A-4523 [1-5] Indian J. Agric. Res., 50 (6) 2016 : 579-583
AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH COMMUNICATION CENTRE
Print ISSN:0367-8245 / Online ISSN:0976-058X
www.arccjournals.com/www.ijarjournal.com
Innovative extension practices in East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya: A case study R. Syiem1*, B.R. Marak2 and A.K. Bandyopadhyay2 School of Social Sciences, College of Post Graduate Studies, CAU, Umiam- 793 103, Meghalaya, India. Received: 30-01-2016 Accepted: 17-10-2016 ABSTRACT The study was conducted on innovative practices namely Intelligent Advisory System for Farmers (IASF) and Enterprise Facilitation Centres (EFCs) in East Khasi Hills District of Meghalaya with an attempt to identify the innovative agricultural extension practices in the state which are more effective and reachable to the grassroots level. Simple random sampling method was followed in selecting forty farmers from each of the two selected innovative practices launched in Meghalaya. Data was collected using a structured interview schedule. Statistical tools such as mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage were used for the study. The results showed that out of total respondents selected for the study 80% farmers perceived that IASF had increased their knowledge of agricultural practices, 20% farmers reported cost and time saving and 27% percent farmers reported influence in their decision making ability through ‘Mobile Crop Doctor’. Similarly, it was found that 60% farmers received capacity building support from EFCs, 33% farmers reported influence in their decision making ability and 27% famers had a better access to credit with the help of EFCs. However, these practices had been introduced recently in the state and are in its nascent stage, therefore more awareness on the benefits of using ICTs should be given to farmers along with better training and capacity building to encourage and enable them to utilise the benefits of ICTs and improve their farming practices. Key words: EFCs, IASF, ICTs, Innovative practices, Perceived benefits. INTRODUCTION Meghalaya also known as ‘the abode of clouds’ is blessed with rich natural resource and enjoys a heavy rainfall during monsoon. The state is a home of three major tribes; Khasi, Garo and Jaintia. The state of Meghalaya comprises of a population of 2.9 million (GoI,2011) with 79.9 per cent of the population residing in rural areas and are dependent on agriculture and other allied activities as a source of livelihood. In spite of its rich natural resource base, agriculture in Meghalaya is affected by several constraints such as undulating topography, transport and communication problem, population dispersal pattern, inadequate credit support, poor marketing system and lack of access to information among farmers. Agriculture in the state is characterized by low cropping intensity, subsistence farming and monocropping. However, it had been observed that the face of agriculture in the state had been gradually and continuously changing with the changing agricultural scenario and the growing needs of expanding the scope of agriculture in the region. At this pace of change, the Government of Meghalaya, India have introduced various development initiatives, new ideas and practices to increase the production and productivity of agriculture in the state
and to improve the source of livelihood of the farming community as well to overcome the problems faced by the farmers. Such newly introduced practices which are perceived as new by an individual or social system can be called as ‘innovation’. An innovation is an idea, practice or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption. Chris Eveleens (2010) reported that innovation is not only an idea; it is also the implementation of it. Ponniah et al. (2008), conceptualised innovation as the transformation of an idea into a new product in the market or a new or improved operational process or into a new approach or service. Klerkx et al. (2012) reported that agricultural innovation is not only about new technologies, it also requires a balance amongst new technical practices and alternative ways of organizing. On the basis of the context of the present study, ‘Innovative Agricultural Extension Practices’ had been operationally defined as the implementation of new ideas or practice in the field of extension in order to enhance capability of people for sustainable development and improving their quality of life. There is also a need to realize that the success of Agricultural Knowledge System depends on innovation being disseminated, adopted and practised by farmers. For instance,
*Corresponding author’s e-mail:
[email protected] 1 Pohkseh North, Shillong-793006, East Khasi Hills, Meghalaya. 2 Department of Agril. Extension, BCKV, Mohanpur, Nadia, West Bengal-741252
580
INDIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH
the innovative model of Agricultural Enterprise Facilitation Centre is a viable method for improving the status of production, productivity which can enhance food security for marginalized farmers in tribal areas (Vrutti Livelihood Resource Centre, 2014). The integration of ICT with conventional extension such as e-Arik reported that Sixteen fold less time was required by the farmers in availing the services through e-Arik and three fold less time was required to deliver the services to the farmers compared with the conventional extension system (Saravanan, 2013). Keeping in view of the presence of innovative agricultural and rural development practices in the state, the study was designed with the following objectives: 1. To identify some innovative extension practices prevalent in Meghalaya. 2. To determine the status of selected innovative extension practices prevalent in Meghalaya. 3. To find out the perceived benefits of innovative extension practices received by the farmers in Meghalaya. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study had been taken up in East Khasi Hills District of Meghalaya on the basis of functioning and coverage of innovative extension practices in the district. List of respondents for IASF and EFCs were collected from the Subject Matter Specialist of KVK, East Khasi Hills and Enterprise Resource Persons (ERPs) of Enterprise Facilitation Centres under Integrated Basin Development and Livelihood Promotion Programme (IBDPLP) respectively who acted as key informants in the study. Simple random sampling method was followed in selecting forty farmers from each of the two selected innovations launched in Meghalaya. Data was collected using a structured interview schedule. Statistical tools such as mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage were used for the study.
in North-East states of India. Funded by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India; C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing), Mumbai in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Meghalaya launched the Intelligent Advisory System for Farmers on 29th November 2012.The project covers four major farming activities (Insect Management, Disease Management, Weed Management and Fertilizer Management) for providing expert’s advice relating to diagnostic and remedial measures in localized content and languages. The system uses web-services with the seamless integration to National Mobile Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG) via push and pull services, thereby linking farmers with agricultural experts from the agricultural departments and KVK Subject Matter Specialists on real time basis. A Special feature of the service is the “Mobile Crop Doctor in which a registered farmer can send a direct query related to any farming activity supported by IASF in the form of Short Messaging Service (SMS) to 51969. All the registered crop experts will receive the SMS query from the farmer but only the first SMS answer sent by the registered crop expert will be forwarded to the farmer. The system has a database in which farmer’s queries are being stored and recorded along with its relevant solution. Further, the system also has an in built provision for sending periodic advisory through SMS to the registered farmers during the entire cropping cycle (IASF, 2014). In addition, the system act as a knowledge repository for major crops produced in the North-Eastern States of India. Around 2600 farmers have been registered with IASF and 1889 queries have been responded till date (http://iasf.cdacmumbai.in). The various stakeholders of IASF are shown in Fig.1.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Intelligent Advisory System for Farmers (IASF) It is an expert advisory system which aims at answering queries related to farming activities carried out
Availability of ICT tools by the farmers registered under IASF The graph presented in Fig.2 shows that hundred percent of the selected farmers under study possessed mobile phones followed by 60 per cent of the farmers having acces to radio, 53 per cent of the farmers to television and only 20
Fig 1: Stakeholders of IASF
Fig 2: Availability of ICT tools
Volume 50 Issue 6 (2016) per cent of the farmers have access to computers. This indicates that mobile phones are the most widely used by the farmers as it is more accessible and cost effective to the farmers. According to Table 1, majority of the farmers were middle aged farmers (53%), followed by young famrmers (37%) and old farmers (10%). The respndents comprises mainly of male farmers (70 %). Farmers with middle school education (45%)were in majority followed by Illiterate (33%)and farmers with secondary education (22%).With regard to landholding size, majority of the farmers had marginal landholding (62 %). It was also reported that farmers with medium level of income (70%) were dominant in the poplation followed by farmers with low income (30%). Perceived benefits of IASF Fig. 3 showed that 80 per cent of the respondents perceived that IASF has increased their knowledge of agricultural practices through periodic advisory service being sent. Around 20 per cent of the farmers perceived that IASF has resulted in cost and time saving as agricultural information and advisory service is being delivered right at their door step. Further, 27 per cent of the farmers reported that the ‘Mobile Crop Doctor’ in providing expert advisory service through direct queries has enabled them to influence their decision making ability in their farm.
581
Enterprise Facilitation Centres The Government of Meghalaya has set up Enterprise Facilitation Centres which is designed as onestop shop and a sensitive public interface for providing a structured information on Integrated Basin Development and Livelihood Promotion Programme (IBDPLP) which creates linkage with several agencies involved in enterprise building and providing land holding support for pledging microenterprises. EFCs are also regarded as grassroot level contact points between programme implementing agencies and citizens. In addition, EFCs also provide other extension services such as providing training to farmers, updating farmers with regard to EFCs via an SMS module using mobile phones as a medium of communication and reaching out to the nook and corner of the interior rural areas through a mobile multi facility van which acts as an EFC on wheels in order to provide enterprise related information to the registered partners. About 20,000 entrepreneurs in the state are being registered with Enterprise Facilitation Centres (EFCs) located at all the different blocks of the state. EFCs at the block level are run by Entrepreneur Resource Persons and Field Business Advisors at the village level as shown in Fig. 4. Profile of farmers registered in Enterprise Facilitation Centres: From Table 2, it was found out that majority of the farmers are middle-aged (52%) followed by young farmers (48%). There were more of female farmers (58%) registered as partners in Enterprise Facilitation Centres included in the Enterprise Resource Persons (Block level)
Field Business Advisors (Village)
Enterprise Facilitation Centres
Fig 4: Management of EFCs
Fig 3: Perceived benefits of Intelligent Advisory System for Farmers Table 1: Distribution of sample farmers registered under IASF
Characteristic
Category
Age
Young (50) Male Female Illiterate Middle school Secondary Marginal (>1 ha) Small (1-2 ha) Large (>2 ha) Low (>Rs33,750) Medium(Rs33,751-1,44,000) High (> Rs1,44,001)
Gender Education
Farm size
Annual Income
No. of farmers 15 21 4 28 12 13 18 9 25 15 0 12 28 0
Mean
S.D
41.5
8.68
-
-
1.82
0.71
0.82
0.31
1.7
0.46
Percentage (%) 37 53 10 70 30 33 45 22 62 38 30 70 0
582
INDIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH
Table 2: Distribution of sample farmers having contact with EFC
Characteristic
Category
Age
Young (50) Male Female
19 21 0 17 23
Illiterate Middle school Secondary
7 29 4
Marginal (>1 ha) Small (1-2 ha) Large (>2 ha) Low (>Rs33,750) Medium(Rs33,751-1,44,000) High (> Rs1,44,001)
37 3 0 30 10 0
Gender Education
Farm size
Annual Income
study as compared to male farmers (42%).With regard to level of educational qualification, majority of farmers had middle school education (72%) followed by illiterate farmers (18 %) and secondary education (10%).The farmers included in the study were also found to have a marginal size landholding (92%) followed by small farmers (8%). While majority of the farmers were reported to belong to low level of income (75%) followed by medium level of income (25%). Perceived benefits of EFC As shown in Fig.5 it was evident that 60 percent of the farmers were found to receive capacity building support by Enterprise Facilitation Centres through skill development programmes such as training, workshop and demonstration programme. Around 33 per cent of farmers reported that Enterprise Facilitation Centres act as an Information hub for them by providing structured information on various
Fig 5: Perceived benefits of EFCs
No. of farmers
Mean
S.D
35.9
8.68
-
-
1.9
1.0
0.5
0.46
1.2
0.43
Percentage (%) 48 52 0 42 58 18 72 10 92 8 0 75 25 0
package of practices of farming and as a result it enhances their decision making ability. It was also found that 27 percent of famers had a better access to credit with the help of Enterprise Facilitation Centres. CONCLUSION The implementation of Intelligent Advisory System for Farmers and Enterprise Facilitation Centres had facilitated the farmers of East Khasi Hills Distict to improve their agricultural and other rural activities. The result of the study on Intelligent Advisory System for Farmers showed that there is a scope of improving the agricultural practices of the farmers in Meghalaya through widening the role of Information and Communication Technologies in agriculture. Intelligent Advisory System for Farmers had been introduced recently and is in its nascent stage and therefore efforts should be made to spread awareness to the farmers about its existence and how it could benefit them in providing better access to information. The farmers also suggested that provision of inputs via Enterprise Facilitation Centres and demonstration of new technologies in agriculture would also help them to improve their income and help them set up a better farm enterprise. Based on the observations of the study implications can be drawn that there is a need to understand that provision of need based and area specific information related to farm practices could be one of the strategies to make Intelligent Advisory System for Farmers more effective and connected to the grass root level. However, these innovative interventions if properly utilized and harnessed through enhanced convergence and coordination of various efforts can help in boosting the productivity, welfare of the farmers and the overall agricultural development of the state.
Volume 50 Issue 6 (2016)
583
REFERENCES Eveleens, C. (2010). Innovation management; a literature review of innovation process models and their implications. NL: Lecture at the Innovative Public Sector.http.//www.scribd.com/doc/72251473/Innovation-Management-LiteratureReview#scribd. Accessed on 12th February,2014. GOI. (2011). Socio-Economic and Caste Census-Rural,Ministry of Rural Development. Government of India. IASF. (2014). Intelligent Advisory System for Farmers. http://iasf.cdacmumbai.in/ias/index.jsp Accessed on 13th January, 2014. Klerkx, L., Mierlo, B.V. and Leeuwis, C. (2012). Evolution of systems approaches to agricultural innovation: concepts, analysis and intervention. Farming Systems Research into the 21st Century: The new dynamic, DOI 10.1007/97894-007-4503-2_20,© Springer Science+ Business Media Dordrecht 2012. Page 457-483. Accessed on 27 th April, 2015. Ponniah A., Puskur, R., Workneh, S. and Hoekstra, D. (2008). Concepts and practices in agricultural extension in developing countries: A source book, published by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI),Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Vrutti Livelihood Resource Center. (2014). Agriculture Enterprise Facilitation Centers. http://www.vrutti.org/index.php/ projects/aefc.Accessed on 16th November 2013. Saravanan, R. (2013). e-Agriculture Prototype for Knowledge Facilitation among Tribal Farmers of North-East India: Innovations, Impact and Lessons. Journal of Agricultural Education and Extension.19: 113-131.
