Sector. Government of India<br />
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this in spite of reservation for SCs and STs in education and employment, starting<br />
right from the time the Constitution was framed in 1950. And the remote, the smaller<br />
marginalized groups, and the “new” nomads are still struggling even to become visible<br />
on the map of the policy makers.<br />
Yet it is not as though no efforts have been made in the past to address this state of<br />
affairs. A large number of well-intentioned laws and schemes have been developed<br />
and implemented over the years, too numerous to list here, and much money has<br />
been poured into them. But it seems these efforts have not been able to attack the<br />
problem at its roots. Poor implementation is partly due to the well-known corruption,<br />
bureaucratisation and sluggishness that dogs programmes implemented by the state.<br />
But this is not all. The legal, social and cultural climate has also not been conducive<br />
to such development. In other words, the priorities, perceptions and perspectives<br />
have also been out of kilter. This can be illustrated in several ways, for example, the<br />
reluctance of the more privileged groups, who have the responsibility of carrying out<br />
these tasks, or the role of science and technology.<br />
Science and Sustainable Livelihood<br />
Clearly, modern science and technology has had in the past, and continues to have,<br />
tremendous significance for improving the life of human beings. And indeed, India since<br />
Independence has an enviable record in the development of science and technology,<br />
having broken several barriers and chalked up many achievements. But from the<br />
early days, the emphasis has always been on heavy industry, power, infrastructure,<br />
manufacturing, and transport, all seen as the key to economic growth, strength and<br />
self-reliance. Later, the emphasis shifted to space, nuclear energy, defence, and air<br />
transport, and still later to telecommunications and Information <strong>Technology</strong>.<br />
All these acknowledged achievements have been at the cost of simple applications<br />
of science and technology that would benefit the ordinary citizen, man or woman,<br />
especially the lowlier among them. So now we have a proliferation of smooth running<br />
airlines, side by side with one lakh villages without clean drinking water; Indian - made<br />
satellites circling the skies while 70 percent of the people have no sanitation or access<br />
to toilets; and a galaxy of brilliant graduates working in the sector IT here and abroad<br />
while 40 percent of all children under 14 are out of school. Could not the same or<br />
similar technologies have been applied to solve the problems? It seems that high<br />
technology has won over “appropriate” or “intermediate” technology. Nevertheless,<br />
science and technology must now, more than ever, place themselves at the disposal<br />
of sustainable livelihoods for all.<br />
New Approaches to Social Inclusion the Case Studies<br />
The social barriers suffered by the excluded groups have undermined both their<br />
participation in, and access to, the benefits of development, specially in relation to<br />
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science and technology–driven development. Yet development experiences in India<br />
have time and again demonstrated innovative approaches to “reach the unreached”,<br />
spearheaded by non-governmental organizations and community-based groups,<br />
which work in specific contexts with flexible approaches.<br />
It was with a view to sharing these unique experiences and learning from such strategies<br />
and approaches that this collection of case studies, 3 based on a brainstorming<br />
workshop held in June 2007, has been put together. The question raised was; can the<br />
collective wisdom derived from these diverse social interventions be of value, not only<br />
to other agencies involved in development activities, but most importantly, to policy<br />
formulation and a new vision and leadership from the state? A quick review of some<br />
important aspects of the six case studies may suggest the possibilities. A careful<br />
reading of the six case studies will throw up many interesting points for discussion,<br />
as well as challenges. A comparative summary of the main characteristics of the case<br />
studies will be found at Table 1.<br />
Similarities and Differences<br />
All the catalyst agencies are similar in having firmly chosen to work with a marginalised<br />
group, with the intent of carving out a path for their inclusion, and with the broad<br />
general goal of holistic development through sustainable livelihoods. But even here,<br />
the interpretations are varied. In three cases, livelihoods are central to development;<br />
while in the other three, empowerment leads the way. Even the perceptions about the<br />
axis and nature of exclusion to be focused on vary. Five prioritise gender, but only<br />
three of these start with a focus on women, while for the other two the community is<br />
the focus, with a strong emphasis on women’s role and gender issues; the sixth started<br />
by working with the whole tribal community and slowly came to an understanding of<br />
women’s roles.<br />
Similarly, two could be described as focusing on tribal communities, of which one<br />
included other Underprivileged rural groups, especially Dalits, and emphasized<br />
women’s role from the beginning; while the other worked with a simple well-defined<br />
tribal group and emphasized women’s role only later. Yet another started with rural<br />
women labourers in a poverty context, mostly Dalit, but including women of other<br />
backward castes. Of the three groups of women, two were rural, while the third lived in<br />
a partly rural and partly urban or semi-urban context, which is becoming increasingly<br />
visible. Thus, the diversity among the groups makes it possible only to say that what<br />
they all have in common is a marginalized status.<br />
Perspectives, Approaches and Strategies<br />
Similarities and contrasts are also found in the perspective from which each agency<br />
3 <strong>Swaminathan</strong>, Mina (ed) 2007 Six Case Studies on Gender and Social Inclusion for Sustainable Livelihoods.<br />
M. S. <strong>Swaminathan</strong> <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong> and Food and Agriculture organisation Regional Office for Asia and Pacific.<br />
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carrying out the intervention is working, and the approach. Two are based on<br />
knowledge science and TK (traditional knowledge), but the equations between the two<br />
are quite different in each of the interventions. In one case, the approach is scienceled,<br />
gradually recognizing TK, and from an initial top-down approach developing a<br />
participatory relationship between the two partners and the two knowledge systems.<br />
It is significant that for this agency the major goal was initially conservation, and<br />
livelihoods were brought in only because people had to be enrolled for conservation<br />
by giving them a stake in it. In the other case, the starting point was both TK and local<br />
resources, which were taken as the base on which to empower the people and build<br />
their livelihoods, leading to pragmatic strategies. Science, mostly technology, came in<br />
only to assist and support this process.<br />
The two women-centred interventions both attempt to support women’s development,<br />
but with varying understandings of how to deal with a patriarchal society and how to<br />
use science and technology in doing so. The first has a Gandhian approach, showing<br />
how to strengthen and include women as equal partners in development without<br />
appearing to compete or struggle with men, and this influences the unique strategy<br />
adopted; the second critically analyses two different examples of women-focused<br />
activities, illustrating almost perfectly the difference between the how-to and the hownot-to.<br />
The last two interventions are process-based — participatory and exploratory in<br />
nature. There are no fixed targets, but a slow, step by step process, inspired by a<br />
vision, with a non-linear approach, and as needed mid-course corrections. The first<br />
grew out of a feminist critique of the current paradigm of development, started working<br />
with women, but then went on to involve the entire community, as it intended. The<br />
second is an activist’s vision of a multi-faceted struggle for people’s rights; also nonlinear,<br />
using several different strategies, methods, and tactical changes, but always<br />
keeping in the forefront the building of people’s capacities, conceived as the main<br />
ingredient for success. Interestingly, one is a microlevel effort, and the other an<br />
attempt at the macrolevel, showing that scale need not alter the approach. In both,<br />
the typical action-reflectionaction cycle of such praxis- based approaches is clearly<br />
revealed and justified.<br />
Learnings and Insights<br />
It goes without saying that the strategies, entry points, methods and outcomes which<br />
follow from these approaches, as well as the relationships to science and technology<br />
also vary widely among the groups and raise many questions. Chief among these is:<br />
how far can these efforts be replicated? If each is rooted in its context, how, if at all,<br />
can they be universalized? What policy changes are required? What are the lessons<br />
to be learnt?<br />
To begin with, the major obstacles facing the marginalized in achieving better and<br />
sustainable livelihoods have to be confronted. The three main obstacles are lack<br />
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Table 1. A Comparative Overview of the Six Case Studies<br />
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of access and control over productive assets, especially land; lack of realization of<br />
rights and entitlements; and the lack of support services. These have been powerfully<br />
brought out in several of the case studies. They have to be simultaneously addressed<br />
if sustainable livelihoods for the excluded are to become a reality.<br />
Land other Productive Assets<br />
Lack of title (or long-term tenure) to land, which is often also essential for building<br />
other assets such as houses, workplaces, and wells or buying equipment, is perhaps<br />
the most basic constraint facing marginalised people, making livelihoods uncertain,<br />
limited and with no assurance for the future. This issue came up in all the case<br />
studies, though in different forms. It is most sharply articulated in the case of the<br />
displaced, a continuing threat for the two tribal groups included here and many others,<br />
not to mention the millions displaced in the past by dams, wild life sanctuaries and<br />
other development projects. Equally disturbing is the fate of the traditionally landless,<br />
agricultural labourers, mostly Dalits, who today have at the most house plots, except<br />
in a few instances, but no land for productive purposes. For example, the women in<br />
the southern districts who have been organized by CCD to make herbal medicines,<br />
have no land of their own, but collect herbs from waste lands, village lands, road and<br />
canal sides, and untilled or fallow fields in the non-cultivating season. Even a small<br />
change in the laws and rules relating to access to common property resources could<br />
play havoc with their livelihoods. In another case from Kerala, the irony of a wellmeaning<br />
Government arranging teaching in agricultural skills for women who have no<br />
access to agricultural land cannot be missed.<br />
Entitlements<br />
Equally important are other basic rights and entitlements, some guaranteed by the<br />
Constitution, others provided by laws and schemes, others yet to be ensured. Some of<br />
these are the right to education, the right to work, and the right not to be discriminated<br />
against Many of these are unrealized, for various reasons, by the marginalized. Here<br />
a major constraint is that the machinery for dissemination of information is so weak<br />
that often people do not know or are confused about what they are entitled to, and how<br />
to go about getting it, as well as being deterred by the costs of getting it, compounded<br />
by misinformation deliberately supplied by vested interests.<br />
In this context, a major new development is the right to information, guaranteed by the<br />
RTI (Right to Information Act 2005) which makes it compulsory for the Government to<br />
respond to queries for information within a specified time-frame, thus allowing people<br />
to demand information. But even here, considerable facilitation is required for the<br />
weakest and most marginalized groups even to get the information, let alone act on<br />
it. Only one among the catalyst agencies has focused on rights and entitlements and<br />
developed long-term strategies for the struggle, combining it with short-term activities<br />
which are supportive; the others focus more on short-term goals, bargaining for<br />
achievements that will foster self-confidence, leaving the long-term issues for later.<br />
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Support Services<br />
The third major handicap is the lack of support services, needed at every stage to enable<br />
the excluded groups to make use of the available facilities, assets and entitlements.<br />
Without such services, the marginalized may stumble both in using productive assets<br />
and accessing their basic entitlements fully. This becomes most obvious in the case<br />
of women, who are socially required to carry the full burden of reproductive work<br />
(including both care and household chores), in addition to productive work. Women<br />
have the greatest need for services like childcare, health care, and transport, (even<br />
to participate in skill training programmes, for example) and also for facilities and<br />
devices that offer water, toilets, sanitation, fuel, fodder, and energy at the doorstep,<br />
and that can thus save both the time and drudgery involved in procuring these basic<br />
necessities of life. Yet these issues are rarely prioritized, even by those working mostly<br />
with women, and almost never implemented as links with livelihood programmes.<br />
The focus is usually on more visible kinds of support services like skills training,<br />
capacity building, credit, financial, organizational and marketing support, which are,<br />
significantly, the same for both sexes, and relate purely to the productive domain.<br />
Women’s special need for support services in the reproductive domain, the lack of<br />
which is one of the main causes of their marginalization, is not often emphasized.<br />
One of the case studies from Kerala, for example, relating to women’s development,<br />
has developed a comprehensive list of the support services needed, of the second<br />
type, but has not addressed the first category. Of course, this may be because such<br />
services are seen as having to be mostly provided by the state anyway, though there<br />
is an increasing tendency towards privatisation. The need for greater state intervention in<br />
these areas, both to frame just policies, and to implement them, becomes obvious.<br />
The Role of S&T<br />
From these studies, it seems that science and technology (S&T) has not yet played a very<br />
significant role in addressing the issue of sustainable livelihoods for the marginalized.<br />
Only one agency consciously used science both as an entry point and as a tool to<br />
develop effective strategies, and succeeded by gradually entering into dialogic mode<br />
with the community. For all the others, S&T came in later, as a response to demand,<br />
and to an evolving and changing demand. They found that there were no ready-made<br />
solutions; appropriate technologies had to be searched for, then adapted, before they<br />
could be adopted. There were also problems in establishing the required linkages, and<br />
in the training. Formal training models developed in very different situations were also<br />
found unsuitable and had to be adapted before adoption. Put differently, technology<br />
is not reaching out to specific needs, or even looking for them. Rather, it is supply<br />
driven. In the one case which started with technical training, (the WIA Programme in<br />
Kerala), there were numerous problems and the results were not commensurate with<br />
either the expenditure or the effort put in. In other words, technology development<br />
has to become more participatory, developing context-and-need-specific solutions,<br />
tailoring itself to client needs and resources, and the economic, social and ecological<br />
environment.<br />
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Similarly, technologies developed for large-scale operations, as in industry, may not<br />
be good solutions for the small scale—”intermediate” in the sense of scale at least, is<br />
required. Another need is for S&T to work at up-gradation of traditional technologies,<br />
as has been demonstrated by several institutions (not represented among these<br />
cases). Finally, S&T must follow, not precede, the process of empowerment of<br />
excluded groups. For S&T to become a humble junior partner of poor, mostly rural,<br />
groups of people may be a revolutionary suggestion, but that is precisely an insight<br />
which clearly emerges from these studies.<br />
Policy Implications<br />
Chambers (1995) 4 defining livelihoods, states that it requires “tangible assets<br />
(resources and stores) intangible assets (claims and access), and capabilities”<br />
Keeping in mind both the plurality of contexts and the multiplicity of deprivations, what<br />
policies are needed to enable the excluded to access these critical inputs? How can<br />
laws and policies become flexible in operation, but without infringing on rights? The<br />
following guidelines emerge from this approach.<br />
• Develop policy frameworks which can be regularly adapted to changing needs<br />
and circumstances. Several of our current policies are based on laws passed a<br />
century or more ago, and have little relevance to the present situation. Regular<br />
review of laws and policies, especially those affecting marginalized groups and<br />
development issues, is essential. Not only are new laws and policies needed, but<br />
each should have a built-in provision for review after a certain number of years.<br />
• Sensitise S&T Departments and institutions to social and gender needs and<br />
issues, in order to bring these on to their agenda of plans and activities. To begin<br />
with, study of the social and economic environment and of development issues<br />
should begin early among would-be scientists, right from the student level, and<br />
continue with regular orientation sessions, so that scientists do not become<br />
isolated from the social concerns of the people, and develop a perspective on<br />
it. At the institutional level, planning, research and extension activities should<br />
be undertaken jointly with other stakeholders, rather than independently. A<br />
“social justice” impact assessment tool should be developed and used, just as<br />
environmental assessment tools have been, to assess all new large-scale projects<br />
and programmes.<br />
• Prioritise the realization of rights to productive assets for the marginalized. Here<br />
implementation of several just and fair existing provisions, laws and schemes is<br />
as important as the development of new ones; both should be done in consultation<br />
with the people, through their organizations, especially as there are multiple<br />
systems of customary rights and community rights.<br />
4 Chambers, Robert (1995) Poverty and Livehoods: Whose Reality Counts? Environment and<br />
Urbanization, 7(1)<br />
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• Develop new laws and schemes to realize entitlements and support services.<br />
Efficient, thorough and fair implementation of existing entitlements and support<br />
services should be the starting point, followed by new proposals for services<br />
developed in collaboration with people’s organisations. This is especially important<br />
for women, who need more support services than men in every social group.<br />
• Strengthen and collaborate with autonomous people’s organization/ networks. This<br />
is important for two purposes: a) to listen to expressions of people’s needs and<br />
b)to monitor implementation collaboratively. Several intermediary organizations,<br />
like elected representatives, NGOs, educational institutions and others can also<br />
be of help in both processes, but the direct participation of people’s collectives is<br />
the basic requirement.<br />
• Promote networking of all agencies, Governmental and other for smooth delivery<br />
of services and an integrated approach to programmes. This is perhaps the most<br />
difficult objective to achieve and requires the most effort. That would be the real<br />
test of a genuine commitment to gender and social inclusion.<br />
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110<br />
Women, Work and <strong>Technology</strong><br />
A View through a Socio-Economic and Gender<br />
Framework<br />
Ms. C.P. Sujaya<br />
Visiting Fellow, Centre for Women’s Development Studies, New Delhi<br />
Email : cpsujaya@gmail.com<br />
The relationship between technology, women farmers and their work status is mediated<br />
through the socio-economic and gender framework (NCW 2004). Women farmers<br />
from asset-poor and asset-less families may have different sets of constraints and/or<br />
advantages in inter-acting with technology from those of propertied or middle class<br />
women farmers. Some women may be less bound by cultural norms of accepted<br />
behavior and (as an example) may enjoy greater physical mobility. At the same time,<br />
lack of basic literacy may be a major stumbling block. Other women may possess<br />
assets and enjoy more decision making power, but restricted strictly to the household<br />
and not outside. Caste can be a limiting aspect when it comes to accessing common<br />
property assets such as natural resources, including water, but in certain areas tribal<br />
women have traditional rights to use forest areas. Women who work on their own<br />
farms may find that the money earned from the sale of farm produce goes to the<br />
male head of families. The money may not be used for household priorities. Landless<br />
women on the other hand, who work for daily wage, may be the major supporters of<br />
the family, especially in terms of food and child security and welfare.<br />
This multifaceted heterogeneity of the status of women farmers notwithstanding, there<br />
are some common features in women’s gendered existence which this paper attempts<br />
to unravel so as to ensure a better understanding in foregrounding public policies in<br />
science and technology. <strong>Technology</strong> has indeed a transformational role to play in<br />
areas related to agricultural and natural resources management, so as to “guarantee<br />
economic, food and health security” as the Technical Note observes. The main issue<br />
taken up in this paper is land ownership by women, but some attention is also paid to<br />
other natural resources such as forests as well as education and skill development.<br />
Only the concerted action of the agricultural research system and policy makers can<br />
lead to meaningful research on issues concerning women. Technological empowerment<br />
of women in agriculture is not simply a research or extension issue. There are issues,<br />
which invoke policies, which require support for taking those technologies to the field.<br />
Hence one must look at the issues in a holistic manner. There is a need for direct<br />
interaction between scientists and women farmers and labour. The country is rich in<br />
traditional technologies, which need to be better understood. Development research<br />
must ensure the participation of actual users. There is a greater need to improve the<br />
land to lab and people to lab effort. Care must be taken not to impose non-viable<br />
technology, e.g. indiscriminate use of toxic pesticides, which have resulted in high
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levels of contamination of water bodies. The heavy use of chemical fertilizers has<br />
driven over 35 % of prime land out of cultivation. <strong>Technology</strong> of water conservation and<br />
protection is very useful for women, as providers of the resource. So are technologies<br />
of energy conservation and food safety 1<br />
Ownership, control and access to land are three important elements of farming<br />
women’s ability to develop food security strategies through the use of modern<br />
technology and other productive assets. In addition, farming women need secure<br />
access either singly or collectively, to other natural resources such as water and water<br />
bodies (such as ponds, tanks, etc.,) forests, trees, common lands, pasture, wasteland,<br />
etc. Ownership of land can encourage women farmers to invest more of their time<br />
and resources in long term improvements, in which technology plays a major role.<br />
Ownership of land facilitates access to agricultural support services. Instead of relying<br />
on outdated agricultural practices, women can use improved techniques and access<br />
new information on a continuing basis.<br />
Although women make up two-thirds of the working force in agriculture, they own less<br />
than one tenth of agricultural land. It does not suffice to have ownership and control<br />
without ready and effective access to natural resources, especially land. Women’s<br />
biggest constraint is their own gendered status within the family and society, whether<br />
they are unpaid cultivators, farm workers, landowners, lessees or tenants. In other<br />
words, gender constraints operate irrespective of land status, though the constraints<br />
may vary. Women of land-owning families are not considered to be women farmers<br />
but only farmers’ wives. Many of them do not cultivate land themselves but lease<br />
it out to others or allow male relatives to work on it. Wives of land-owing small and<br />
marginal farmers, who put in unpaid work on the farm, are treated likewise and are<br />
returned in Census enumeration as housewives. Women agricultural workers who<br />
are wives of share croppers or tenants (either legal or informal arrangements) have<br />
no security of tenure to enable them to prepare their cultivation plans in a sustained<br />
or consistent way by using improved practices or inputs. Most of these women are<br />
share croppers by proxy, in areas which have heavy male out migration, and the men<br />
in the family return only at the time of harvest, if at all. Each of these disparate groups<br />
of productive women workers are distanced from effective access to technology and<br />
information due to their gendered status as well as their socio-economic placement in<br />
their communities and in society as a whole.<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> and credit are linked to land in a three-way causal connection. Credit<br />
is denied to those without land titles. New and emerging technologies are seldom<br />
available (if at all) to those without financial resources to absorb and utilize them for<br />
higher productivity and food security at the household level. Thus, paucity or absence<br />
of credit leaves needy women – who desperately need additional sources of cash<br />
1 National Commission for Women 2004 “Report of the National Task Force on Technological Empowerment of Women in<br />
Agriculture”<br />
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income – to look for other non-land-based options at lower levels of skills. Women’s<br />
SHG are encouraged to seek micro-finance for income generating activities related<br />
to small scale cottage or craft enterprises. They are not considered “credit-worthy” for<br />
agricultural loans because of their lack of titles in spite of the policy instructions on<br />
priority lending to agriculture. In the past, anti-poverty programs such as IRDP had no<br />
space for land-based self-employment schemes either for poor men or poor women.<br />
Yet micro finance borrowers are mostly women – estimated at 90 % of the total SHG<br />
members in the country. “Insecurity of land tenure reduces the likelihood that women<br />
will adopt environmentally sustainable agricultural practices and compromises<br />
women’s ability to obtain credit because land is often the only acceptable form of<br />
collateral” 2 .<br />
Issues of access to land for landless farmers have been de-linked from issues of<br />
agriculture and have focused on micro-enterprise in the non-agricultural sector 3 .<br />
Government policy in theory at least, recognizes the crucial role of land in leveling<br />
socio-economic differences in society. “Higher production through a labour intensive<br />
modern technology requires a high degree of social and economic equality among the<br />
rural population. Land reform as a means of improving distributive justice is likely to<br />
have desirable effect on raising the productivity of agricultural labour… To ensure that<br />
the small farmers and landless labourers … share the new opportunities provided by<br />
modern technology, land reforms must constitute the basic ingredient in the process<br />
of modernization. Without appropriate measures to protect the poorest sections of<br />
agricultural population, the introduction of improved technology can only result in<br />
increasing disparities and can lead to a dangerous disequilibrium in the rural economy<br />
and the rural society” 4<br />
India has 60 million landless households in addition to 250 million rural population<br />
belonging to households owning less than 0.2 hectares of land. Landlessness is by far<br />
the greatest predictor of poverty in India, even more so than caste or illiteracy. 5<br />
If the above quotes are couched in gender-neutral language, the United Nations and<br />
the National Common Minimum Program of the present Government make amends.<br />
The UN has asked member countries to revise laws and administrative practices to<br />
ensure women’s equal rights and access to economic resources. Among the actions<br />
recommended are legislative reforms to give women full rights to inheritance and<br />
to ownership of land (Beijing Platform for Action, 1995, paragraph 61) “One of the<br />
commitments made in the National Common Minimum Program … concerns women’s<br />
2 IFPRI Report “Women: The Key to Food Security”<br />
3 UNDP Regional Consultation on Women, Agricultural Policy and Food Security: Issues for the 10 th Plan Bhubaneswar 21-22<br />
112<br />
November, 2001<br />
4 Report of National Commission on Agriculture Abridged Report 1977 paragraph 2.2.8, emphasis added<br />
5 World Bank Country Study (India) “Achievements and Challenges in Reducing Poverty”, 1997
Technical Papers<br />
equal rights in ownership of assets like houses and land … The Department of WCD<br />
has requested State Secretaries to consider initiatives that could be taken in their<br />
respective states to promote effective land rights for women.” 6<br />
While poverty inhibits the introduction of new technology to both men and women<br />
through poor access to basic productive resources, the de facto exclusion of women<br />
from ownership of land and other resources is based on gender-based discrimination.<br />
Thus, the poor women in rural India have to contend with the inimical forces of<br />
economic as well as gender discrimination. This has a compounding effect. The<br />
inheritance laws of most communities in India are antithetical to women’s ownership<br />
of land. Since personal laws receive protection under the Constitution, most of these<br />
legal provisions continue, in spite of gender equality being enshrined as one of the<br />
cardinal principles of the Indian Constitution. Some salutary changes have been<br />
made to these laws as well in the case of some communities. Some new laws have<br />
been introduced following the abolition of Zamindari or other similar land ownership<br />
systems. But in a large number of cases, social pressures and public indifference<br />
hinder unfettered enjoyment of these progressive provisions.<br />
-In circumstances where the law may be favorable to women, such as in the case of<br />
widows, social pressures lead to the women giving up her share to her sons.<br />
-In the case of divorced woman of the Muslim community, “maintenance” or “mehr”<br />
may not include a share in the land.<br />
-A separated woman may get “maintenance”, but this does not include land, depending<br />
on her community or religion.<br />
-Very often, especially in rural areas, such decisions in the case of divorce or separation<br />
are taken not through the formal institutions of courts, but through local and informal/<br />
semi-informal agencies such as family, priest, panchayat representatives, etc.<br />
“…The prescribed order of succession in matter of land inheritance as mentioned<br />
in UPZALR is practically not adhered to especially in the case of the female heirs.<br />
Women, particularly widows and daughters were found relinquishing their land right<br />
to the next male heir due to the prevailing social norms”.<br />
“Women’s Access and Rights to Land in Uttar Pradesh 7 : Myth and Grass Roots<br />
Realities” Saroj Arora Papers on Gender Discrimination in Land Ownership Centre for<br />
Rural Studies, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration Mussoorie.<br />
“The deletion of the discriminatory provisions in the 1956 Hindu Succession Act<br />
(Section 4 (2)) brings all agricultural land on par with other property and makes<br />
Hindu women’s inheritance rights in land legally equal to those of men across the<br />
6 Platform for Action Ten Years After - Department of WCD 2005<br />
7 which often happened to be her son, brother, father-in-law or brother-in-law<br />
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states, overriding any inconsistent State laws. This can benefit millions of women<br />
dependent on agriculture 8<br />
II<br />
In the first five year plans, the equal right to economic resources of men and women<br />
alike did not receive much recognition or importance because the approach to women<br />
did not perceive them as economically productive actors. A change came with the<br />
Sixth Plan.<br />
Some Policy Changes since the Sixth Five Year Plan<br />
1. Allotment of revenue land, waste land and ceiling surplus land on the basis of joint<br />
pattas in the names of husband and wife and/or exclusive titles to women.<br />
2. At least 40 % of land pattas should be given to women and the remaining pattas<br />
in the names of husband and wife.<br />
The Tenth Plan (Chapter on Agriculture) recommends that, in the interest of agricultural<br />
growth, all policies for better utilization of land and water should be pursued. One of the<br />
accompanying suggestions is to legalize the land leasing-in and leasing-out systems.<br />
This recommendation is again repeated in the section on “Women in Agriculture” in<br />
the same Chapter, where the rationale for increasing poor women’s access to land<br />
by regularizing leasing and share cropping of uncultivated land by women’s groups<br />
shifts from agricultural productivity to household food security in low subsistence<br />
households.<br />
The National Agricultural Policy 2000 declares that “the approach to rural development<br />
and land reforms will focus on … tenancy reforms to recognize the rights of the tenants<br />
and share croppers ... and recognition of women’s rights in land”<br />
(Paragraph 35)<br />
Quality of Implementation<br />
Land is a state subject, so quality of implementation on ground is uneven.<br />
114<br />
There is very little public awareness, few public education programs or awareness<br />
campaigns.<br />
Strongly entrenched interest groups at the local level, with political and muscle<br />
power, are able to deprive women of their assets received under these affirmative<br />
action programs.<br />
Women themselves remain in ignorance of their legal entitlements.<br />
8 Bina Aggarwal “Landmark Step to Gender Equality” Hindu Magazine 25 September 2005 on the amendments to the Hindu<br />
Succession Act in 2005
Technical Papers<br />
On the last point, the studies done in several states under the auspices of the LBSNAA<br />
Center for Rural Studies, Mussoorie, found that this was indeed true to a very large<br />
extent. In UP a survey of 177 rural households in 52 villages from two districts found<br />
that none of the adult women respondents were either able to recall a single case of<br />
land allotment to a woman by the State Government individually or on patta basis or<br />
were aware of the Government directive that 40 % of the land settled should be in the<br />
names of women and the remaining in the joint names of husband and wife.<br />
These directives to all district magistrates were issued by the UP Government under<br />
Section 126 and 198 of the Zamindari Abolition Act. These were not just administrative<br />
orders, which might be taken lightly, but orders which had the force of law. But the<br />
study found large gaps in the women’s knowledge not only on these legal entitlements,<br />
but also on the laws of succession applicable to their own communities. Only a little<br />
more than half the respondents were aware of laws of inheritance of agricultural land<br />
that were applicable to them.<br />
Cases recorded in the study from Orissa illustrate the tenacity of vested interests<br />
operating as major hurdles to women’s entitlements to land. It found that that payment<br />
of compensation for land acquired from female heads of households found its way<br />
to middle men who invariably cheated the women of their money. In other cases,<br />
the money was paid solely to the male heads of households; the wives did not get a<br />
share. On paper, Orissa had issued its first directive on grant of joint land pattas as far<br />
back as 1989. In October 2002, the Government of Orissa further directed that 40 %<br />
of the Government waste land allotted for agriculture, ceiling land, bhoodan land etc.<br />
may be allotted to widows, unmarried women, victimized women and women living<br />
under the poverty line, as far as practicable. But the study team could not get any<br />
consolidated information about the actual progress achieved. Even when the team<br />
found some evidence of title transfers on joint patta basis in a few places, the local<br />
officials told them that they had started it on “experimental basis” even though the<br />
directives were almost two decades old. The overall attitude was one of indifference.<br />
Thirty-four families were given 34 acres of ceiling surplus land in 1983 by the Orissa<br />
Government for a social forestry program. When the women raised casurina seedlings<br />
on the entire land, they started getting threats from vested interests in the area, who<br />
wanted to grab the land and the trees. The 34 families were now on the verge of losing<br />
the land and the fruits of their labour. The local law enforcement officials actually sided<br />
with the groups attempting to grab the land. Women are generally ignorant about laws<br />
relating to land rights and there is no effective communication system to channel the<br />
information to them. 9<br />
Very often policy decisions are not matched with adequately strong follow up action.<br />
Even in landowning families, where greater awareness and knowledge are presumed,<br />
the absence of women’s names in the land records is a common feature. Generally only<br />
9 “Voices of Peasant Women” Series 2, CWDS, 1995<br />
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men’s names are listed and women’s names often go by default in the ownership or<br />
possession columns. The Government of Assam took a policy decision (as a part of its<br />
Land Policy of 1989) to include the name of the wife in settlement pattas. This marked<br />
a complete departure from the earlier position, which did not even mention women by<br />
name. The State Government followed this up by issuing patta passbooks with specific<br />
columns for naming share holders of the property. Though the implementation of these<br />
directives leaves much to be desired, it remains as an example of how changes in<br />
basic record keeping can lead to positive changes in women’s lives.<br />
West Bengal issued instructions requiring government land to be issued jointly in<br />
the names of husband and wife or to women individually in 1992, “to the extent<br />
possible”, 14 years after the land distribution program began. These instructions did<br />
not require retroactive application of the policy as a result of which joint titling was not<br />
a requirement for the majority of land distributed. Officials did not implement the new<br />
instructions uniformly even after its adoption. 10<br />
Some Macro-Facts<br />
By 2000, states distributed more than 5 million acres of ceiling surplus land and<br />
over 14 million acres of waste land to selected beneficiaries.<br />
116<br />
Men received title to the vast majority of this land because they were deemed to<br />
be the heads of households or the cultivator of the land.<br />
The Ministry reported having approximately 1.2 million acres of ceiling surplus<br />
land left for distribution.<br />
Even when women were in fact, heads of households, title was given to a male<br />
family member 11 .<br />
III<br />
The three major ways in which women can gain access to and ownership of land are<br />
a)inheritance, b) State transfers and c) market transactions.<br />
While ownership and effective access and control to land are very important, the<br />
convergence of other productive inputs and resources, including technology, is no<br />
less vital for their acceptance and adoption by the women farmers. Factors such as<br />
economies of scale, suitability, local factors, mode of participation and environmental<br />
sustainability are some of the important issues to keep in mind in effecting convergence.<br />
The experiences of what this paper refers to as “intermediary organizations”, which<br />
have stepped in to help women’s groups to access land, using the same State-provided<br />
entitlements, can be very instructive. The engagement of many of these organizations<br />
10 FAO “Lands and Livelihoods: Making land rights real for India’s poor”.<br />
11 Land and Livelihoods: Making land rights real for India’s rural poor. FAO Land repository
Technical Papers<br />
did not begin or end with women’s land entitlements – rather, their perspective was<br />
broad enough to encompass issues of women’s work, labour, mobilization and political<br />
participation, support services, knowledge of women’s rights, etc.<br />
Government Land<br />
The story of Vanlaxmi Tree Growers’ Cooperative in Mehsana district, Gujarat<br />
(initiated with SEWA support) has some novel features added to the basic model of<br />
direct transfers of Government land to women. Though SEWA started its activities<br />
as an urban-based trade union of women, it now has 2.19 lakh women agricultural<br />
labourers, and small and marginal farmers as members. The mediation of SEWA<br />
between the Government and the women workers provides the much-needed support<br />
to the women. The second feature of this initiative is that the women are mobilized into<br />
groups for greater bargaining power as well as more effective planning for production<br />
activities so as to achieve economic security.<br />
After SEWA mobilized the women, it helped them to get both revenue land as well as<br />
government waste land allotted to them. The administrative procedures took a long<br />
time as the legal position was very complicated, with different and contradictory laws<br />
having to be dealt with. Cooperative law required ownership of land by the members<br />
as a pre-condition for forming a cooperative society. It took two and a half years to sort<br />
out these issues. Finally the women registered a tree growers’ cooperative (rather than<br />
an agricultural cooperative). Throughout this waiting period, SEWA played a supportive<br />
and handholding role, providing legal, technical and information inputs to help the<br />
organization to stand on its feet. Finally, the land was allotted on a 15-year lease.<br />
The members of this cooperative were landless labourers who had seen their<br />
chances of building land-based sustainable livelihoods dwindling on account of rapid<br />
industrialization, reduction in water table from excessive irrigation from bore wells<br />
and loss of their own land and assets. Now, with an organizational base, the women<br />
have taken up scientific agriculture with the collaboration of research and technical<br />
institutions, using new techniques such as drip irrigation, rainwater harvesting,<br />
nitrogen fixation, etc. as well as using new equipment like power tillers. The women<br />
partnered with the Gujarat Agricultural University through its local research station.<br />
The tree growers’ cooperative has become a licensed seed distributor of the Gujarat<br />
State Seed Corporation. The women have been able to rejuvenate the economy of<br />
the whole area which had been degraded by over use. Today it stands as a model of<br />
how landless poor can successfully implement collective agriculture. 12<br />
IV<br />
Private Land<br />
The role of intermediary organizations can be very significant in enabling women,<br />
through various mechanisms, to access private land as well.<br />
12 Reema Nanavaty “Organizing Agriculture Women Workers: SEWA’s Experience” SEWA, undated<br />
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Landless dalit women in Medak district, Andhra Pradesh, organized into sangham,<br />
were able to lease privately owned land that was degraded and lying unutilized, through<br />
the support and agency of the Deccan Development Society(DDS). The community<br />
organization program of DDS mobilized the women into sangham with the objective of<br />
achieving economic self-reliance by helping them to lease land on a sustained basis.<br />
The sangham entered into lease arrangements with the landowners. Details of lease<br />
rates, period of the lease-in period, etc. were mutually discussed and agreed upon.<br />
Both sides benefited from the arrangement, the landowners from the rental/leases<br />
and the land improvements and the women from the fruits of their investment in labour<br />
by increased land productivity and food security. The women also benefited from the<br />
low lease rates. The legal framework in the Telengana area lays down a minimum of<br />
five years for tenancies with rent set at a maximum ranging from three to five times the<br />
land revenue. The women are satisfied with the arrangements and reported increases<br />
in household and food security.<br />
In concrete terms, members of the sangham get the required number of wage days,<br />
food grains and fodder for their cattle and leafy green vegetables. They get 70 of kg<br />
food grains and 25 kg of pulses per member working as a partner in an acre of leased<br />
land in a year. Other positive features of the program include collective decision making<br />
by the women, no irrigable land being kept fallow, and members working together in<br />
a spirit of cooperation. Women have decided collectively not to cultivate commercial<br />
crops and to apply farmyard manure in a big way. Women have created an alternative<br />
public distribution system based on local production, storage and local distribution,<br />
with village community grain banks serving the needs of the poor and the destitute.<br />
The members are assured of getting 10 varieties of traditional food grains 13 .<br />
The Remarkable Women of Medak<br />
“Half a dozen village women took us to some lush green fields which they are<br />
cultivating. 28 dalit women, both Hindu and Muslim, have been assisted by the<br />
Scheduled Castes Commission to consolidate 24 acres of land. They are now<br />
growing about 11 crop species on this land, some like jowar with several varieties.<br />
The cultivation mix and rotation are highly sophisticated, designed to maintain the<br />
fertility of the soil without having to use chemical fertilizers, to ward off pest attacks<br />
without having to use pesticides, to optimize the productivity of biomass including<br />
grains and fodder and even to provide distraction for small children that the<br />
women have to bring along with them during agricultural operations! The strategy<br />
has been so successful that neighboring farmers, some of them very large landowners<br />
who had once converted to chemical-intensive farming, have requested<br />
the women to help them switch back to organic farming so that the natural fertility<br />
of their soils can return 14 .<br />
13 Rao, Rugmini, 2005<br />
14 Ashish Kothari, Janmanch column, No.3, January, 2002.<br />
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Women from very poor dalit families with support from DDS set up village grain banks<br />
to provide food for the village communities to cover the lean season when people<br />
face hunger. The initiative came from the women in the sangham who wanted to<br />
work towards increasing food production in their own fallow land and set up grain<br />
banks that would reach all the poor in the village. 1,765 women, spread over 30<br />
villages in the Zaheerabad region, started the venture and 800 women joined them<br />
later. They were the most vulnerable to hunger. Started in 1994 for a 5-year period,<br />
it still continues with women’s own funds and some donor support. Grain banks have<br />
been set up in 32 villages, with the poorest families getting access. Wealth rankings<br />
were carried out to identify genuine beneficiaries to access the grain banks. Women<br />
have also set up their own marketing systems. The grain banks have challenged the<br />
government public distribution system, where food is stored in granaries while millions<br />
go hungry. 15<br />
Several of the DDS 16 groups of women went on to buy land through a land purchase<br />
program of the State-run Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Development<br />
Corporation and reported that their experience with leasing helped to build their<br />
farming and farm management skills and their confidence to pursue the land purchase<br />
opportunity 17<br />
The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Corporations in various states have been<br />
facilitating access to privately owned land through subsidized land purchase for many<br />
years. Such land purchases for the landless dalits and adivasis become a viable<br />
strategy for enhancing livelihoods. Eligibility is restricted to the landless BPL families<br />
and those belonging to SC/ST categories. Andhra Pradesh has the longest running<br />
program, followed by Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Kerala etc. Other agencies such as<br />
NABARD and State Bank of India have also adopted small land purchase programs.<br />
In Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, the land purchased under the program is required<br />
to be registered in the name of the women alone.<br />
Limited research done by RDI in Andhra Pradesh found that the process is usually<br />
initiated by a landowner who is aware of the program and wishes to sell his land.<br />
Defects noticed in the program include failure to target the neediest, lack of technical<br />
assistance back-up, absence of an integral component to improve the land and the<br />
overall implementation being landowner-driven rather than by beneficiary demands<br />
and needs (FAO, ibid). 18<br />
15 “Women Create Alternative Food Security in Zaheerabad Region in South India”<br />
http://women.socioeco.org/documents/93rtf_rao.rtf<br />
16 Rugmini Rao, 2004, note on leased lands “Women Sanghams of DDS traverse an exciting path” 28/8/03; DDS Power<br />
Presentation<br />
17 Land and Livelihoods: Making land rights real for India’s rural poor. FAO Repository<br />
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The Bankura Story is another instance of privately owned land being donated to village<br />
groups of women and used by the women, mobilized into samitis, to plant arjan trees<br />
and rear tassar silk worms.<br />
In 1980, in a small village in West Bengal, a women’s samiti (group) received donation<br />
of land from some private landowners who did not have the resources to develop the<br />
degraded land that they owned. The village women (most of them Santhal tribals),<br />
used to migrate four times a year to other districts in search of work, since the arid<br />
areas of Bankura district are without productive resources such as water or forests,<br />
and are prone to flood and famine. With help and support from agencies such as<br />
the Centre for Women’s Development Studies in Delhi and funding from a number<br />
of Government and other funding agencies, the samiti was able to reclaim the<br />
wasteland. Within 3 years, the land was thick with trees on which the women reared<br />
tasar silk worms. As the news spread, women from surrounding villages formed their<br />
own samities and were able to get donation of degraded land from villagers. In less<br />
than a decade, 1,500 women in 36 villages were able to create work opportunities<br />
in tassar cultivation so much so that they were able to stop their annual migrations<br />
outside their homes.<br />
The Centre for Women’s Development Studies(CWDS) was responsible for conceiving<br />
the instrument of women’s groups (samitis) for generating land-based employment for<br />
poor women. The Centre, like SEWA, saw the women’s collective employment as a<br />
means to achieve solidarity. The Centre realized that at this level of poverty, only a<br />
group can ensure survival of individuals. The Centre had a set of multiple roles to<br />
perform – a safety net of advice and good counsel, trouble shooter, advocate of<br />
women’s view point and many others. But in practical terms, CWDS was able to help<br />
the women members of the samitis to access technology as well as management<br />
techniques, besides financial resources for developing wastelands through tassar<br />
cultivation. The skills that the village women needed to run their samitis and their<br />
project included professional background in social forestry, tasar silk, silk worm<br />
rearing, business enterprise, human resource development, etc.<br />
It is a unique feature of the Bankura story that some landowning women, who are also<br />
members of the samitis have donated their own land to the samiti. But the samitis have<br />
a rule that no land donor has more right to employment or output of the land because<br />
all members have an equal share. Thus, a few poor women are both benefactors<br />
and beneficiaries of land donation but the benefit also extends to assetless and other<br />
women who could not donate anything.<br />
“I earn about Rs. 200 from tassar cocoon rearing on the land which used to belong<br />
to my family, but is now the Samiti’s. But I also experience some security from<br />
Kamala’s earnings of about Rs. 200. She is landless and each year her family<br />
went without daily meals in January and June. Their hunger cut into our insides<br />
too. It is not easy to live with your neighbour’s hunger” (Gouri, a member of the<br />
samiti).<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
Like SEWA, the Centre was able to build liaison between the women’s samitis and<br />
technology/knowledge providers as well as various Government agencies such as<br />
the Sericulture Department, (which bought the first batch of cocoons reared by the<br />
women), the Forest Department, (which supplied the saplings of arjun and asan) the<br />
panchayat samiti, the Tribal Welfare Department (which funded the plantation) and the<br />
Central Silk Board through its local field station, which supplied the silk worm eggs.<br />
As like in the SEWA case, the women of Bankura were poor and illiterate. To run the<br />
samitis they needed professional training in management. A consultant was hired from<br />
the corporate sector (he was interested in the project) who held a 5-day management<br />
course, which five women leaders from each of the three samitis were asked to join.<br />
They discussed specific questions such as – what is a samiti, what is a member’s role,<br />
what is an enterprise, what is profit and loss, how is responsibility shared, what is the<br />
role of the leader, how is a plan of action to be devised, what is financial management<br />
and maintenance of accounts, etc. “The women could not follow management, but<br />
they were stubborn learners. … Management training workshops were repeated<br />
every quarter for a year with the same women, and the group got bigger with time as<br />
more members felt they must attend … it is significant that the most ardent trainees<br />
are deserted young women, widows, childless oppressed wives, whose need for<br />
affiliation and support is highest” .<br />
The women realized that tassar plantations are not enough; it could not provide for their<br />
needs throughout the year; they needed other ways of generating more employment.<br />
One of the enterprises they took up was the making of sal leaf-cups and plates –<br />
others included rope making from babui grass, trading in mahua seeds, rice husking,<br />
etc. All these enterprises are based on collective management and income sharing.<br />
Because of the strong tribal bonds among the women in different villages, the Bankura<br />
‘model’ spread to other villages, with spearhead teams from each samiti acting as an<br />
advance party for consciousness raising and passing on of advice and knowledge.<br />
In the first seven years, the number of registered samitis rose from 3 to 18 and the<br />
members from 400 to 1,500. One hundred hectares of wasteland was reclaimed and<br />
36,000 person days of direct employment generated. The samitis federated into an<br />
apex body of elected representatives.<br />
The samitis continued to receive more offers of land and new samitis were formed<br />
in two adjacent districts of Bankura, namely, Purulia and Medinipur, using the basic<br />
features of the same model 18 .<br />
Adithi Mahila Vigyan Kendra (Women’s Science Center) in Muzaffarpur district, Bihar,<br />
is Adithi’s (a women’s group committed to women working their way through local<br />
solutions to overcome constraints of poverty and gender, mainly in Bihar) response<br />
18 “The Bankura Story – Rural Women Organize for Change” ILO New Delhi, Text by Nalini Singh<br />
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to the existential realities of the poor scheduled caste women of the Bhusura area.<br />
Large-scale migration of men to North West India and other areas for work leave the<br />
women responsible for a range of farming tasks, from transplanting to harvesting, on<br />
land that their share-cropper husbands had earlier been tilling on batai or mankap<br />
(local tenancy arrangements) basis. Women now had to work as the ‘invisible’ yet real<br />
share croppers and had also to sustain the family with very little cash income. While<br />
the men and the landlords invariably bargained and fixed up the terms and conditions<br />
for undertaking batai or mankap before the former migrated annually, the women<br />
found that the produce from it provided family food security for only half the year. The<br />
women therefore, wanted other options.<br />
Adithi, after a period of trial and error, introduced a cash lease system both for land<br />
and animals in place of the current share cropping system. It also introduced a viable<br />
mix of activities, including plantation of trees, nurseries for saplings, processing of<br />
natural resource products, etc. This broadened the options for women and minimized<br />
the risks. One hundred poor scheduled caste women formed groups and leased land<br />
from local landlords for three years. Adithi ensured that all ten groups were provided<br />
with technical, financial and organizational assistance for crop planning, cultivation and<br />
marketing. An evaluation showed that the productivity levels of paddy had increased,<br />
the physical and social confinement of women had reduced, group savings, loan<br />
disbursement and repayment had improved and become systematized.<br />
In addition to helping women in leasing land, Adithi helped 100 fisherwomen from<br />
four villages – who had articulated the same need for ‘other options’ – to lease out<br />
100 acres of pond from the government agencies for ten years. With the help of a<br />
commercial bank, the women received technical training, helping them to assume<br />
responsibility for both feeding the fish as well as ensuring that stealing and poisoning<br />
of fish do not take place. Further examples of ‘other options’ that Adithi was able to<br />
find for the women included bee keeping, leatherwork, carpentry, low cost housing,<br />
etc. all of which answered the same felt need of the women in a situation where<br />
farming activity could not ensure year-round household food and economic security.<br />
Adithi faced major constraints such as the incidence of natural calamities, especially<br />
floods – endemic to North Bihar – compounded with lack of insurance cover; lack of<br />
infrastructure such as irrigation facilities, agricultural equipment and storage capacity,<br />
all of which made the viability of such projects problematic. The lack of insurance<br />
coverage still remains a major deficiency.<br />
Adithi has flagged the problems of women share croppers as a major challenge to<br />
increasing agricultural productivity in the country. With the increasing feminization of<br />
agriculture, the skewed ownership of landholdings and the high incidence of absentee<br />
landowners, the burden falls unequally on women of particular groups. These women<br />
are poor, with low social status, lack have no title, access to productive inputs,<br />
organizational back up, or technical knowledge, but keep on working on land with no<br />
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social or economic security. Adithi points out that share cropping agriculture provides a<br />
large number of livelihoods, but is essentially a loss-making activity though it provides<br />
some food grains for the family to survive for part of the year. The need for better<br />
interface between farming and other types of rural livelihoods for such categories of<br />
women comes out very clearly. 19<br />
Share cropping is legally banned in most state land statutes, except under certain<br />
conditions. These legal orders however, have little social sanction – there are no<br />
better alternatives for share croppers within agriculture alone. Adithi asks for a better<br />
package of services to be designed, (with share cropping as the main activity) and<br />
for attitudinal changes on the part of state agencies to enable them to recognize<br />
the importance of share cropping and that even landless women can be farmers. It<br />
also asks for more attention to be accorded to the gender division of productive and<br />
reproductive labour, the present status of which is quite disadvantageous to women.<br />
At present, State agencies do not accord priority to the development needs of large<br />
numbers of people dependent on non-viable share cropping agriculture. They look at<br />
them as poor, underemployed or as oppressed castes, but not with respect to their<br />
primary occupations (CPS draft Chapter on Women’s Status in forthcoming UNDP<br />
Women’s HDR).<br />
An umbrella project titled the “GOI-UNDP Food Security Program” provides women’s<br />
groups access to croplands through long-term lease of dry land. There are three<br />
women-specific sub-programs under the umbrella, in Andhra Pradesh (sustainable<br />
dry land agriculture), Orissa (strengthening natural resource management) and UP<br />
(women farmers for food security), with the involvement of NGO.<br />
The projects provided flexible funding to women for purchase or lease land either<br />
individually or as a group. Funds could be used for capacity building, implements and<br />
technologies. Funds were also provided to repay loans to money lenders to get their<br />
land back, provided the registration was done in the names of the women or in the<br />
joint names of husband and wife. The projects sought to get the support of the men<br />
in these families which they were able to get in some cases, which though not many,<br />
did mark an important beginning. In Orissa, the reported progress was commendable,<br />
with one NGO reporting cent percent husbands involved in the project, transferring<br />
the land released from the money lenders in the names of their wives.<br />
But there were negative outcomes as well, such as men choosing to leave the land<br />
with the money lenders rather than face the ‘humiliation’ of transferring the land in<br />
women’s names; cases of land transferred in women’s names were fewer than the<br />
cases of joint registration; more cases of transfer of land of poor quality in women’s<br />
names rather than those of good land; the question of inheritance remained undecided<br />
as to who would inherit the land after the women. Problems arose with banks, district<br />
19 3 ADITHI reports mimeo Women Sharecroppers, A Pathway to Sharecroppers, Sharecropping and Us, Adithi Annual Report<br />
2004.<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
officialdom and local government officials. The high registration costs were beyond<br />
the capacity of the women. Banks would refuse funding for collective leases; funds<br />
were not forthcoming for land-based activities or for marginal lands; local officials<br />
were reluctant to register land in women’s names. The struggle is an uphill one, with<br />
slow and limited progress. (Neera Burra “Empowering women for Household food<br />
security: UNDP’s experience and some lessons learnt”, August, 2004.<br />
V<br />
A common feature in most of the cases described above is the role of the intermediary<br />
organizations building up farming women’s access to a variety of productive resources.<br />
Narrowly conceived, it could be seen as accessing technologies. But this is only one<br />
aspect – poor, illiterate and marginally placed women have demonstrated their need for<br />
information inputs, skill building, knowledge of legal rights, motivation and guidance,<br />
accessing services, credit, raw materials, human resource development, training, etc.<br />
All these are needed at various points of time in the life of the organization. <strong>Technology</strong><br />
therefore has to be very broadly interpreted. Most of all, cohesiveness and solidarity<br />
are important for sustainability and dynamic growth of the women’s organizations.<br />
Another common feature is the form of the women’s representative organization at the<br />
grass root level as a collective entity – either a cooperative, as in the case of SEWA,<br />
or as registered societies as in the case of CWDS, or sangham in the case of DDS.<br />
The groups need a legal identity to be able to transact land transfers or leases.<br />
VI<br />
Enhancement of production through higher productivity is the main goal of the Ministry<br />
of Agriculture (MoA) and it is here that technology has an important role. This objective<br />
sets all systems to achieve “rapid agricultural growth and development through<br />
optimum utilization of the country’s land, water, soil and water resources” (Annual<br />
Report of the MOA 2004-2005 Chapter 2 on ‘Functions and Structures’, page 9).<br />
This over-arching objective has an effect on MOA’s own operational plans, programs<br />
and strategies. It also shapes internal working environments and its utilization and<br />
placement of human and financial resources. It influences the working ethos, and how<br />
officials view their work priorities as well as their individual career goals and options.<br />
Speaking specifically on women and agriculture, it would be safe to assume that the<br />
natural tendency would be to concentrate on how women can contribute to agricultural<br />
productivity and production – what has often been termed an ‘instrumental’ approach<br />
to women.<br />
This instrumental approach may tend to leave out of the picture – to take one particular<br />
aspect – the whole question of landlessness or of unpaid labour or subsistence<br />
farming. To take another aspect, it would leave out the necessity for support services,<br />
such as child care, water, health and education in enhancing the quality of women’s<br />
work and their well being. A third aspect would be to not attach significance to<br />
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women’s awareness and knowledge of land rights or of other rights to her bodily<br />
integrity or health, that have also a direct connection with her worker status. This<br />
type of instrumental approach then leads to an exceedingly restricted project design,<br />
with what can be called a “key-hole” approach. Resources are seldom earmarked for<br />
nurturing and strengthening women’s groups, linkages with organizations providing<br />
support services etc. are not provided and knowledge of laws regarding women’s<br />
rights to land etc. are not considered relevant or necessary.<br />
Evaluations of agricultural training projects for women found that in spite of norms laid<br />
down to restrict the participation to women of the small and marginal farming families,<br />
very often higher numbers of women selected for training had larger landholdings<br />
and were outside these two economic categories (Danish Institute of International<br />
Studies, 2004b).<br />
“Farmers” are defined by ownership of land and most forms of government support<br />
are linked to land ownership. Women constitute the majority of landless farmers and<br />
are doubly marginalized. They are not recognized as farmers though they perform<br />
more than 70 % of the agricultural work. 20<br />
Based on the outcomes of the Danish and Dutch funded training programs for women<br />
in agriculture in the eighties, the Government of India launched a central sector<br />
scheme “Women in Agriculture” on a pilot basis in seven States in the 1990s. It was<br />
a welcome move in that the Government decided to use its own budget and plan<br />
funds for the new venture instead of depending on outside donor agencies. Women<br />
farmers were organized in small groups. Each group had a woman link worker, who<br />
was selected from the same village. The broad aim of the pilot was to mobilize and<br />
motivate the practising women farmers and make them self reliant and responsive so<br />
that they can avail of the benefits of the new technology in the existing agricultural and<br />
extension system. In each village, the women’s group was to be the focal point for the<br />
transfer of technology and skill (up gradation).<br />
The following findings are taken from impact assessments/evaluations/reviews of the<br />
pilot in two States conducted by inter-disciplinary expert teams.<br />
Farm women’s handicaps were listed under low productivity, long hours of work<br />
on small landholdings and restricted access to credit and inputs.<br />
Farm women’s needs were listed under input support, technological support and<br />
extension support. These are the three supports which the Scheme plans to<br />
provide women – so, the needs assessment are done by the project managers in<br />
terms of these three needs.<br />
Of the two reviews, land figured as a detail in one base line survey in that it at<br />
20 UNDP Regional Consultation on “Women, Agricultural Policy and Food Security: Issues for the 10 th Plan” Bhubaneswar,<br />
21-22 November, 2001.<br />
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126<br />
least received a mention. But after referring to it, thereafter, land did not figure in<br />
any way, either in the selection of farm women or in the analysis or discussions.<br />
The finding in the review on the selection of women for the village groups was that<br />
it was not possible to restrict the selection to marginal and small farmers. This is<br />
because most women were not really interested in joining the group, the review<br />
notes. No reason has been given for this.<br />
In the other review, land was not specifically mentioned. It however, found that the<br />
village groups could be categorized as consisting of “have nots” and “haves” farm<br />
women in the same taluka. They needed separate training, but the review found<br />
that this was not done or envisaged.<br />
This review found that the tribal women were daily earners who feed their family<br />
members from their day to day earnings and when they were asked to come for<br />
training, they would lose their earnings and therefore needed cash incentive to<br />
attend. The land issue is apparent here, but it is not discussed.<br />
Two of the “haves” groups had knowledge of technology of horticultural crops,<br />
floriculture, bee keeping, fruit preservation etc. and were interested in commercial<br />
production. Their needs were totally different from those of the “have nots”.<br />
The review found that in one project, most of the women were not practising<br />
farmers.<br />
In assessing the results of the project, the review found that women’s longer<br />
working hours in the field were increasing their work load, but “their recognition,<br />
importance and respect has also increased. As all this leads to higher economic<br />
returns the women feel elevated, valued, satisfied, happy and contented”. Such a<br />
conclusion can be found only in a review of a women’s project!!<br />
But higher economic returns do not seem to accrue to the women from farm<br />
production – as the evaluation shows, the women members want financial<br />
assistance to undertake viable income generating activities, such as bee keeping,<br />
detergent making, pickle making, masala grinding, etc.<br />
Also, the intention of forming thrift groups may be a pointer to the women’s need<br />
to earn more cash income. But the review noted that the women could not reach<br />
a consensus on how the funds had to be utilized.<br />
One review, while positive in most aspects, noted the opinion of the women<br />
facilitators (officials at sub-divisional level looking after 10 villages each) that 43 %<br />
of the groups should be changed, because of the poor response by members and<br />
link workers.<br />
20 % of the households had women as landowners. The specific conditions<br />
leading to ownership were widowhood, absence of son in the family, minor son,<br />
polygamous marital unions, evading ceiling or revenue tax.
The above shows –<br />
Technical Papers<br />
Credit, technology and input supports figure in the needs assessment as critical<br />
needs, but they are de-linked from the land issue. Details of land, the absence or<br />
the quantum of it, is not included in the assessment. Its importance to the transfer<br />
of technology is not underlined.<br />
The groups of tribal women who are daily wage earners found it difficult to attend<br />
the training. Details of their land ownership are not given – a) are they landless<br />
women or b) do they have to earn wage labour in the off season to supplement<br />
their earnings from land?<br />
The implementation of the policy directives of the Central and State Governments<br />
on access to land by women does not figure as a part of the analysis or discussions.<br />
There is disjunction here.<br />
The importance of women having land in their own names does not receive any<br />
attention in the review.<br />
Poor rural women in India consider land to be more than just a commodity. The most<br />
common perception among the women was that owning land brings social security<br />
and dignity, which they value above all. While it is generally acknowledged that women<br />
from land-owning families are more respected in society, here are some voices from<br />
such women: 21<br />
“At present my husband ignores my hard work and claims that he is feeding me and<br />
the family. With land in my name, I could tell him that I own my own land and am not<br />
dependent on him. We would be on equal terms.”<br />
“If our husbands want us to eat, then we eat. It totally depends on them. If the land<br />
was in my name, he would no longer beat me, and he would take care of the children<br />
as well”.<br />
“When we earn our own money, we are less frightened of arguing with our husbands<br />
about spending decisions.”<br />
VII<br />
That women’s workload in field agriculture is labourious and heavy, and consumes<br />
more working hours than that of men, is now accepted as a policy concern. But farming<br />
women need simultaneous and effective access to basic needs such as child care,<br />
water, fuel wood, fodder, sanitation, health care, etc. for which they are responsible.<br />
These supports and services have to come together in an integrated fashion so that<br />
families dependent on women’s work can be advantaged and not disadvantaged by<br />
women seeking work options outside the home. This convergence of supports is also<br />
21 Women’s Resource Access Program (WRAP) “Voices From the Field”<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
critically necessary for ensuring that working women’s stress levels do not increase<br />
with heavier workloads leading to ill health, poorer productivity and lowered status.<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> can empower women not only by adding to their productivity but also by<br />
the use of labour saving technologies in gendered household tasks such as those<br />
mentioned above. But the balance of attention seems to be tilted to those applications<br />
of technology which are geared to a ‘productivity’ effect through use of new types<br />
of field tools, equipment, machines etc. such as improved sickles, weeders, hoes,<br />
strippers, threshers etc. There are much fewer examples where new technologies are<br />
directed towards child nutrition (for example) by standardization of low-cost weaning<br />
mixes for children to fight malnutrition, using locally available materials, etc.<br />
There is also an increasing thrust towards involving women in more and more new<br />
and novel farming activities through the use of technology such as aquaculture, oyster<br />
mushroom cultivation, commercial crops, storage, post harvest technologies, etc. A<br />
project on ergonomics of farm women’s drudgery by substituting manual carriage of<br />
fertilizer for top dressing by small trolleys aims to improve women’s health but also<br />
to saving farming costs by reducing time so as to make agriculture an economically<br />
favorable enterprise.<br />
The status of women’s time-use becomes crucial in such a situation. Women’s work in<br />
the primary sector generally tends to be underestimated since much of their productive<br />
work does not appear in official statistics. The impact of new programs on women’s<br />
hours of work tends to be hidden. It seems to be contradictory to say that women<br />
work for too long, when their work is not really as productive as that of men in terms<br />
of either wages or norms of productivity. While the role of technology can be crucial<br />
to increase women’s productivity and economic returns, the responsibility for unpaid<br />
work (including ‘non-productive’ work of caring for children, the sick and the aged) is<br />
also a serious challenge for policy. On a different track, rationalization of work through<br />
the use of machines may have an adverse effect on women’s work (see below).<br />
In the case of health, the near-collapse of the public rural primary health care system<br />
has left the poor with no option except to buy health care from private providers,<br />
leading to heavy indebtedness. This is only one example to illustrate the way that<br />
institutional mechanisms should be working, but do not. In the absence of meaningful<br />
and genuine devolution and decentralization to local bodies, most of these services<br />
are still being delivered vertically, by line departments, which at the village level, have<br />
no convergence or integration.<br />
Two final points<br />
The concept of gender division of labour is sometimes taken to denote a dividing line<br />
which separates “men’s work” and “women’s work”. Weeding is traditionally taken<br />
to be one of women’s tasks, so is transplanting paddy, top dressing of fertilizer and<br />
many others which involve painstaking or monotonous work spread over long hours.<br />
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In the context of technological empowerment of women in agriculture, there is talk<br />
of “women oriented technologies” under different production systems, “appropriate<br />
technologies” for women, etc. (there is no “appropriate technology” for men). It is<br />
to be seen whether the new perspective on technologies for women or appropriate<br />
technologies for women will have the effect of perpetuating the gender division of<br />
labour, which at present is inimical to women’s interests.<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> can empower women, add to their productivity and earnings as well as help<br />
them to upward mobility. But past experience has shown that technology applications<br />
have also displaced women in large numbers from their existing work even while<br />
increasing productivity manifold. The displacement of women by machines is caused<br />
by the low level of education and skills possessed by the women, which leaves them<br />
with no other options and no mobility to find new labour avenues. The displacement is<br />
also due to the gendered position of women in the household, their constraints such<br />
as less mobility, time use constraints, etc. But women cannot be forced to remain<br />
at low levels of technology for fear of losing jobs as this will perpetuate the myth of<br />
gender division of labor.<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
Public Policies Required for Promoting Socio-economic<br />
and Environmental Sustainability<br />
Dr. Narayan G. Hegde<br />
President<br />
BAIF Development <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong><br />
Dr.Man ibhai Desai Nagar, N.H.No.4, Warje, Pune 411 058<br />
Email: nghegde@baif.org.in<br />
Rural economy in India is still dependent on agro-based activities, inspite of over<br />
80 % of the rural families being small and marginal families or landless. The problems<br />
of the small farmers are further aggravated due to lack of adequate inputs particularly<br />
irrigation sources and appropriate technologies to optimise agricultural production.<br />
The development of water resources needs huge investment and accordingly, the<br />
Government of India has given top priority to watershed development and efficient use<br />
of water resources. With regard to the introduction of appropriate technologies, there<br />
has been a significant gap between the technology centres and farmers which should<br />
be sorted out with appropriate planning and coordination, for promoting sustainable<br />
livelihood in rural India.<br />
Problems of <strong>Technology</strong> Transfer: Inspite of a major boost to agricultural research<br />
and education and establishment of State Agricultural Universities, the problem of<br />
technology transfer still persists, particularly with regard to the small and marginal<br />
farmers. The problem is more serious because of the illiteracy and backwardness<br />
of the poor in communicating with the scientists. As their contribution to agricultural<br />
production and Gross National Product (GNP) is not significant, the research<br />
institutions have not been taking their problems seriously. This is probably the reason<br />
why the small and marginal farmers located in interior and backward areas are unable<br />
to improve their crop yields and transform agriculture into a successful enterprise.<br />
Often the small farmers have no solutions for their problems, because many of these<br />
problems are specifically confined to their localities and the recommendations made by<br />
general research institutions may not be applicable to their situations. In the absence<br />
of direct communication between the farmers and scientists, these problems remain<br />
unanswered. However, the large and educated farmers, being influential and having<br />
direct access to various advanced technologies and information sources, are able<br />
to benefit from the technologies and maximise their earnings. Therefore, technology<br />
transfer for sustainable rural livelihood is still a serious issue, inspite of India making<br />
significant progress in food production over the last few decades.<br />
Problems of the Poor in <strong>Technology</strong> Adaptation<br />
The major hurdles encountered by small farmers in adopting various technologies are<br />
presented below.<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
Technologies Irrelevant to Local Conditions<br />
Often, the priorities given by the Government and the technologies developed by the<br />
<strong>Research</strong> Institutions are either not useful to small and marginal farmers because they<br />
are non-viable under lower scale of operation, or are not relevant to local conditions.<br />
As a result, inspite of huge investment in technology development and promotion, the<br />
small farmers are unable to take advantage of these new technologies. Some of the<br />
examples of such technologies which have been given top priority by the Government<br />
of India but are not useful to the small farmers are cultivation of biofuel crops like<br />
Jatropha, promotion of medicinal plants, organic farming, watershed development<br />
programmes and social forestry for fodder and fuel wood production, etc.<br />
Several thousand crores have been allocated for promotion of Jatropha with an aim<br />
to bring wastelands under Jatropha cultivation. However, in the absence of adequate<br />
moisture supply and nutrients, the yield of Jatropha has not been adequate to ensure<br />
attractive returns. Small farmers are unable to avail of this technology and people who<br />
have cultivated Jatropha have been disappointed. They have also lost the opportunity<br />
to make alternative use of their land and other resources for cultivating other crops<br />
which could enable them to earn their livelihood.<br />
With regard to medicinal plants, many programmes have been launched to involve<br />
small farmers. However, due to lack of proper assessment about the economic viability<br />
and critical inputs, particularly marketing tie-up, farmers have not been able to accept<br />
the cultivation of medicinal plants as a reliable source of income generation.<br />
Promotion of organic farming has been given priority during recent years. In the<br />
process of popularising the schemes, even the scientific facts have been twisted,<br />
leading to utter confusion among semi-literate farmers. Furthermore, in the absence<br />
of alternate sources of agricultural inputs at reasonable prices and assured market<br />
to procure the organic products at a premium price, the farmers in many regions are<br />
unable to realise the benefits of this programme.<br />
Watershed development is an excellent example where the technology, backed by<br />
huge financial resources from the Government of India; has been launched throughout<br />
the country. However, in the absence of adequate investment on critical inputs and<br />
appropriate technologies, most of the small farmers are unable to take advantage of<br />
this ambitious programme. The same is the experience with social forestry where the<br />
Government of India promoted the cultivation of fodder species as a major programme<br />
for meeting the basic needs of the small farmers. However, in the absence of adequate<br />
economic returns and a long gestation period, small farmers did not participate in the<br />
programme wholeheartedly.<br />
From the above examples, it can be seen that priority has been given to technologies<br />
based on unrealistic assumptions rather than ground realities. Therefore, prior to<br />
the development of technologies, research institutions should take the opportunity<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
of interacting with the local communities and identify the real issues affecting their<br />
livelihood. This would help in developing appropriate technologies and to validate them<br />
under different field conditions for addressing the needs of the local communities.<br />
Lack of Forward and Backward Linkages: To harness the benefit of technologies,<br />
the critical need is to establish backward and forward linkages. When we introduce<br />
any new technology, there is a need for critical inputs, finance, equipment and timely<br />
guidance to ensure that the farmers take optimum advantage of the technologies by<br />
suitable corrective actions, wherever necessary. Furthermore, there is a need for<br />
post-production support with regard to harvesting, storage, processing and marketing.<br />
Unfortunately, in most cases, the State departments are not geared to provide such<br />
support along with new technologies and there is no other alternative infrastructure<br />
to support these activities, except a small number of Farmers’ Organisations such as<br />
sugar and milk cooperatives and of late, a few corporate houses engaged in contract<br />
farming. As a result, the farmers are unable to make optimum use of the technology<br />
and find it unattractive to adopt them.<br />
Lack of Infrastructure for <strong>Delivery</strong> of <strong>Technology</strong>: For transfer of technology and to<br />
convert this into a business opportunity, it is essential to have an efficient organisation<br />
at the grassroots level. Such an organisation should take the small farmers into<br />
confidence, motivate them and induce group dynamism for initiation of timely action<br />
as recommended by the scientists, apart from coordinating backward and forward<br />
linkages. Presently, there are not many suitable organisations to assume this<br />
responsibility.<br />
Way back in the 1950s, when the State Governments had launched the Agriculture<br />
Extension programme, this role was to be assumed by the Village Level Workers and<br />
subsequently, formation of Farmers’ Cooperatives was encouraged. However, as<br />
both these institutions are not functioning efficiently, alternative mechanisms are being<br />
invented in different locations. Among them, Self Help Groups (SHG), User Groups,<br />
Federation of SHGs and Producer Companies are becoming popular. Involvement of<br />
these People’s Organisations (POs) can help in efficient delivery of the technologies.<br />
While promoting new technologies, there is also a need to mentor the small farmers<br />
as they are deprived of technical knowledge. To facilitate the technical back-up, it is<br />
necessary to post technical persons at the village level who are available to guide the<br />
farmers whenever required. Under the present extension network, the village level<br />
workers are burdened with several administrative responsibilities and it is difficult for<br />
the farmers to approach the Agriculture Extension Officers who are based at the block<br />
headquarters. This often has been the reason for the failure of new technologies.<br />
To overcome such problems, several innovative approaches have been developed.<br />
Engaging barefoot technicians like field guides, local school dropouts, selected by<br />
the participants and efficiently trained by the project implementing agencies, is one<br />
such solution. These field guides who are empowered with the basic aspects of<br />
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various technologies and are in regular touch with the technical experts can guide<br />
the farmers while adopting new technologies on their own fields. Thus, agriculture<br />
extension can be carried out very efficiently at low cost. These field guides can also<br />
serve as information centres to inform farmers about new technologies, business<br />
opportunities, demand and market prices for various commodities, as it is difficult for<br />
the farmers in remote areas to have access to critical market information.<br />
Public Policy Support for Ensuring Sustainability<br />
To ensure efficient transfer of technologies for promoting sustainable livelihood and to<br />
sustain them, the following policy support is needed.<br />
Integration and Convergence: It is difficult for any technology to remain viable in<br />
isolation. Therefore, any new technology being introduced should be a part of the<br />
on-going integrated programme to ensure its viability and utility. The new technology<br />
should converge with other development programmes so that the existing field network<br />
can manage the programme with greater efficiency. Hence, adequate budgetary<br />
provision should be made to meet the required investments. Therefore, apart from<br />
the initial grant support, provision for venture capital and credit on softer terms should<br />
also be made after carrying out the techo-economic validation of the technology by<br />
the financial institutions.<br />
Flexibility: While promoting new technologies, the sponsoring agencies, particularly<br />
the government departments issue a set of administrative guidelines and budgetary<br />
details which are often unrealistic and rigid. With such inflexibility of the funding<br />
agency, it is difficult to implement the programme as the local needs for adaptation of<br />
the technologies vary widely with the local conditions. Hence, the agencies engaged<br />
in technology transfer should have the freedom to modify the action plan and the<br />
budget with proper justification. There is a need to document the process of technology<br />
transfer, which can provide reliable feedback for the scientists and policy makers for<br />
wider replication.<br />
Efficient <strong>Delivery</strong> Mechanism: Most of the technologies developed are generally<br />
launched by the research institutions or the Development Departments of the State<br />
Government. However, these agencies who have several prior commitments for ongoing<br />
programmes, are not able to devote necessary attention to closely observe the<br />
process of technology transfer and make suitable corrections. There is also a need to<br />
motivate the participants to take greater interest in such new activities. In the absence<br />
of such an involvement, it is difficult to launch the programme successfully.<br />
With respect to the technology transfer projects implemented by the research<br />
institutions, the scientists responsible for implementing the programme often tend<br />
to select villages close to their institutions for the sake of convenience, without<br />
assessing the local needs. In such a situation, the farmers are reluctant to accept<br />
these technologies and such programmes end in failure. With regard to the project<br />
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sites located away from the research institutions, generally the technical staff visit the<br />
site periodically and interact with the community directly. However, in the absence of<br />
competent extension personnel to interact with the participant community for regular<br />
follow up, the programme remains neglected and the chances of success are low.<br />
Therefore, it is necessary for the research institutions to closely associate with the<br />
participant communities, preferably through competent local institutions such as<br />
voluntary organisations and farmers’ organizations, to ensure successful transfer of<br />
technologies.<br />
Ownership of the Programme: For successful adaptation of any technology, the<br />
programme should be well understood and owned by the community. To ensure such<br />
ownership, it is necessary to involve the POs from the initiation of the programme.<br />
As the infrastructure and field network set up by the State Government for transfer<br />
of technologies are unable to deliver the expected services, involvement of farmers’<br />
organisations and SHGs should be given priority. Such organisations should also be<br />
recognised on the basis of their track record and empowered through training and<br />
policy support to establish backward and forward linkages required for harnessing the<br />
benefits of the technologies.<br />
Priority for Selection of Technologies: Launching of any new technology needs<br />
Government support and financial resources to ensure that the concerned departments<br />
extend support for successful implementation. As the resources are limited, it is<br />
necessary to develop a mechanism to identify the programme which is most useful<br />
for the weaker sections of the society, on priority. Such decision making requires a<br />
reliable data bank regarding the socio-economic status and the problems related to the<br />
livelihood, on-going practices and anticipated impact of new technologies in different<br />
socio-economic and agro-climatic conditions. Based on the analysis of available field<br />
data and techno-economic viability, suitable technologies should be given priority.<br />
Apart from technical viability, certain technologies are more attractive to the weaker<br />
sections of society, particularly women. Technologies which will have a favourable<br />
impact on conservation of bio-diversity and environment should also deserve priority.<br />
The other consideration should be the cost-benefit ratio and the per capita investment<br />
required per family for adaptation. Technologies with lower investment should be<br />
given preference.<br />
Programme Promotion: Generally, the introduction of any new technology creates<br />
confusion and is resisted by certain sections of the society. Often, such resistances<br />
are based on wrong assumptions and baseless concerns. In the absence of timely<br />
clarification with scientific data, these technologies become controversial and<br />
unacceptable to the farmers. Therefore, the Extension Division of the respective<br />
Departments in association with the concerned research institutions should examine<br />
these problems and come up with timely clarifications to avoid controversies.<br />
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Conclusion<br />
For successful transfer of new technologies, serious planning should be made to<br />
select appropriate technologies suitable for local conditions. The technology should<br />
be need based, easy to adopt and capable of generating employment and income,<br />
leading to sustainable livelihood. The technology should be launched as a part of the<br />
on-going development programmes, involving efficient agricultural extension network<br />
and POs to ensure backward and forward linkages. Financial and technical support<br />
should be available to overcome the initial hurdles before wider replication.<br />
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136<br />
NABARD’s* support to<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> Development and Distribution<br />
A. Ramanathan<br />
Chief General Manager, Micro Credit Innovation Department,<br />
NABARD, Bandra Kurla Complex, Bandra East, Mumbai 400051<br />
Email: mcid@nabard.org<br />
<strong>Delivery</strong> models need to be focused on “technology”, “sustainability” and<br />
“inclusiveness”. We need to look at all the three concepts briefly. <strong>Technology</strong> has<br />
been defined as “application of principles of science and engineering to generate<br />
products and services” that the consumer is willing to pay for. Here the consumer<br />
could be individual (mass or niche), or society at large as in the case of merit goods.<br />
The principle of payment is important if we are to focus on technologies that are<br />
meaningful. <strong>Technology</strong> has also been defined in a broader sense as “technique” plus<br />
“management” - covering knowledge, skills and associated institutional forms.<br />
Sustainability can be viewed “internally” within and by itself, implying that to be<br />
sustainable the technology should generate a high enough income stream in the hands<br />
of the user to cover own costs (cost of technology development), cost of running the<br />
technical process, cost to service capital for using the technology and produce an<br />
acceptable surplus; in short, it should be financially viable. Unless the technology<br />
development meets this minimum requirement, it is unlikely that a credit institution will<br />
be interested in the technology. The “external” aspect of sustainability would involve<br />
the impact of technology use on the community, present and future, other than the<br />
user, and the environment and covers the issue relating to externalities. Through<br />
stipulations in its “model schemes” referred to later as well as through projects it<br />
supports, NABARD attempts to address the “external” sustainability issues. However,<br />
the subject falls in the purview of the concerned regulatory authorities and not credit<br />
institutions per se.<br />
The term “inclusive” technology development needs more explanation from the<br />
organizers. Are we referring to “scale, resources or class neutral” technology which<br />
benefits everyone irrespective of his/her existing resource endowments? This may<br />
be a difficult objective to pursue. Alternatively, inclusive technology development<br />
may imply involvement of all stakeholders, specifically, the users of technology in<br />
the technology development process. It would be a very rare technology developer<br />
who can succeed without the involvement of the user at some stage. It is likely that<br />
the term is being used with the same meaning as in “financial inclusion”, which has<br />
a specific target of directing the efforts at the poor or disadvantaged sections of the<br />
society. In what follows the latter interpretation of “inclusive” is kept in view.<br />
* National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development
Technical Papers<br />
Sequence of <strong>Technology</strong> Development and Adoption: It is common knowledge that<br />
technology development proceeds through the following stages which includes<br />
generation (research); pilot; scaling up; adoption which includes extension; distribution<br />
and support.<br />
On another attribute technology could be (a) proprietory and closely guarded (b)<br />
proprietory and licensed or (c) free ware. By adopting the “inclusive” meaning as<br />
above one assumes that the consultation deals with only the latter two categories of<br />
attributes.<br />
Role of NABARD<br />
Unlike CSIR and ICAR, NABARD (and public sector credit institutions in general), are<br />
not organs of the State set up to support original research or technology development.<br />
They tend to play a limited role at the level of adoption and not at the earlier levels.<br />
Credit institutions work with public money placed with them on trust and will not take<br />
the same risks as equity funds or venture capitalists in supporting new technologies.<br />
Credit institutions enter the scene after a technology has been established and its<br />
commercial viability proved. NABARD, in its developmental and promotional role,<br />
tends to pick up new technologies relating to its sphere of operation a little earlier<br />
than the banks.<br />
Typically, NABARD’s role in technology adoption is through preparation and<br />
dissemination of standard bankable models. The models provide a bench mark, lay<br />
down the technical and economic parameters to be adopted, reduce the burden on<br />
the bank staff to assess each loan proposal afresh and thereby ease the process of<br />
financing entrepreneurs in adopting technology based investments. Usefulness of the<br />
models for the bankers is amply illustrated by the term “NABARD scheme” in the<br />
bankers’ lexicon. Examples of recent initiatives in this regard concern “bio-fuels” and<br />
“organic farming”, two fields of topical interest.<br />
Bio-Fuels: The growing need for energy and increasing load on the exchequer for<br />
foreign exchange for fossil fuels in India, has necessitated the search for alternative<br />
and complementary resources of energy. In consonance with GoI’s policy, NABARD<br />
has decided to promote Jatropha plantations on degraded and wastelands both in<br />
forest and non-forest areas through institutional credit. NABARD has circulated three<br />
models to the Banking industry for financing of Jatropha plantation. NABARD has<br />
also brought out a booklet on “Jatropha -A Source of Biodiesel: Status, Economics &<br />
Prospects in India” highlighting the need, suitability of Jatropha for biodiesel, initiatives<br />
taken by various Ministries, Departments & Institutions for biodiesel, bankable models<br />
for Jatropha plantation.<br />
Organic Farming: The national project on organic farming envisages setting up 50<br />
model organic farms in the country to provide assistance for setting up commercial<br />
production units of organic inputs like bio-fertilisers, food and vegetable waste<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
compost and vermiculture. The developments at the national level include setting<br />
up of National Centre of Organic Farming at Gaziabad, and preparation of national<br />
standards for organic production by APEDA. The National Horticulture Mission has also<br />
given significant emphasis on organic farming. NABARD is implementing a centrally<br />
sponsored “Capital Investment Subsidy Scheme for Commercial Production of Organic<br />
Inputs” under the National Project on Organic Farming. Organic Farming practices are<br />
being followed in Adivasi Development Programmes in Gujarat and Maharashtra and<br />
Watershed Development programmes supported by NABARD and the pilot projects<br />
sanctioned for distressed districts in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. NABARD<br />
has also initiated a dialogue with APEDA and the Commodity Boards for branding,<br />
certification, etc., of organic farm products and would co-ordinate with these agencies<br />
for meeting the credit needs of organic agriculture for export markets.<br />
Tools employed: The other tools employed by NABARD for technology adoption and<br />
distribution are through provision of incentives which may cover: Outright subsidies or<br />
grants; Lower interest rates on refinance and loans and Higher than normal refinance<br />
proportion.<br />
Apart from the standard role mentioned above, as part of its developmental and<br />
promotional role, NABARD has taken a few other initiatives in the area of application<br />
of technology and its adoption in the field of rural credit/development. Some of these<br />
initiatives have been provided funding support from the different development and<br />
promotional funds supported for the purpose. A brief description of the funds and<br />
some of the initiatives thereunder follow.<br />
<strong>Research</strong> and Development Fund: Established by the Bank, in accordance with the<br />
provisions of the NABARD Act 1981, the <strong>Research</strong> and Development (R&D) Fund<br />
aims at acquiring new insights into the problems of agricultural and rural development<br />
through in-depth studies and applied research and trying out innovative approaches<br />
backed by technical and economic studies. The R&D Fund is utilised for formulating<br />
policies on matters of importance to agricultural operations and rural development,<br />
including facilities for training, dissemination of information and promotion of research<br />
by undertaking techno-economic studies and other surveys in the fields of agriculture,<br />
rural banking and rural development.<br />
More specifically, the present objectives of the Fund are to support applied research<br />
and studies of a technical/economic nature in the areas of agriculture, non-agricultural<br />
rural economic activities, rural credit, rural financial systems, agricultural extension<br />
and similar aspects of interest of NABARD; training related to the aspects mentioned<br />
above; dissemination and collation of information; strengthening the efforts of State<br />
Land Development Banks; State Co-operative Banks; District Central Co-operative<br />
Banks and Regional Rural Banks towards establishing a Technical, Monitoring<br />
and Evaluation (TME) Cell for facilitating the preparation, appraisal, monitoring and<br />
evaluation of projects refinanced by NABARD.<br />
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Currently, the themes being followed under the fund are problems and prospects<br />
in agriculture; understanding tribal economy; credit and finance related research;<br />
research on non-credit cooperatives; role of biotechnology in agriculturaldevelopment;<br />
developing rural habitat; focus areas for occasional paper in 2006-07; problems &<br />
prospects of Hi-tech Floriculture in Karnataka; issues and concerns in the plantation<br />
sector; bio-Fuels initiatives in India; impact of Irrigation systems: management<br />
options on rural poverty; financing of weavers with particular reference to production<br />
& marketing; food, work and vulnerability of women in KBK districts in orissa and<br />
corporate Initiatives in agri business in Punjab; participatory irrigation management<br />
–a way to improve sustainability of irrigation system ICT in agriculture and rural<br />
development informal credit and interlocked markets in agriculture.<br />
Watershed Development Fund: NABARD has played a noticeable role in the field<br />
of watershed development. The effort has been not at technology development but<br />
at “inclusive” and “sustainable” development through rigourous adoption of existing<br />
technology. A large part of NABARD’s learning and initiative has come through the<br />
implementation of the Indo-German Watershed Development Programme first initiated<br />
in Maharashtra and later extended to AP, Gujarat and Rajasthan. The total outlay<br />
under these projects has been of the order of Rs 278 crore. In partnership with NGOs<br />
involved, NABARD was instrumental for laying down the institutional framework and<br />
the processes requirements that led to the successful implementation of the project.<br />
This draws attention to the “technique” plus “management” definition of technology.<br />
To extend the benefit of the learning from the project the Watershed Development<br />
Fund (WDF) was established in NABARD, jointly by GoI and NABARD, during 1999-<br />
2000, with a corpus of Rs.200 crore to create replicable watershed development<br />
models with participatory approach. The corpus of the Fund is augmented by way of<br />
interest accrued on the unutilised portion of the Fund and stood at Rs.602.76 crore as<br />
on 31 March 2007. The cumulative number of watershed projects sanctioned stood<br />
at 437 spread over 124 districts in 14 States as on 31 March 2007. These projects<br />
are expected to cover a total area of 4.37 lakh ha with a total commitment (loan and<br />
grant) of Rs.262 crore. Assistance under the fund is also being extended to cover<br />
31 districts in the States of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Kerala<br />
declared as distressed districts by the Government of India. One of the components<br />
relates to development of 15000 ha in each of the districts on grant basis. The projects<br />
are being implemented in a holistic manner on a cluster basis focusing on family<br />
based livelihood activities in the watersheds and are expected to significantly mitigate<br />
farmers’ distress.<br />
Kutch Drought Proofing Project (KDPP): In another instance of support for adoption of<br />
technology, NABARD is helping the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund (PMNRF)<br />
in implementing the captioned project, announced after the earthquake of 2001 and<br />
aimed at improving the capacity of vulnerable sections of the society to cope with<br />
natural calamities, strengthen the village communities to take responsibility to improve<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
and maintain natural resources, improve drinking water and attain fodder and food<br />
security. The project is being implemented through Community Based Organizations<br />
(CBOs) and Non Governmental Organization (NGOs) working in Kutch. An amount of<br />
Rs.3.54 crores has been committed with the sanctioning of 10 village development<br />
projects.<br />
Tribal Development: In another instance of helping technology adoption by a nontraditional,<br />
poor and vulnerable section of society, NABARD has been implementing<br />
an Adivasi Development Programme in Gujarat with German bilateral assistance<br />
with an outlay of Rs. 104 crore since 1994-95 through BAIF Development <strong>Research</strong><br />
<strong>Foundation</strong>. The focus is on development of wadi (small orchard) while other supportive<br />
interventions, viz., development of water resources and agricultural activities, women<br />
development, health and sanitation are covered. The landless are supported by<br />
providing them micro-enterprises in farm and non-farm sectors and employment<br />
opportunities in processing units.<br />
So far, 13,663 tribal families have been supported under the project. Wadis of<br />
cashew and mango along with boundary plantations of fuel wood on 5155 ha. have<br />
been established. Ten tribal cooperatives have also been registered to facilitate selfsufficiency<br />
in processing and programme management. The cooperatives collected<br />
200.80 tonnes of raw cashew, traded in 171.30 tonnes of mangoes and processed<br />
5.16 tonnes of karvanda (a forest fruit) for making pickles through Gram Vikas Mandals<br />
(GVMs). The in-built credit programme is being implemented through GVMs since<br />
1998-99. As on 31 March 2007, the loan disbursed and overall recovery was to the<br />
tune of Rs.4.50 crore and Rs.2.90 crore, respectively.<br />
Taking a cue from such successful initiatives, NABARD has created a Tribal<br />
Development Fund (TDF) with a corpus of Rs 50 crore to support developmental<br />
models for integrated tribal development. Assistance from the fund is available for<br />
a range of interventions, viz., land based wadi programme involving cultivation of<br />
suitable horticulture/ agriculture crops along with the requisite soil conservation and<br />
water resource development programmes through people’s participation to achieve<br />
sustainable development of the selected tribal families on a cluster basis. Other<br />
components like micro enterprises for the landless, women development, community<br />
health, training and capacity building are also covered. Cumulatively an assistance of<br />
Rs 52.13 crore covering 16,755 families in 15 states and one Union territory has been<br />
sanctioned under the fund.<br />
Farm Innovation and Promotion Fund: NABARD has created a Farm Innovation<br />
and Promotion Fund on 1 April 2005, with an initial corpus of Rs.5.00 crore, out<br />
of its operating surplus which envisages to support initiatives/ innovations in farm<br />
technology, develop new concepts in agriculture and prototypes, undertake market<br />
survey for potential assessment of new activities, acquire/ obtain patents for innovative<br />
technology and disseminate information relating to new products in the farm sector.<br />
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During the year 2006-07 a total of 15 projects covering nine states viz. Maharashtra,<br />
Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Orissa, Rajasthan<br />
and Uttranchal and involving a grant assistance of Rs 93.216 lakh were sanctioned.<br />
Of these sanctioned projects, two pilot projects are exclusively meant for distressed<br />
farmers of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. The programme will cover 5 villages<br />
each in two districts viz. Amravati in Andhra Pradesh and Wardha in Maharashtra.<br />
Similarly, a grant assistance of Rs.6.10 lakh has been sanctioned for rehabilitation of<br />
farmers of 5 distressed districts of Andhra Pradesh State viz Warangal, Karimnagar,<br />
Nalgonda, Medak, and Chittoor. NABARD has also decided to support a few innovative<br />
projects mobilised through “India Development Market Place 2007” being organised<br />
by World Bank, New Delhi, in association with other partner agencies.<br />
Capacity Building for Adoption of <strong>Technology</strong> (CBAT) Scheme: With a view to facilitating<br />
adoption of new and innovative technologies by farmers and thereby increasing their<br />
farm productivity and income, NABARD introduced CAT in December 2004. Under<br />
the scheme, farmers preferably marginal, small and tribal, are taken on exposure<br />
cum training visits to innovative agricultural and allied projects that have employed<br />
proven technologies developed by research institutes, corporate houses, NGOs and<br />
progressive farmers/entrepreneurs. For example, during the past year, 97 exposure<br />
visits were facilitated in 23 states, covering wide ranging innovative projects such as<br />
bio globules, vermiculture, bio manures, organic farming, poly house, medicinal and<br />
aromatic plant cultivation etc., in collaboration with some select research institutes,<br />
KVKs, and Agriculture Universities.<br />
Rural Innovation Fund (RIF): The RIF is a fund designed to support innovative, risk<br />
friendly, unconventional experiments in Farm, Non-Farm and micro-Finance sectors<br />
that would have the potential to promote livelihood opportunities and employment in<br />
rural areas. The guiding principles for the operations of RIF are broadly as indicated<br />
below:<br />
The activities must have the rural poor in their focus and must be innovative,<br />
experimental and demonstrative in nature, leading to replicability and commercial<br />
viability.<br />
The activities funded may involve development of new products, processes,<br />
prototypes, technology, patenting and extension support.<br />
Appropriate action, research and studies contributing to better understanding<br />
of rural development issues, policy and process implementation may be<br />
undertaken.<br />
The type of projects that can be supported under RIF are as follows :<br />
a. All innovations and related activities in the Farm, Rural Non-Farm and Micro-<br />
Finance sectors can have access to the RIF. Assistance from RIF will be available<br />
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142<br />
for all activities which are in keeping with the guiding principles of RIF and<br />
specifically those which<br />
b. Provide technology and skill upgradation, inputs supply and market support,<br />
leading to promotion of viable enterprises, sustainable employment, infrastructure<br />
development, improved flow and access of credit to rural entrepreneurs.<br />
c. Undertake innovations so as to improve efficiency of credit delivery and other<br />
support services to the rural resource poor.<br />
d. Patenting innovations leading to commercialisation of the idea through licensing<br />
or otherwise.<br />
e. The projects would include innovative proposals which aim at increasing productivity<br />
and profitability of operations of the farmers, artisans, handicraft persons and<br />
rural people in general, projects that help in reducing drudgery, improving access<br />
to market, projects that help better sanitation, health and hygienic conditions and<br />
environment in rural areas.<br />
f. Proposals which improve rural credit and outreach.<br />
g. Proposals, which help in creating sustainable employment opportunities in rural<br />
India.<br />
h. Proposals which improve farm practices, and help in conserving land fertility.<br />
i. <strong>Research</strong> studies for documenting the innovations already taking place in rural<br />
areas and examining issues concerned with rural cottage and village industries<br />
/farm sector / farming practices.<br />
Some of the projects approved for funding from the RIF include conversion of mango<br />
peel waste into bio fertilizer (Tamil Nadu), cultivation and nurturing of neem and<br />
processing of neem kernels by marginal farmers and landless labourers (Orissa)<br />
and manufacture of food grade cups and plates from arecanut sheaths (Assam),<br />
etc. Also funded under RIF are proposals for marketing of handicraft items from NE<br />
region through organized retail outlets and opening an exclusive retail outlet for NE<br />
handloom/ handicraft items in Bangalore. Funding support has also been provided to<br />
a private Venture Capital Fund which finances new innovative ventures in agriculture<br />
and allied activities.<br />
Micro Finance Development and Equity Fund: A Micro Finance Development and<br />
Equity Fund (MFDEF) has been set up in NABARD with a corpus of Rs 200 crore. The<br />
objective of the Fund is to facilitate and support the orderly growth of the microfinance<br />
sector through diverse modalities for enlarging the flow of financial services to<br />
the poor, particularly women and vulnerable sections of society, consistent with<br />
sustainability. The Fund is to be utilised to support interventions to eligible institutions
Technical Papers<br />
and stakeholders. The components of assistance will include, inter alia, the purposes<br />
are capacity building; training of SHGs and other groups for livelihood, skill upgradation<br />
and micro enterprise development; capacity building of staff of institutions involved in<br />
microfinance promotion such as Banks, NGOs, government departments, NABARD,<br />
etc. and Capacity building of MFIs<br />
The support from the Fund is provided by way of Contributing equity/other forms of<br />
capital support to mFIs, service providers, etc; Providing financial support for start-up<br />
and on-lending for microFinance activities; supporting Self Help Promotion initiatives of<br />
banks and other SHPIs; meeting on a selective basis the operational deficit of financial<br />
intermediary NGOs/mFIs at the start up stage; rating of mFIs and self regulation;<br />
Supporting systems management in regard to MIS, accounting, internal controls,<br />
audits and impact assessment; building an appropriate data base and supporting<br />
development thereof; commissioning studies, consultancies, action research,<br />
evaluation studies, etc, relating to the sector; promoting seminars, conferences and<br />
other mechanisms for discussion and dissemination; granting support for research;<br />
documentation, publication and dissemination of mF literature and any other activities<br />
recommended by the Advisory Board.<br />
SHGs, CBOs, NGOs/VAs, Banks, mFIs, Training Establishments, networks, service<br />
providers, <strong>Research</strong> Organisations, Academic institutions and Universities and any<br />
other organisation as may be decided by the Advisory Board from time to time are<br />
eligible for support from the Fund.<br />
Mode of assistance from the Fund includes the grant support for training and other<br />
promotional measures; loans and advances including soft loans; Revolving Fund<br />
Assistance (RFA) to NGOs/ mFIs and equity and quasi equity support to mFIs;<br />
administrative subsidies and grants<br />
Some of the technology oriented projects finance out of the MFDEF involve:<br />
a. A memory card and branch automation project sanctioned to the Visakha<br />
Grameena Bank to demonstrate the concept of branch automation with specific<br />
reference to use of memory/ processor cards for SHGs and other clients;<br />
assess the usefulness of the suggested technology. The project hopes to build<br />
understanding on how timeliness in data acquisition helps in decision-making at<br />
the branch level – loan tracking, credit dispensation and building customer/SHG<br />
confidence etc., and to facilitate drawing up guidelines on branch automation for<br />
rural branches of banks.<br />
b. A project with similar objectives but using processor cards has been sanctioned<br />
to the Krishna Gramin Bank, Gulbarga<br />
c. With a view to bridging the digital divide in rural areas a project called ‘e-grama”<br />
has been launched in association with an NGO- Grameena Mahiti Parishath.<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
144<br />
It involves the establishment of 13 Village Information Centres (e-grama) in<br />
Davangere district of Karnataka with the aim of equipping and enabling villagers<br />
and the rural poor with access to information. The information networks cover<br />
areas like weather conditions, crop inputs, product prices, land records and<br />
other useful information for the rural folk. Besides this, many add-on services like<br />
bookkeeping of SHGs, DTP printing, scanning, etc; have been included..<br />
What are listed above are only some of the examples of support extended by NABARD<br />
for technology development and distribution. The examples and facilities listed are<br />
illustrative and not exhaustive. To sum up, NABARD, being a credit institution, supports<br />
promotion and adoption of technology rather than primary technology development.<br />
NABARD helps other banks in extending credit for investments based on new,<br />
economically viable technologies. Under the different funds established in NABARD<br />
support is also available for extension, adoption and promotion of new technology.
Technical Papers<br />
Financial Services for Promoting <strong>Technology</strong> Adoption<br />
Ms. Vasumathi<br />
Head, Agriculture and Business Development Services<br />
BASIX, III Floor, Surabhi Arcade, Troop Bazar<br />
Bank Street, Koti, Hyderabad 500001<br />
Email: vasumathi@basixindia.com<br />
Adoption of technology is necessary for promotion of farm and non-farm enterprises<br />
towards improving livelihoods. In this context, it is necessary to focus not only on<br />
technology transfer, but also on mechanisms for providing appropriate finance, market<br />
linkages and institutional building.<br />
Introduction<br />
The technology and development process in India since independence has been<br />
characterized by an emphasis on<br />
• Improving agricultural productivity through irrigation, high yielding variety seeds,<br />
fertilizers, and agriculture research and extension<br />
• Modernization of industrial sector through investments.<br />
While industrial enterprises have been largely confined to urban areas, agriculture,<br />
the predominant economic activity in the rural areas, has not been thought of as<br />
an enterprise, but as a subsistence livelihood. Further, rural enterprises had a very<br />
minimal share in the developing economy of India, despite many attempts made by<br />
the government since independence, to promote rural livelihood enterprises:<br />
• Khadi and village Industries in 1950<br />
• Handloom weaving and handicrafts enterprises in 1960<br />
• Tiny, small scale enterprises in 1960<br />
• District industrial sector in the late 1970s<br />
• Rural producer cooperatives in dairy, oil seeds and fruits and vegetables<br />
• Rural enterprises supported by IRDP programme in 1982.<br />
A vast network of rural banks and agri extension counters had been created and<br />
expanded to serve the rural poor; further the liberalization of the Indian economy in<br />
1991 had generated both the need as well as opportunity for promoting sustainable<br />
livelihoods. Yet, there prevailed limited opportunities for the rural poor to access credit,<br />
know-how, technology, infrastructure, market information, and markets.<br />
At this juncture, BASIX was set up in 1996 as a new generation livelihood promotion<br />
organization, to promote a large number of sustainable livelihoods through the<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
provision of financial services and technical assistance in an integrated manner. BASIX<br />
employs professionals from various backgrounds, knowledge and skills, and has been<br />
continuously innovating alternative delivery channels, products and services. I started<br />
my career with BASIX as a fresh Agriculture graduate in 1998. While assessing the<br />
capital requirements of farmers, I was fully convinced that their livelihoods could be<br />
improved only by the adoption of technology for productivity enhancement, coupled<br />
with access to markets.<br />
<strong>Technology</strong>: <strong>Research</strong> and Extension<br />
In India, there are national and international research institutes, followed by regional<br />
research institutes, working for developing suitable varieties and technologies<br />
continuously. There exists a vast extension network to take these innovations to the<br />
field. The major focus of the agriculture extension system has been on the transfer of<br />
technology from lab to land, but it has not been successful for the following reasons:<br />
• The experiments carried out were not suitable for the farmers as they were not<br />
practical due to small and disaggregated land holdings<br />
• Poor extension network, as the extension agent to farmer ratio in India is 1:1800<br />
compared to the developed nations which is 1:800<br />
• It was fully subsidized and was not a financially viable model. The government<br />
never looked at it as viable business propositions to charge a fee to the farmer for<br />
providing quality service, which brings in equal responsibility and accountability to<br />
both the parties.<br />
Financial Services<br />
In India there is a vast network of banking sector with Commercial banks, Regional<br />
Rural Banks and Credit Cooperatives to make finance available, apart from NBFCs.<br />
In spite of the large institutional network, finance has not reached the rural masses<br />
because of the following constraints:<br />
• Low penetration/reach especially to the marginal/small farmers and the poor,<br />
particularly women and landless<br />
• Lack of timely credit<br />
• Lack of technical assistance along with credit for better utilization.<br />
Only possible financial intervention for technology adoption was subsidy: The<br />
agriculture and technology financing is highly subsidized under various schemes<br />
of the government. Also, agri-extension is managed by various State Governments<br />
with less output and influenced more by politicians. The government has created a<br />
wide network of physical offices to make the farmers adopt the technology, but in<br />
reality they do not function and/or are not farmer friendly. Moreover, they are driven by<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
standard old set of rules and high bureaucracy and are not open to innovative service<br />
delivery mechanisms.<br />
For example, take the case of promoting Drip Irrigation by the government, providing<br />
subsidy to a tune of 25 % to 50 % to encourage dry land farming in rain fed areas. This<br />
was adopted by farmers who are reasonably well off, having the capacity for long-term<br />
investment. Only they got the advantages of the subsidy, going for plantation crops in<br />
the fallow lands. But the marginal farmer, cultivating field crops with a land holding of<br />
3-4 acres, is deprived of the subsidy, as it was not viable for them, because they do<br />
not have access to long-term loans, and have low risk bearing ability.<br />
Subsidy is not necessarily the best instrument for technology adoption: Multiple<br />
services are required for technology adoption. It requires a whole range of other<br />
support services like infrastructure: roads, warehouses, functioning local committees,<br />
transport, training and extension, and markets. With some of the past experiences<br />
stated below, it is observed that <strong>Technology</strong> adoption has been successful not just<br />
with subsidy but with all other support.<br />
• Green Revolution: The technology was right, accompanied by various support<br />
systems like infrastructure - roads, warehouses, research, distribution systems,<br />
transportation and markets<br />
• Spread of soybean in Madhya Pradesh: <strong>Research</strong> from National Oilseed<br />
Processors Association-1989 (formerly National Soybean Processors Association<br />
1929), on-farm farmer demonstrations, irrigation systems, oil extraction industry,<br />
refineries, warehouses, transporters, food manufacturers<br />
• Telecommunications, STD/PCO, Cell phone: There has been technology<br />
revolution, making it cheaper and affordable en-masse, with more and more<br />
technological innovation; it created employment opportunities for supplying and<br />
servicing as separate businesses.<br />
No credit product is available for technology adoption: <strong>Technology</strong> adoption in the<br />
agriculture sector has not been seen as a viable business. It is seen as just another<br />
government project to meet the regulatory and mandatory requirements. The approach<br />
of the financial institutions and agri-extension departments has hindered the reach<br />
and scale of technological innovation to make it cheaper/affordable by the common<br />
man. These are not reaching the target clientele due to cumbersome implementation<br />
processes. Timely access to financial services, especially credit and insurance,<br />
enlarges livelihood opportunities and empowers the poor to take charge of their lives.<br />
Context-specific extension and support services enable them to practice commercial<br />
and specialized farming.<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
Livelihood Finance: Promoting <strong>Technology</strong> Adoption<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> adoption can happen if the technology dissemination and diffusion is<br />
accompanied by a whole range of other services for which finance is required, such<br />
as infrastructure, research, extension, markets and other support services. It is for<br />
the collectives; hence there is a strong need for stable and sustainable peoples’<br />
organizations.<br />
Micro Credit, Micro Finance, Livelihood Finance<br />
Micro credit is defined as small loans given for short durations, with repayment of<br />
small sums of money but very frequently. These loans are given through self-help<br />
groups, Grameen Bank style groups, Joint Liability Groups or directly to individuals;<br />
mostly they are loans to individuals, not to any collectives.<br />
Micro finance is defined as small savings, credit and insurance services. Saving is the<br />
first and foremost service necessary for a poor person, as it protects his livelihood in<br />
the off season, acts as equity to raise more capital for doing an economic activity and<br />
also to pay off the loan to maintain credibility in spite of any loss in business. Access<br />
to credit promotes the adoption of risky technologies, through the relaxation of the<br />
liquidity constraint, apart from boosting the household’s-risk bearing ability. With an<br />
option of borrowing and available insurance services, a household can concentrate<br />
on more risky but efficient investments.<br />
Livelihood finance is a comprehensive approach to promoting sustainable livelihoods<br />
for the poor, which includes the following:<br />
Financial Services: Financial Services include savings and credit both for short term<br />
and long term, including investment credit and working capital to farm: crop, land,<br />
water, livestock and nonfarm: trade, service and manufacturing, insurance for the<br />
lives and livelihoods of the poor, covering their life and health apart from their assets:<br />
crop, livestock and micro enterprise, funds transfer/remittances for the migrants,<br />
commodity derivatives for hedging price risk, financial orchestration ranging from<br />
grants to equity for livelihoods.<br />
Agriculture and Business Development Services: Agriculture and Business<br />
Development Services include productivity enhancement. For example, nutrient<br />
management, SRI-paddy, artificial insemination, feed and fodder management etc.;<br />
risk mitigation (non insurance) preventive technical practices, seed treatment, Integrated<br />
Pest Management, vaccination etc.; local value addition; facilitating producers<br />
to add value to the product right at the farm/household level, e.g. post harvest<br />
practices - clean cotton, processing - ginning, sorting and grading etc. and alternate<br />
market linkages including market intelligence: online price information, input/output<br />
linkages: seeds, fertilizer, bio-inputs, pheromone traps, NPV, etc.,<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
Institutional Development Services: Institutional Development Services include<br />
organizing the producers into their collectives, formalizing (giving a legal status) and<br />
strengthening the community based organizations such as self-help groups, water<br />
user’s associations, forest protection committees, credit and commodity cooperatives,<br />
panchayats, establishing functional linkages for inputs, output and know-how, and<br />
enabling systems for operations, accounting, human resources, MIS, etc. apart from<br />
reviving or re-vitalizing the defunct community-based organizations.<br />
Thus livelihood finance constitutes large amounts, invariably for long durations,<br />
ranging from five years to 20 years and its use will almost always be for collective<br />
purposes. It is beyond just loans, it may need equity or risk funds and indeed some<br />
public subsidies and grants.<br />
The problems related to livelihood promotion are dynamic, and vary with time and<br />
region and the solutions to address these problems should be changing, specific to<br />
the context and time. To address these ever changing needs of the people engaged in<br />
various livelihood activities, it is unviable to build in competency within one organization;<br />
hence there is a need for collaboration. Through collaboration it is possible to combine<br />
the expertise of individual institutions for livelihood promotion. This reduces the risk,<br />
minimizes the cost, increases the outreach to the poor and also throws up potential<br />
for future revenue generating partnerships.<br />
Livelihoods are affected not only by financial services but also the other factors like<br />
research and technology, training and extension, input supply and output markets;<br />
each becomes critical at different points of time. These may vary with the context,<br />
it is not possible to provide all these services to a single customer hence these<br />
fragmented, unorganized customers should be organized into collectives for better<br />
bargaining power at the market place. The collaborative polygon is a mechanism to<br />
provide these diverse services by combining the expertise of various institutions.<br />
Collaborative polygon<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
Promoting <strong>Technology</strong> Adoption - BASIX Experiences<br />
A few BASIX initiatives on mobilizing the rural community for technology adoption with<br />
the support of financial services are illustrated below.<br />
Sub sectoral work in Cotton: Nirmal–Adilabad district of AP: In the year 2000,<br />
cotton was cultivated in one-fifth of the crop area in India, but 50 % of the pesticide<br />
was consumed for this crop. Adilabad district in Andhra Pradesh is one of the most<br />
backward districts where cotton cultivation is the major livelihood source for a large<br />
number of farmers. Cotton is grown in around 4 lakh acres every year. Much of it falls<br />
under rain-fed conditions and the average yield prevailed at 4-5 quintals/acre. After<br />
a number of farmer suicides, BASIX studied the problem and came to the conclusion<br />
that farmers were using chemical pesticides indiscriminately, borrowing in kind from<br />
pesticide dealers and losing heavily. In addition, farmers suffered from comparatively<br />
higher input costs, lower price realization and fluctuating prices. Due to these reasons,<br />
BASIX selected cotton as a sub sector to work in.<br />
BASIX began by talking to farmers and extending crop loans by organizing them into<br />
joint liability groups of 5 to 7 farmers. BASIX staff would arrange for several such<br />
groups in a village (Koutla-B) to meet and discuss their problems.<br />
IPM- <strong>Technology</strong>: Agri Universities, Regional <strong>Research</strong> and Agri department : BASIX<br />
in the meanwhile found out by talking to the AP Agricultural University, some technical<br />
solutions for reducing pesticide use without reducing yields. This required persuading<br />
the farmers to implement the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) intervention, which<br />
included the “stem application” technique. Farmers use this technique to apply the<br />
minimum quantity of pesticide to the stem in the early stages, the effect of which lasts<br />
for 30 days. This technique cost the farmer only Rs.75/- per acre in comparison with<br />
earlier practice of multiple sprays which cost Rs.750-1000/- per acre.<br />
Input Market Linkage: As part of IPM package of practices, biological pest control<br />
methods were also introduced. BASIX collaborated with the PCI (Pest Control India)<br />
to ensure the timely supply of quality inputs such as pheromone traps (Insect traps),<br />
Nuclear Polyhedrosis Virus (NPV) etc. The IPM practices, it was evident, besides<br />
being environment-friendly were economical as well.<br />
150<br />
The turnover of Koutla-B MACTS:<br />
Financial Year No of Farmer Loan from BASIX Turnover Net profit<br />
Members (Rs In Lakhs) (Rs In Lakhs) (Rs In Lakhs)<br />
2003-04 51 7.5 55 1.77<br />
2004-05 81 30 81 7.3<br />
2005-06 82 30 68 6.1<br />
2006-07 83 50 81 8.8
Technical Papers<br />
Institutional Development Services - better price bargain: Having won the confidence<br />
of farmers, BASIX encouraged them to establish a mutually aided cooperative, which<br />
they use to buy inputs like seeds, fertiliser and pesticides in bulk. Today the Koutla<br />
B Coop has a turnover of over Rs 1.2 crore. The farmers save about 5-10 % on the<br />
input costs, both due to getting wholesale price and saving on individual transportation<br />
costs. Now, in the area, over 20 cotton farmers’ cooperatives have come up and they<br />
are now planning to establish a federation which will lease or own a ginning factory.<br />
Output Market Linkages- increasing the price share to producer: In the next step,<br />
BASIX concentrated on the problem of market linkages and price. The first step was to<br />
attract outside buyers. BASIX invited the large Super Spinning Mills from Coimbatore<br />
to purchase cotton from the area. This led to price stabilization and getting about 5 %<br />
better prices.<br />
Market Intelligence – access to market information: On the price realization front,<br />
BASIX has also worked with the National Commodity Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX)<br />
to install a price display terminal in the village which gives online information on cotton<br />
prices in both spot and futures markets.<br />
Value addition – entering into value chain: The Super Spinning Mills prefer to buy lint<br />
bales rather than raw cotton. So, next year, BASIX motivated the farmers to get their<br />
cotton ginned from a nearby ginning factory in Bhainsa and sell lint rather than raw<br />
cotton. With the accumulated profits, Koutla–B MACTS has entered into the value<br />
chain by taking up ginning activity converting raw cotton into tradable bales and also<br />
owned up a fixed asset (Building) worth Rs 11 lakhs inaugurated in the month of July,<br />
2007.<br />
Recognition- inspiration to farmers: By playing a key role in the success of the MACTS,<br />
Mr.Vanga Ram Reddy, the president of the Koutla-B MACTS received the fellowship<br />
award by Dr.A.P.J Kalam on 11 th July 2005 at New Delhi organized by Jamsetji National<br />
Virtual Academy Fellowship for Rural Prosperity, felicitated by the district collector on<br />
the eve of Independence Day and was one of the farmers to interact with George<br />
Bush during his visit to Hyderabad. Koutla-B MACTS has become a role model and<br />
paved the way to form about 100 producer groups in BASIX operational area alone in<br />
a period of two years.<br />
Experience in Dairy<br />
BASIX has done substantial work in dairying as it is the major alternate livelihood after<br />
agriculture in the rural areas. Till 30 th June 2007, Bhartiya Samruddhi Finance Limited,<br />
the Flagship Company of BASIX, has cumulatively disbursed about 148.7 crore rupees<br />
to 1, 38,448 milk producers across its operational area. These customers are small<br />
and marginal farmers who own 2-3 milch animals (cows or buffaloes) and about 70 %<br />
of them are women. Total credit outstanding is over 156 crores with a recovery rate of<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
98.7 %, out of which 52 crores constitutes dairy portfolio with 65,127 active customer<br />
base, 98.7 % recovery percentage and Rs. 10,760/- as the average loan size.<br />
BASIX has customized livestock insurance services in collaboration with Royal<br />
Sundaram Alliance General Insurance Company as per customer needs and a<br />
simplified and transparent insurance procedures to service in rural areas. They have<br />
insured over 35,252 cattle and settled about 1150 claims within 30 days from the<br />
submission of claim.<br />
Cumulatively about 67,478 dairy farmers have registered for availing agriculture and<br />
business development services by paying a service fee to BASIX. These customers<br />
are provided with the regular primary health checkup, vaccination and other advisory<br />
services on feed and fodder management for increased milk production apart from<br />
introducing new technologies like Azolla which enhances milk production. It has<br />
established market linkages for inputs as well as output by collaborating with various<br />
institutions.<br />
Reviving the dairy co-operative: The concept of reviving a defunct or poorly functioning<br />
milk chilling plant was tried first in 1998-2000 at Wanaparthy, in Mahabubnagar district<br />
of Andhra Pradesh. This plant which had a capacity of 10000 litres per day was<br />
collecting 1200 litres and was slated for closure. BASIX entered into collaboration with<br />
the plant to provide intensive credit for purchase of milch cattle in the villages along<br />
procurement routes, provided the APDDCF chilling plant made efforts to improve its<br />
extension (veterinary care, farmer education) and assured a milk procurement service.<br />
By working together with BASIX, the Wanaparthy chilling plant was able to enhance<br />
its procurement of milk all the way to 10,000 litres per day in a period of 18 months.<br />
It then installed a pouching machine and commenced local sales of milk for the first<br />
time in 20 years. Based on the experience of the Wanaparthy intervention, the dairy<br />
initiative was replicated across the BASIX operating units. It is working with over a dozen<br />
APDDCF chilling plants in Anantapur, Kadapa, Kurnool, Mahabubnagar, Nizamabad,<br />
Medak, Adilabad and Khammam districts in Andhra Pradesh, and also in Maharastra,<br />
Karnataka, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand by collaborating with various<br />
government and private dairies for the assured market to of its rural customers.<br />
Non-farm sector - BDS to Silk Handloom Weavers<br />
Weaving activity in Anantapur, Kadapa, Nalgonda, and Mahabubnagar districts<br />
of Andhra Pradesh is a major livelihood activity for about 50000 households. It is<br />
observed that many weavers were shifting to other vocations and the weavers who<br />
have no other alternate income source continued in the sector striving hard to meet<br />
their day-to-day household needs and sustainability. BASIX undertook a study on<br />
silk handloom weavers, which revealed that they were constrained by low access<br />
to credit, technical know-how and markets, accompanied by irregular/ seasonal<br />
employment. It initiated work on the market linkages, technical advice on design and<br />
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Technical Papers<br />
capacity building of the communities to increase the income of their family to meet<br />
their needs and make them sustainable.<br />
BASIX supported about 1200 weaving families by providing credit for working capital<br />
and to purchase looms as well. It also established collaboration with Bommana<br />
Brothers, which is one of the leading chains of textile showrooms in Andhra Pradesh<br />
for market linkages and Central Silk Board for technical guidance. BASIX played the<br />
key facilitator role, creating transparency in the system in terms of placing orders and<br />
making regular payments to the weavers by Six Yards Pvt Ltd.(floated by Bommana<br />
Brothers), building the capacities of the weavers to understand the markets and improve<br />
their skills, upgrade the looms and complete the orders in time, maintaining quality<br />
standards. It worked with about 50 weavers, delivered 734 sarees earning wages of<br />
Rs 3,50,000 by weaving sarees worth Rs 30,00,000/-, new designs were introduced<br />
on 12 looms.. An office was also set up by six Yards at Hindupur to strengthen and<br />
smoothen the work further.<br />
Contract Farming with PepsiCo – Potato<br />
A comprehensive approach for marginal producers is clearly seen in aggregating<br />
them to take up contract farming of Potato with buy back arrangement with PepsiCo.<br />
Jharkhand is a state having good agro climatic conditions with a great potential for<br />
vegetables. A large number of small and marginal farmers depend on vegetable<br />
production, having meager earnings with proven market uncertainties. In this context,<br />
the collaboration between BASIX and PepsiCo for Frito Lays chip grade potato farming<br />
was initiated in 2005-2006 with 216 farmers covering 80 acres. In 2006-07, seeing<br />
the significant increase in crop yield, delivery of quality planting material at field and<br />
advantages of pre-determined price and harvest from field with yield, ease of credit<br />
and crop insurance, more than 1100 farmers participated in this venture.<br />
Particulars Total<br />
Total Acreage 518 Acres<br />
No.of Farmers 1108<br />
Fee-paying Registered Farmers 907<br />
No.of farmers who took loan 873<br />
Total Loan Rs 42.7 lakh<br />
Net interest earned (3 months) Rs 53,700<br />
Ag/BDS Revenue Rs 272,100<br />
Net Ag/BDS income Rs 64,200<br />
Total Payment made to farmers Rs 1.39 Crore<br />
Avg payment made to farmers Rs 12974<br />
Avg price paid to farmers Rs 7.60/ Kg<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
BASIX collaboration with PepsiCo has opened the following livelihood opportunities to<br />
contribute in promoting the livelihoods of the farmers in Jharkhand.<br />
154<br />
Agriculture and Business Development Services: comprises giving the farmers<br />
complete range of services by establishing Input (Quality Seed Tuber, fertiliser,<br />
insecticides, fungicides & micronutrients) and Output (Marketing of Potato<br />
produced to Frito Lays) linkages. Guiding farmers on various aspects of Scientific<br />
Crop Management practices, including nutrient management based on soil testing<br />
and Integrated pest management practices coupled with regular visits of subject<br />
matter specialists with on the farm recommendations. Farmers were also trained<br />
in grading and sorting of the produce.<br />
Financial Services: comprises crop loan for potato cultivation in the form of kind<br />
for ensuring the quality input i.e. seed tubers, and also in cash, by which farmers<br />
can meet their labour and other expenses. Rainfall index based crop insurance,<br />
insuring the lives and health of the farmer and the spouse.<br />
Institutional Development Services: BASIX initiated the formation of Producers<br />
Group in about 100 villages with the vision to form an able cooperative in the<br />
long run (after 5 years) to access, explore and enter into contract with different<br />
partners including PepsiCo to cater to their needs to become self sustainable.<br />
Conclusion<br />
Technologies that can improve the performance of the Indian farming community<br />
have existed for ages. However the use of technology adoption did not take off on<br />
a large scale across the farming community to put it to full use due to the following<br />
reasons:<br />
The technology was either costly or was affordable only by a few rich farmer<br />
segments of the society who had access to banking and other financial institutions.<br />
Due to the high costs involved, the farmer had to depend on loans from banks and<br />
the banks had rigid terms and conditions to fulfill, including collateral. Hence only<br />
big farmers with high landholdings could afford it.<br />
Focus was on regional parities like cash rich states or areas cultivating cash<br />
crops. These were encouraged systematically by producers of technology in view<br />
of their business viability or due to rich natural resources. Due to the political clout<br />
of these areas, the budgetary allocation for projects there was also high. The<br />
prominent examples are Punjab and the Delta area of Andhra Pradesh.<br />
Organic farming, though a traditional practice of the small and marginal farmers,<br />
failed to cope with the advent of high yielding varieties. Having seen faster growth<br />
of their crop by using inorganic fertilizers and pesticides compared to organic<br />
practices and formulations (which is also labour intensive), the farmers had to<br />
resort to the high use of inorganic pesticides and fertilizers to be competitive. This<br />
in turn lead to increased cost of production, leaving them in a vicious cycle of high<br />
debt at exorbitant interest rates.
Technical Papers<br />
New innovations in technology were constantly under development but with more<br />
focus on the rich and big farmers. The adoption of the technology is beyond the reach<br />
of the marginal and small farmer. Adding to it is the diffusion of new technologies<br />
to producers which is very slow and incomplete. Farm level technology adoption<br />
is hampered by poorly understood socioeconomic and institutional constraints.<br />
With the entry of micro finance in the last decade, credit availability to the small<br />
and marginal farmers, landless and women has increased drastically. They have<br />
penetrated reasonably well and started influencing the farmers to some extent to<br />
adapt themselves to new technology. Since credit has been the key, influencing the<br />
acceptance level of the farmers has gone up for technology adoption. Some of the<br />
MFIs and NGOs like BASIX, SEWA, MYRADA, PRADAN, etc have taken challenges<br />
beyond credit and are able to influence the community. Financial institution (especially<br />
MFI) networks can influence technology adoption through their function as a source of<br />
finance (credit, savings and insurance), as channels of information and thus vehicles<br />
of learning, as a means for resolving externalities and collective action problems, or<br />
through enforcement of social norms.<br />
The provision of timely livelihood finance to farmers is an effective strategy for<br />
promoting the technology adoption. Access to credit promotes the adoption of<br />
risky technologies, through the relaxation of the liquidity constraint, apart from<br />
boosting of household’s-risk bearing ability. With an option of borrowing and<br />
available insurance services, a household can concentrate on more risky but<br />
efficient investments.<br />
The government should re-look at its strategy. Instead of making popular<br />
schemes of subsidy, the funds should be diverted to infrastructure development<br />
and commercially viable technological innovations, making it affordable to the<br />
common man.<br />
Take stock of the experiences of various micro finance institutions, NGOs and<br />
strengthen and use Community based Associations as channels viz; SHGs,<br />
MACTS, Producer Groups etc., to influence the farm community to adopt the<br />
technology.<br />
Governments both at the Central and State level have to make budgetary<br />
allocations for awareness building among the community by involving NGOs,<br />
MFIs on a large scale.<br />
The service sector has to be seen as a business model with a social tinge and<br />
every stake holder involved should get the benefit, both social and financial. Then<br />
such process would bring in accountability and responsibility of the all the stake<br />
holders and would ultimately help in proper governance.<br />
Finance for technology adoption would be a vibrant model to scale and reach the<br />
masses, but is not confined to a single entity delivery model. It has to be invariably a<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
collaborative approach to bring in all the players, pooling the individual expertise to<br />
reach large numbers, and ensure to serve them effectively. The finance is required<br />
for research in technology development, organizing people into collectives for better<br />
bargaining power, improving village level production, infrastructure for processing<br />
or value addition, and marketing. These investments can be sourced in the form of<br />
investment capital and working capital and can range from debt, equity to grants in the<br />
form of a financial orchestration.<br />
156
Recomendations
Recomendations<br />
Guiding Principles for Socially Inclusive <strong>Technology</strong><br />
Development and <strong>Delivery</strong> - Recommendations from the<br />
Deliberations<br />
1. Starting with the industrial revolution in Europe three centuries ago, technology<br />
has been a major factor in the rich-poor and gender divides. Today the term<br />
“industrialized countries” is being used to refer to countries which are economically<br />
prosperous. If technology has been a major factor in the past for creating<br />
economic, social, spatial and gender divides, can we now enlist technology as an<br />
ally in the movement for social and gender equity?<br />
2. Economic growth during the last sixty years after our independence has been<br />
greater in the urban areas and also in the industrialized sector. The primary sector<br />
consisting of crop and animal husbandry, fisheries and forestry is not witnessing<br />
the high growth rates now occurring in the non-farm sectors. The XI Five year<br />
Plan document of the Union Planning Commission refers to technology fatigue<br />
in agriculture on the one hand, and knowledge deficit in rural areas on the other.<br />
The challenge therefore is to overcome both technology fatigue and extension<br />
deficit.<br />
3. Considering issues relating to science and society, it must be clearly understood<br />
that a generalised pattern of extension will not help every section of the<br />
community. Opportunities and needs vary widely, as for example in tribal and hill<br />
areas. Therefore there is need for a disaggregated approach in the development<br />
of technology delivery systems. Also, research agenda should be based on the<br />
relevance of the output to the poorer sections of society. Otherwise “orphans will<br />
remain orphans” and the problems of the poor will not get the attention they so<br />
urgently need. For example, in the case of diseases like leprosy, mostly affecting<br />
the poor, there is hardly any investment in the area of vaccine production. Seeds<br />
of hybrids of crops like Bt cotton are expensive and will not be relevant to the<br />
economic conditions of the small and marginal farmers whose coping capacity to<br />
withstand crop losses is limited, particularly when there is no crop insurance worth<br />
the name. Therefore there should be no deceleration of efforts on investments in<br />
the area of public good research. The National Cotton Institute should work on<br />
Bt cotton varieties and not hybrids, so that farmers can keep their own seeds for<br />
planting in the following year.<br />
4. Besides economic conditions, the gender dimensions are very important in both<br />
technology development and dissemination. Those technologies which will<br />
lead to the destruction of traditional sources of livelihoods to women should not<br />
be encouraged, while those which help to add economic value to the time and<br />
labour of women should be encouraged. Women also need appropriate support<br />
services like crèches, day-care centers etc. Small scale farming and micro-retail<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
are the two major sources of self-employment to the majority of women and men.<br />
Therefore, scientists should subject their technologies to a livelihood impact<br />
analysis before they are advocated for adoption on a large scale. Both gender<br />
and livelihood audit of the research agenda is essential if ultimately technology is<br />
going to be a prime mover of economic prosperity on a socially inclusive basis.<br />
5. India’s population in 1947 was about 350 million, now the population is 1100<br />
million. Unfortunately, the majority of the population still depend on the primary<br />
sector for their livelihood. Diversification of opportunities in the secondary<br />
(manufacturing, agro-processing, industry etc) and tertiary (services) sectors has<br />
been slow and inadequate. The average size of the farm has been going down<br />
steeply and the challenge now is to make a small holding sufficiently remunerative<br />
for enabling a reasonable standard of life to the small farm families. This will call<br />
for both diversification of land use and value-addition to every part of the plant/<br />
animal biomass. Energy is a key input for promoting the manufacturing sector<br />
and there is need for developing and popularising integrated rural energy security<br />
systems.<br />
6. Considerable experience is available on different technology delivery models. The<br />
most successful ones involve participatory work with rural families. Partnership and<br />
not patronage should be the approach to technology delivery and dissemination.<br />
It is also necessary to work on the linkages between technology, credit, insurance,<br />
input and output pricing. There is a large untapped reservoir of technological<br />
achievements in different areas of agriculture, industry, environment and health<br />
care. How do we take them to the field? Reaching the unreached should not<br />
remain an empty slogan. It should really be the bottom line in technology delivery<br />
systems. There are many successful and unsuccessful models of technology<br />
delivery and it is important to ensure that the technologies introduced both in urban<br />
and rural areas are economically viable, environmentally sustainable and socially<br />
equitable. This is the major challenge in technology delivery systems. This will<br />
then involve subjecting new technology delivery proposals to a matrix analysis<br />
involving questions such as “is it pro-nature, is it pro-poor, is it pro-women?”<br />
7. In several places, particularly in the area of health care, there is need to link medical<br />
recommendations with the other needs of the person involved. For example the<br />
control of diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and leprosy cannot be achieved<br />
entirely by a drug-based approach. To achieve results, a nutrition-cum drugbased<br />
approach will be needed. Linkages of this kind should be carefully studied<br />
if success is to be achieved in the transfer of technology.<br />
8. <strong>Technology</strong> development and delivery should aim at providing an opportunity for<br />
a productive and healthy life for all. This will involve symbiotic linkages among<br />
all the concerned organizations. All the links in the production-marketing chain<br />
should receive concurrent attention. There is also need for a quality literacy<br />
160
Recomendations<br />
movement in the case of commodities intended for human consumption. Modern<br />
ICT techniques will help to leapfrog in the area of providing dynamic and demand<br />
driven information in the local language. Unless the language of the people is<br />
used, technology delivery will not be effective.<br />
9. There are uncommon opportunities to achieve speedily and surely goals such<br />
as, “food, education and health for all”. This will involve appropriate blends of<br />
traditional knowledge and frontier technologies. Such opportunities will lead to<br />
a more equitable society only if those in charge of technology development and<br />
delivery keep in view the need for social inclusion in both access to relevant<br />
technologies as well as their economic and environmental sustainability. Above<br />
all, there should be consciousness of the fact that one size will not fit all. We<br />
should take into account the diversity and pluralism prevailing in our country in<br />
terms of language, culture, class, caste and religion. We should make diversity a<br />
strength in terms of tailoring technologies to suit different agro-ecological, sociocultural<br />
and socio-economic conditions.<br />
10. All this will involve massive efforts in training, retraining, capacity building,<br />
mentoring and hand holding. Curricula will have to be modified to give time<br />
from practical work. The pedagogic methodology adopted should be “learning<br />
by doing” in the case of new skills for rural profession. Agricultural Universities<br />
and Home Science Colleges should aim to make every scholar an entrepreneur.<br />
This will involve training in market tie-ups. Income and work security should be<br />
the bottom line of technological interventions aimed to help the resource-poor<br />
families.<br />
11. A very important requirement relates to entrepreneurship development among<br />
youth. The National Commission on Farmers has offered several suggestions<br />
to convert scholars of Agricultural Universities and Home Science Colleges into<br />
entrepreneurs. This will require restructuring of the curriculum in such a manner<br />
that much time is available for learning by doing. The curriculum design should<br />
include integrating business principles in applied courses, for example the course<br />
on Seed <strong>Technology</strong> could be redesigned as Seed <strong>Technology</strong> and Business, so<br />
that the graduates are able to take to a career in Seed industry after they leave the<br />
University. There is also need for equipping members of Self-help Groups with<br />
the requisite managerial, marketing and accounting capability. SHG Capacity<br />
Building and Menotoring Centres should be established. Rural Universities and<br />
Women’s Universities should particularly help to organize training and capacity<br />
building programmes which can hasten progress in bridging the gap between<br />
scientific know-how and field level do-how.<br />
12. There is need to revisit the programmes of NABARD and CAPART in the area of<br />
providing efficient support to technology delivery systems. The principle of financial<br />
inclusion should be gender sensitive and should be based on the antyodaya<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
162<br />
principle. In addition to NABARD and CAPART, there is need for a Council for<br />
the Application of Rural <strong>Technology</strong> (CART) consisting of representatives of DST,<br />
ICAR, CSIR, ICMR, DBT, UGC and other concerned organisations which should<br />
come together to provide integrated services in the field of technology development<br />
and delivery as applied to rural areas. CART should pay special attention to<br />
physically challenged persons in terms of technological empowerment. CART<br />
could become a platform for partnership and concerted action by all the major<br />
public sector R&D agencies and could work closely with Agricultural, Rural and<br />
Women’s Universities. CART could sponsor PAN-Scientific Agencies projects<br />
in priority areas. Such National Challenge Programmes could give priority to<br />
the eradication of poverty and endemic hunger arising from inadequate income.<br />
CART could help to strengthen the RuTAG initiative of the Office of the Principal<br />
Scientific Advisor to GoI. DST could convene a meeting of all major scientific<br />
agencies to take this suggestion forward.
National Consultation on <strong>Technology</strong> Development and<br />
<strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
1. Mr. Amit C Asnikar<br />
Marketing Manager<br />
Samuchit Enviro Tech Pvt Ltd<br />
Pune, Maharashtra<br />
samuchitenvirotech@gmail.net<br />
2. Dr. Amit Jain<br />
Naandi <strong>Foundation</strong><br />
502, Trendset Towers<br />
Road No 2, Banjara Hills<br />
Hyderabad - 500 034<br />
amit@naandi.net<br />
3. Dr. Anil Joshi<br />
Founder<br />
HESCO<br />
Vill-Ghisadpadi<br />
P.O. Mehuwala, Via Majra<br />
Dist. Dehradun - 248 001<br />
dranilpjoshi@yahoo.com<br />
hescol@nde.vsnl.net.in<br />
4. Mr. Atul Sharma<br />
Project Officer<br />
Community Polytechnic<br />
Pipri, Wardha<br />
asharma@sancharnet.in<br />
5. Dr. Balasubramanian, AV<br />
Director, Centre for Indian<br />
Knowledge Systems<br />
Chennai<br />
ciksorg@gmail.com, ciks@vsnl.com<br />
6. Ms. Bhavani, RV<br />
Project Director, MSSRF, Chennai<br />
bhavani@mssrf.res.in<br />
26 – 28 July 2007<br />
List of Participants<br />
7. Dr. Bidendra Kison Datta<br />
Vivekananda Institute of<br />
Biotechnology<br />
Nimpith Ashram<br />
South 24 Parganas 743 338<br />
West Bengal<br />
vkdattasranvib@rediffmail.com<br />
bkdattasramvib@rediffmail.com<br />
8. Ms. Chandini Behn<br />
Economic and Rural Development<br />
SEWA<br />
bdmsce@llenet.co.in<br />
9. Dr. Chidambaram, R<br />
Principal Scientific Advisor to GOI<br />
New Delhi<br />
rama_gita@yahoo.com<br />
10. Ms. Chime P.Wangdi<br />
Director General<br />
Tarayana <strong>Foundation</strong><br />
147 Zomlha Complex<br />
P.O.Box 2003<br />
Thimphu , Bhutan<br />
climewangdi@druknet.bt<br />
chimewangdi@gmail.com<br />
11. Dr. Geetha Kutty<br />
Professor, Gender Studies<br />
National Institute of<br />
Rural Development<br />
Rajendranagar<br />
Hyderabad - 500030<br />
geethakutty@gmail.com<br />
List of Participants<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
12. Mr. Goswami, R<br />
DGM (Agri)<br />
SBI Local Head Office<br />
Chennai<br />
Phone: 044-28312662<br />
13. Dr. Henry Francis<br />
AGM (Rural Development)<br />
SBI Local Head Office<br />
Chennai<br />
Phone: 044-28312662<br />
Mobile: 9841417422<br />
14. Dr. John Britto<br />
Covenant Centre for Devt - CCD.,<br />
18-C/1, Kennet Cross Road,<br />
Ellis Nagar, Madurai - 625010<br />
mdu_ccd@sancharnet.in<br />
msmssk@ccd.org.in<br />
info@ccd.org.in<br />
15. Dr. Karve, AD<br />
President<br />
Appropriate Rural <strong>Technology</strong><br />
Institute<br />
Maninee Apartments, Survey No.13<br />
Kothrud, Pune - 411 041<br />
adkarve@vsnl.com<br />
arti_pune@vsnl.net<br />
16. Ms. Keth Sam, ATH<br />
DG Ministry of Women Affairs<br />
Royal Government of Cambodia<br />
kethsamath@online.com.kh<br />
17. Ms. Madhu Khetan<br />
Programme Director<br />
PRADAN<br />
3, Comy Shopping Centre<br />
Niti Bagh, New Delhi - 49<br />
headoffice@pradan.net<br />
deepjoshi@pradan.net<br />
madhukhetan@yahoo.com<br />
164<br />
18. Dr. Mary Rhodes<br />
Well Spring Inc<br />
PO Box 41, Corvallis<br />
Oragon 97339 USA<br />
mr2013@comcast.net<br />
19. Dr. Meenakshisundaram, S<br />
Executive Vice Chairman<br />
MYRADA, Bangalore<br />
ssms@hamasadvini.serc.iisc.ernet.in<br />
meenakshi54@hotmail.com<br />
20. Mr. Meendu Srinivasulu<br />
BASIX<br />
III Floor, Surabhi Arcade<br />
Troop Bazar, Bank Street, Koti<br />
Hyderabad - 500001<br />
sreenivasulu.m@basixindia.com<br />
21. Ms. Mina <strong>Swaminathan</strong><br />
Advisor<br />
(Education, Communication<br />
and Gender)<br />
MSSRF, Chennai<br />
mina@mssrf.res.in<br />
22. Dr. Narayana Hegde, G<br />
President<br />
BAIF<br />
Development <strong>Research</strong> <strong>Foundation</strong><br />
Dr.Man ibhai Desai Nagar<br />
N.H.No.4, Warje<br />
Pune - 411 058<br />
nghegde@baif.org.in<br />
23. Dr. Nerges Mistry<br />
Director<br />
The <strong>Foundation</strong> for<br />
Medical <strong>Research</strong><br />
84-A, R.G. Thadani Marg<br />
Worli, Mumbai - 400018<br />
fmrbom@hathway.com
24. Ms. Nisha Shah<br />
Economic and Rural Development<br />
Self Employed Women’s<br />
Association (SEWA)<br />
SEWA Reception Centre<br />
Opp. Victoria Garden, Bhadra<br />
Ahmedabad - 380 001. India.<br />
bdmsa@icenet.co.in<br />
bdmsaad1@sancharnet.in<br />
mona.dave@gmail.com<br />
sewasms@dataone.in<br />
25. Dr. Palanisami, K<br />
Director- CARDS<br />
TNAU, Coimbatore<br />
palanisamik@vsnl.net<br />
26. Mr. Putz Jurgen<br />
Palmyra<br />
palmyra@auroville.org.in<br />
27. Dr. Rama Datta<br />
Vivekananda Institute of<br />
Biotechnology<br />
Nimpith Ashram<br />
South 24 Parganas 743 338<br />
West Bengal<br />
28. Mr. Ramakant N Prabhune<br />
Senior Technical Officer and<br />
Trustee<br />
Appropriate Rural<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> Institute<br />
Pune, Phaltan District Sataru<br />
Maharashtra<br />
rnprabhune@yahoo.co.in<br />
29. Mr. Ramanathan, A<br />
CGM, MCID<br />
NABARD H.O. Bandra Kurla<br />
Complex, Bandra East<br />
Mumbai - 400051<br />
mcid@nabard.org<br />
aramanathan25@rediffmail.com<br />
aramanathan25@gmail.com<br />
30. Dr. Ramasami, C<br />
Vice Chancellor<br />
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University<br />
Coimbatore<br />
c_ramasamy@yahoo.com<br />
31. Dr. Ramasami, T<br />
Secretary DST<br />
GoI<br />
dstsec@nic.in<br />
32. Mr. Ramesan, S.<br />
Independent Journalist<br />
5D Saravanan Flats<br />
67, 2nd Main Road<br />
Adyar, Chennai - 600 020<br />
sramesan@yahoo.com<br />
33. Dr. Ravi Chellam<br />
Director<br />
ATREE, 659 5th A Main<br />
Hebbal, Bangalore - 560 024<br />
ravi.chellam@atree.org<br />
34. Dr. Revathi Balakrishnan<br />
Senior Scientific Officer<br />
(Gender and Biodiversity)<br />
FAO, Bangkok<br />
Revathi_Balakrishnan@fao.org<br />
35. Dr. Rukmani, R<br />
Principal Coordinator<br />
MSSRF, Chennai<br />
rukmani@mssrf.res.in<br />
List of Participants<br />
36. Dr. Sadamate, Vishwanath V<br />
Advisor (Agriculture)<br />
Planning Commission<br />
Government of India<br />
sadamate1@yahoo.com<br />
vvsadamate@nic.in<br />
37. Dr. Sarala Gopalan, IAS (Retd.)<br />
138, Vasant Enclave<br />
New Delhi - 110 057<br />
saralagopalan@gmail.com<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
38. Ms. Shobana Bhaskaran<br />
Principal Scientific Officer<br />
DST, GOI<br />
<strong>Technology</strong> Bhavan<br />
New Mehrauli Road<br />
New Delhi - 110 016<br />
Phone: 011-26534738/26590339<br />
39. Ms. Soth Sithon<br />
Ministry of Women’s Affairs<br />
Royal Government of Cambodia<br />
sithonsoth@yahoo.com<br />
40. Dr. Sudha Nair<br />
Director<br />
MSSRF, Chennai<br />
sudhanair@mssrf.res.in<br />
41. Ms. Sudha Soni<br />
Ospak House<br />
Kaithavana, Alleppey 688 003<br />
sonisudha@yahoo.com<br />
42. Mr. Sudip Rajbhandari<br />
Forum for Information <strong>Technology</strong><br />
Nepal<br />
P.O.956, Khichapokhari<br />
Kathmandu, Nepal<br />
sudip@unlimit.com<br />
43. Dr. Sudip Mitra<br />
Principal Coordinator<br />
MSSRF, Chennai<br />
sudip@mssrf.res.in<br />
44. Ms. Sujaya, CP, IAS (Retd.)<br />
Visiting Fellow, CWDS<br />
A-2 Diwanshri Apartments<br />
30, Feroze Shah Road<br />
New Delhi - 110 001<br />
cpsujaya@gmail.com<br />
166<br />
45. Prof. <strong>Swaminathan</strong> M.S<br />
Chairman<br />
MSSRF, Chennai<br />
chairman@mssrf.res.in<br />
46. Dr. Swarna S. Vepa<br />
Ford <strong>Foundation</strong><br />
Chair for Gender and Food Security<br />
MSSRF, Chennai<br />
svepa@mssrf.res.in<br />
47. Ms. Vasumathi<br />
Head, Agriculture and Business<br />
Development Services<br />
BASIX<br />
III Floor, Surabhi Arcade<br />
Troop Bazar<br />
Bank Street, Koti<br />
Hyderabad - 500001<br />
vasumathi@basixindia.com<br />
48. Dr. Venkatesh B. Athreya<br />
Advisor<br />
MSSRF, Chennai<br />
vbat@mssrf.res.in<br />
49. Dr. Vinita Sharma<br />
Director and Scientist-F<br />
Science and Society Division<br />
DST, GOI, <strong>Technology</strong> Bhavan<br />
New Mehrauli Road<br />
New Delhi - 110 016<br />
vinita.sharma@gmail.com
ACCABC Agri Clinics and Agri-Business Centres<br />
AICRPs All India Co-ordinated <strong>Research</strong> Projects<br />
APDDCF Andhra Pradesh Dairy Development Cooperative Federation Ltd.<br />
APEDA Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development<br />
Authority<br />
ART Adaptive <strong>Research</strong> Trials<br />
ARTI Appropriate Rural <strong>Technology</strong> Institute<br />
ATMA Agricultural <strong>Technology</strong> Management Agency<br />
CAPART Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural <strong>Technology</strong><br />
CBAT Capacity Building for Adoption of <strong>Technology</strong><br />
CBOs Community Based Organizations<br />
CCHS Comprehensive Community Healthcare System -<br />
CDDP Centre for Development of Disadvantaged Peoples<br />
CHW Community Health Worker<br />
CIKS Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems<br />
CIMMYT International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre<br />
CRI Central <strong>Research</strong> Institutes<br />
CVRC Central Variety Release Committee<br />
CWDS Centre for Women’s Development Studies<br />
DAESI Diploma in Agricultural Extension Services for Input Dealers<br />
DDS Deccan Development Society<br />
DEMIC Domestic and Export Market Intelligence Cell<br />
DFID Department for International Development<br />
DST Department of Science and <strong>Technology</strong><br />
EEC Extension Education Council<br />
FAO Food and Agriculture Organisation<br />
GMS Grammiya Munnetra Sangam<br />
GNP Gross National Product<br />
GP Gram Panchayat<br />
HYV High Yielding Varieties<br />
List of Acronyms<br />
ICAR Indian Council of Agricultural <strong>Research</strong><br />
IOBC International Organization for Biological Control<br />
IPM Integrated Pest Management<br />
IRM Insecticide Resistance Management<br />
List of Acronyms<br />
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<strong>Technology</strong> <strong>Delivery</strong> Models for Sustainable Livelihoods<br />
IRRI International Rice <strong>Research</strong> Institute<br />
KDPP Kutch Drought Proofing Project<br />
KVKs Krishi Vigyan Kendras<br />
MACTS Mutually Aided Co-operative Thrift Society<br />
MC Management Committee<br />
MFDEF Micro Finance Development and Equity Fund<br />
MLT Multi Location Trials<br />
MZW Monthly Zonal Workshop<br />
NABARD National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development<br />
NARS National Agricultural <strong>Research</strong> System<br />
NCDEX National Commodity Derivatives Exchange<br />
NGOs Non Governmental Organization<br />
NRCs National <strong>Research</strong> Centres<br />
NSKAE Neem Seed Kernel Aqueous Extract<br />
QPM Quality Protein Maize<br />
RE <strong>Research</strong>-Extension<br />
RFA Revolving Fund Assistance<br />
RIF Rural Innovation Fund<br />
RREAC Regional <strong>Research</strong> and Education Advisory Council<br />
SAMETI State Agricultural Management and Extension Training Institute<br />
SAU State agricultural universities<br />
SET Samuchit Enviro-Tech Pvt. Ltd.<br />
SEWA Self Employed Women’s Association<br />
SFAC Small Farmers Agri-business Consortium<br />
SHG Self Help Groups<br />
SREP Strategic <strong>Research</strong> and Extension Plan<br />
SRR Seed Replacement Rate<br />
STRIDE Science and <strong>Technology</strong> for Rural Industrialization, Development and<br />
Employment<br />
SWC Scientific Workers Conference<br />
TDF Tribal Development Fund<br />
TNPFP Tamil Nadu Precision Farming Project<br />
VAM Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhizae<br />
VCS Vivekananda Center For SKILLS<br />
VIB Vivekananda Institute of Biotechnology<br />
WWDA Women’s Welfare Development Association<br />
168