Improving the socio-economic status of marginal farmers in Jorhat district of Assam through organic farming
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Date
2020-06
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AAU, Jorhat
Abstract
Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for most of the developing countries in the world. It is the largest economic sector in India and plays a significant role in the growth and development of the nation. About 70 percent of the population in our country is directly engaged in agriculture. Agriculture not only provide people with food and raw materials but also contributes to national income by bringing in valuable foreign exchange. After the green revolution was launched in India (1967-68), substantial increase in the production of food grains was achieved through the use of improved crop varieties, higher levels of inputs of fertilizers and plant protection chemicals. But it has now been realized that the increase in production was achieved at the cost of soil health and sustainable production at higher levels is possible only by the proper use of resources, to sustain the fertility of the soil. Therefore, organic farming has become one of the alternatives, which helps to overcome these problems by limiting the use chemical-synthetic inputs and through maintaining harmony with nature. Organic farming involves holistic production systems that avoid the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and genetically modified organisms, thereby minimizing their deleterious effect on environment.
The present study entitled “Improving the socio-economic status of marginal farmers in Jorhat district of Assam through organic farming” with the objectives, i) To develop a concrete understanding of the marginal farmers with special reference to knowledge, attitude and practice in organic farming, ii) To improve the capacity of marginal farmers through intervention programme on organic farming and iii) To find out the impact of intervention programme on organic farming in terms of improving the socio-economic status of marginal farmers.
The study was carried out in Jorhat district of Assam state which is one of the eight North Eastern states of India. All the six (6) blocks from both the Jorhat and Titabor sub divisions were purposively selected for the present study. All total twenty four (24) villages and 480 respondents were identified for the first objective of the present study. Further, total of sixty (60) marginal farmers from respective subdivisions of Jorhat district were selected for conducting second and third objectives of the study. Data were collected by using structured interview schedule. The findings revealed that 50.21 percent respondents of the study areas belonged to middle
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aged group i.e. (36-50 yrs). Large majority (84.17%) of respondents were married and 58.13 percent had farm size between 2.0-4.0 bigha. 57.29 percent respondents had education up to high school level, 49.58 percent had kaccha type of houses and 26.67 percent respondents engaged themselves in cultivation as main occupation and occupied as daily wage earner for cash income. 37.92 percent respondents belonged to ST/SC category, 66.04 percent possessed poultry as farm power followed by cow (65.00%). 91.67 percent respondents had mobile phone followed by television (80.83%). 55.00 percent respondents belonged to nuclear family, 57.50 percent had small size of family, 39.21 percent respondents had membership in only one formal social organization. As a whole 69.17 percent respondents belonged to medium socio-economic status category. Family land was used as cultivable land by majority of the respondents (67.08%) while 76.25 percent engaged themselves in farming without involving hired labour. It is very interesting to note that 95.63 percent respondents used seeds from their own farm. 79.17 percent respondents obtained fertilizer from their respective houses and 75.83 percent marketed their crops by themselves in the nearest market. 79.58 percent respondents had their own savings. 68.12 percent respondents had obtained agriculture related information from television. Majority of the respondents (66.02%) did not attend any training related to organic farming. Nearly half of the respondents (50.00%) never had contact with Agricultural Development Office followed by 48.96 percent with ATMA, 66.66 percent with KVK and 61.04 percent with NGO. 57.29 percent respondents sometimes had contact with AAU. Majority of the respondents (51.87%) sold their produce in the weekly market and 74.38 percent were regularly accessing mobile phone followed by watching television (70.42%). Respondents faced problems in accessing knowledge about organic farming (ranked I) followed by lack of man power (ranked II), high cost of production resources (ranked III), lack of adequate training on crop production (ranked IV) and attack crops by animals (ranked V). Majority of the respondents had medium level of achievement motivation (81.04%), economic motivation (61.45%), innovation proneness (66.13%), self-confidence (62.29%), risk bearing ability (83.12%) and leadership ability (69.37%). Majority of the respondents (62.92%) of had medium level knowledge on organic farming. 75.00 percent respondents had favorable attitude and 71.04 percent had moderate level of practice towards organic farming. The outcome of the intervention programme indicated that there were tremendous changes in knowledge and practice of the trainees. The overall picture of the knowledge level of trainees revealed differential knowledge score
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of trainees on soil fertility (ranked I) followed by pest control (ranked II) and application of manure (ranked III) achieved after the intervention programmes. Majority of the marginal farmers were found to be in the moderate and good practice category after the intervention programmes. The percentage of marginal farmers in moderate practice category ranged from 66.67-100.00 percent, while in good practice category percentage of marginal farmers ranged from 0-33.33 percent in the four villages. Majority of marginal farmers who were in poor and moderate practice category before the intervention programmes shifted to moderate and good practice category and those from moderate, graduated to the good practice category after the intervention programmes. The results revealed significant ‘t’ values for all the four villages. This is an indicator of the effectiveness of the intervention. To fulfill the third objective, impact study was carried out after six (6) moths of intervention programmes. The data reveals that 71.67 percent improvement was observed in business of the trainees along with cultivation after the six months of intervention programmes. This might be due to the reason that training programmes have aroused an interest among them for taking up of vermicompost as a business along with farming. They (13.33%) also spend money in buying electronic equipment especially mobile phone followed by capable of engaging additional paid labour for better production of vegetable crops (10.00%). They (10.00%) also engaged in other activities as daily wage earner for cash income along with cultivation as a main occupation. Nearly 8.34 percent respondent contributed cash money for improvement of their existing katcha house followed by 8.33 percent spend for possession of cow and 8.12 percent had encouraged to join social organization after intervention programme. Very less percentage of respondents were able to buy poultry (6.67%), household furniture (6.66%) and goatery (5.00%) to enhance their farm power. Only 5.00 percent respondents became self entrepreneur i.e. engaging themselves in grocery shop as start up business along with cultivation as a main occupation. It was also found that 48.33 percent trainees earned income in between Rs. 5000 - Rs. 6000 followed by 25.00 percent between Rs. 6000 - Rs. 7000, 16.67 percent up to Rs. 5000 and 10.00 percent above Rs. 7000 per month. Trainees were also motivated to save their earned money from selling organic product as well as vermicompost in different sources. Majority of the trainees (53.33%) saved in between Rs.1000- Rs.3000 followed by 25.00 percent saved below Rs.1000, 15 percent saved in between Rs.3000- Rs.5000 and 6.67 percent saved in between Rs.5000 and above per month. The psychological behavior of the respondents was improved after six months of intervention programmes.
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Majority of the trainees (91.67%) had medium level of innovation proneness followed by risk bearing ability (90.00%), economic motivation (85.00%), achievement motivation (81.66%), self-confidence (78.33%) and leadership ability (73.33%). It was interesting to note that 20.00 percent trainees had high leadership ability followed by self-confidence (18.34%), achievement motivation (16.67%), economic motivation (10.00%), innovation proneness and risk bearing ability (8.33%) after availing the intervention programmes.