Innovation in Technology Assessment, Refinement and Dissemination through Group Approach

KVK has initiated the concept of group approach during the year 1996 for technology assessment, refinement and dissemination. Earlier an individual approach with farmers was also utilized by the KVK during the initial years, but owing to its limited advantages and other constraints of time, labor and cost, the KVK has initiated group approach to address the emerging problems and needs of the farming community.   Thus, the KVK has established Innovative Farmers Club (Prayog Pariwar) and farmers groups to innovate and modify the technology at the farmers’ field level.  The approach has helped to evolve a feedback mechanism that can be extended to the research and development department regarding the technology. In the next phase KVK has taken the concept of Farmers Club in the year 2001 at village level. The KVK has taken the help of NABARD for strengthening of Farmers Clubs at village level. The basic objective behind formulation of Farmers Club was to achieve the dissemination of technology at meso and micro level.  KVK has also initiated the formulation of Self Help Groups (SHGs) at micro level to involve the women in the agriculture development programme.  During the technology dissemination process through group organization, the KVK has formed a three-tier model for technology assessment, refinement and dissemination.

Innovative Farmers Club

During initial years, KVK has laid major emphasis on individual contact method  for technology dissemination.  KVK has very limited resources with which it was very difficult to attend the individual problems of the farming community. With the limited advantages of individual contact method, KVK has tried to develop a new methodology in consultation and coordination with the farmers.

            Many farmers are continuously experimenting in their field using indigenous and exogenous techniques.  The results obtained by them are not replicated to other farmers due to lack of group contact, lack of institutional support to these innovative farmers, poor interaction and communication between the farmers, poor input and infrastructure support.

Keeping all these aspects in view, the KVK has developed the concept of Prayog Pariwar i.e. Innovative Farmers Club by involving all the innovative farmers.  With the limited participation of 25 innovative farmers during inauguration, KVK today is working with more than 700 farmers.  This concept was launched in the month of June 1996. The farmers involved in the club were operating various enterprises like agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry and     dairying.

Objectives

n        To identify commodity wise problems and make available solutions through experimentation.

n        Assessment and refinement of technologies based on the farming situation.

n        To develop leadership among the farmers to carry out the work

n        To exchange information, ideas, skills, resources among each others

n        To develop the feedback to research, development and input-service 

            providers regarding the commodity.

n        To replicate the technology developed among the farmers.

The members of Prayog Pariwar are from the different parts of the district having expertise in different commodities.  These farmers are being identified and regular meetings of such farmers are being organized at KVK to share the experiences of their field of experiments.  This has helped to develop the technologies or refine the available technologies.

Development of Master Trainers

            Based on the technology available with the farmers, KVK has identified commodity-wise master trainers.  These trainers were provided the communication skill and exposure at different places so that they can be further developed in their field of interest.  These master trainers are now being used by the development department for further dissemination of technology.  Similarly Farmers Clubs and SHGs are also inviting the master trainers to deliver the lecture. 

            Total 29 master trainers are developed in nine technologies.  These master trainers are used in the design and implementation of FLDs and OFTS, so that the results obtained can be disseminated further.  While development of master trainers, more focus was given on the high value crop, poultry and goat management.  The technologies like fertigation, biopesticides and biofertilizers, planting methods, soil management, export quality production, irrigation management and development of successful agro based enterprises are disseminated through these master trainers

New Initiatives Introduced by KVK through Prayog Pariwar

Outcome

Æ        Faster assessment and refinement through the members of this club for development of location specific technology

Æ        The adoption of the technologies is more than 50 per cent in the KVK villages that is being spread in the district also.

Æ        The members of this club are involved by many departments to implement various activities in the villages.

Æ        Many members are appointed on the different committees, received awards and recognition from the Government of Maharashtra and India.

Farmers Club

            KVK has initiated Farmers Club programme in the year 2000-01.  Initially KVK has established 65 Farmers Clubs in the KVK operational area.  In the consecutive years this figure has increased to 148 Farmers Clubs. The responsibility of chief volunteer of the Farmers Club was given to the member of the Prayog Pariwar from respective village during formation of the Club.   The Farmers Club has been financially supported by NABARD.  The members involved in the club are from different enterprises and age groups.  To strengthen the various activities such as technology transfer, inputs, services and consultancy, KVK has promoted one club in each village.  The main objectives behind formation of clubs are:

·        Proper utilization of credit to adopt the technologies for intensification and diversification of agriculture and allied enterprises

·        To develop thrift and saving habit among the members

·        Collective purchase, production, development of resources and marketing

·        To disseminate the technologies around the success stories.

Working Pattern at the KVK Level

·         Develop federal structure

·        Quarterly review meetings

·        Season-wise interface between chief coordinators, scientist and other stakeholders

·        Need based training programme for the members of the club on improvement of productivity and value addition

·        HRD of the interested club members in specific crop

·        Involvement of rural youth, female members in the vocational skill oriented trainings for employment generation

·        Annual progress review workshops

Working Pattern at Village Level

            Members of the Farmers Club conduct meetings and other programmes based on their needs.  Communication network among themselves have been developed through which exchange of ideas, inputs, services and resources is being done by them.  KVK conducts quarterly meetings to develop the plan and review the work of the clubs.

Total 148 Farmers Clubs established in 146 villages of 10 tehsils of the district covering 2977 farm families directly.

Activities Undertaken by the Clubs

Output of Farmers Club

Improving Productivity

            The KVK has initiated the concept of technology transfer through Farmers Club i.e. Technology Transfer Clubs (TTC).  For implementation of any programme at village level, the Chief Volunteers play an important role during identification and selection of farmers   In the village, programmes are being implemented through Farmers Clubs.  Entire planning, implementation, feedback of the programme is being done by involving these members.  This has enhanced the adoption of technologies.  The technologies like planting methods in sugarcane, seed production techniques in soybean, bengal gram and groundnut, IPM in cotton and red gram, fertigation techniques in pomegranate and grapes, INM in wheat, onion and vegetables are some of the technologies where maximum Farmers Club members are involved.

 Diversification in the Existing Enterprise

With the continuous efforts of KVK and Farmers Clubs, present farming and cropping system has changed considerably through diversification.  For this purpose the KVK has provided necessary support like linkages with concerned agencies and supplied critical inputs and services.  The club has introduced diversified commodities like fig, grape, brinjal, bottle gourd, okra, tomato, and marigold first time in the village.  This has resulted in increase of income from agriculture and they have become an important resource person for other farmers.

 Self-employment Generation through Club

            To increase the participation of male and female rural youth for vocational courses, the volunteers of the clubs are playing very important role by motivating them for courses as well as to set up the units for employment generation.  Many employment generating units have been started either by the members of Farmers Clubs, SHGs or rural youths from the village.  The group is supporting them for production, purchase and sale. 

Use of Inputs and Services Made Available by KVK

            Due group approach the response to the inputs and services started by the KVK has increased.  All the inputs and services have been started based on needs and feedback of the members.

Farmers Club Prepares their Village Action Plan

            KVK has continuously motivated Farmers Club to develop village action plan.  Initially the KVK arranged a detailed training to prepare action plan based on POIN among them.    Farmers Club are preparing action plan every year and based on their action plan, KVK develops the plan and starts working with them.

Financial Empowerment

            Since the Farmers Clubs are linked with the banks, the KVK has tried to cultivate saving and thrift habits among the members that have helped to develop healthy and fruitful linkages with the bankers for loan recovery and credit support.  Similarly use of Kisan Credit Card, saving through collective purchase and marketing, sharing of the resources have helped to economize the production costs.  Similarly some Farmers Clubs also started SHGs for credit mobilization among themselves.  Schemes and programmes of the Government have also helped them to adopt new concepts and reap more returns.

Socio-psychological Changes Among the Members of the Club

            After formation of the club, it was observed that the sharing of information and knowledge has increased among them and reduced the conflict.  The exchange of inputs and resources among them has increased resulting in development of confidence about the group approach to face the adverse scenario.

            Change in attitude, aspiration towards adoption of technologies and involvement in information and knowledge seeking behavior have been some important socio-psychological changes that have taken place due to formation of the club.

Documentation and Record Keeping

            KVK has made major intervention to trained members to maintain their documents and records related to their farm, crop and produce.    Use of inputs, input use efficiency, produce handling, sale and profit are the important records maintained by members with some photographs, news etc.  This has helped to get some awards at district and state level to the members of Farmers Clubs.

Linkages Developed

            The Clubs have developed strong linkages with the agriculture development departments, SAUs and private companies.  Through this linkages Farmers Clubs have initiated various concepts like contract farming, seed production, provided support for raw material procurement, conducted trials and demonstration, established new enterprises, helped the development of infrastructure and resources in villages on collective basis etc.  These clubs have become the extension support agencies for various organizations.

Use of IT services

IT services started at KVK and the members of Farmers Clubs for production, marketing and agriculture related decision making services are using villages.  This has helped them to develop linkages with important markets and enabled them to take important decision during the critical crop conditions.

Awards and Honors

            Due to involvement in various activities for agriculture development, Farmers Clubs have been nominated by various agencies. Five chief volunteers have received prestigious awards of state agriculture departments.  Total 15 members have been selected in ATMA committees at district and taluka level.  Many members have been elected as board of directors of co-operative sugar factories and co-operative banks.  Similarly some of them are also the members of Grampanchayat,  Block panchayat and Zilla Parishad.

Women Empowerment through Self Help Groups

            KVK is intensively working for the upliftment of rural community i.e. farmers, farmwomen and rural youths by providing diverse technical knowledge and skills so that the production in agriculture and self-employment can be improved.  The response of farmers and rural youths has been encouraging since beginning.  However, the response from farmwomen in all the agriculture development and technology dissemination process has been very less.  Therefore, KVK has tried a distinct concept to involve more women in the KVK activities.  Initially KVK conducted PRA to identify the problems, opportunities, issues and needs among the farmwomen.  It was found that though 70-80 per cent women are involved in agriculture operation, the farmwomen are not coming forward to seek the technology for adoption at their field.  This was mainly due to poor literacy, exposure and inadequate knowledge about the problem and solutions available, lack of availability of credit/ financial support to adopt the technology and poor involvement in decision making process.  Due to the lack of information, knowledge and skills, the farmwomen are not actively involved in the mainstream extension programmes.

            In view of all the facts, KVK has developed the vision to empower the farmwomen socio-economically so that they can support the livelihood security of their family.   With this vision, Home Science department started a mission approach of formation of Self Help Groups (SHGs) of women so that they can be actively involved in the programmes conducted by the KVK as well as other agencies also.

             SHGs formation started in the year 2001-02 for the rural women including farmwomen and landless laborers who are involved in the farm as well as non-farm activities.  Separate SHG Cell has been established under the Home Science department.  Three community organizations and two master trainers were provided to this department so that they can implement this activity effectively.   SHG activity is focused in northern part of the district where KVK can easily monitor the activities.

KVK has formed 485 SHGs involving 7275 members in 92 villages of five tehsils of the district.  All these members are networked with the KVK for technology, bank for credit and with SHGs for their own development.

            To increase the participation of the women in the process of the technology transfer, the SHGs are net worked through three-tier extension model developed by KVK.  Technology dissemination and credit mobilization are basic objectives of these SHGs.  KVK is conducting training, demonstration, technology assessment and refinement as well as dissemination.  In all these activities, SHGs are actively involved directly or indirectly.  Due to their group approach, the participation of women in different programmes has been increased significantly.

            After formation of SHGs KVK has given first priority for need assessment.  The technical programme and credit linkages are designed as per need assessment.  KVK is monitoring their activities and motivating them by participating in monthly meetings, training them to maintain the account records, meeting registers, to discuss the issue related to agriculture, health, education as well as their own personal problems.  The monthly meetings are very important for credit mobilization as well as to take the decision for their empowerment.  Similarly, KVK is able to get the feedback from such meetings to improve the activities.  Every year two meetings i.e. pre-kharif and pre-rabi is being conducted for the presidents of each SHG so that programme planning can be carried out for them.  All the process is totally participatory and is based on bottom up planning that has given a favourable response.

Financial Empowerment

            Total saving of these SHGs is Rs. 304.34 lakhs.  The banks have provided Rs. 63 lakh credit and SHGs have a total turnover is 458.13 lakh.  This amount is being used to meet financial needs and cater to their problems related to agriculture, education or family health.  Many SHGs have also started new enterprises or strengthened their existing enterprises to increase the income of their family.

Credit Link with Bank

            Out of 485 SHGs, 237 SHGs have established credit linkage and received Rs. 63 lakh credit.  These SHGs are linked with 27 branches of 7 nationalized and one district co-operative bank. The amount of credit linkage varies from Rs. 10,000/- to Rs. 1,50,000/- per SHG with average amount of Rs. 26,582/SHG.  Some SHGs are financially so strong that they are not willing to take loans from bank. Besides their regular credit links with banks, KVK has also initiated a new concept i.e. micro finance support to groups through Prime Minister Rojgar Yojana (PMRY).  Under this scheme total 24.30 lakhs has been sanctioned by DIC and Banks benefiting 45 SHGs.

Details of Financial Support to SHGs through PMRY Scheme

Technological Empowerment

            KVK is continuously making efforts to impart the skill in various agriculture and non-agricultural enterprises for improving productivity and employment generation.  With the technical intervention by KVK and credit available with SHGs, the adoption and dissemination of various technologies have increased.  As a result numerous enterprises have started with KVK’s technical support as per need of that area.  The training calendar is developed as per the needs and convenience of the SHG members.  KVK SMS as well as resource persons from outside are utilized to train the farmwomen.  For this purpose, some master trainers are also being developed by KVK.  For conducting any programme like training, demonstrations, OFTs or any other programme, the selection of the beneficiaries is being done by the SHGs.  SHGs are involved from the selection of the beneficiaries up to result recording and feedback, which has given good impact on technology adoption and diffusion. Experience sharing among the groups, annual gathering of SHGs to showcase their activities through exhibitions, organization of theme based monthly programme to SHG members, providing the general entrepreneurship skill and organization of the various activities to motivate the farmwomen have helped to increase the response of the women to various activities.  KVK has developed the brand name "Vasundhara" for the products of the SHG and participating in the different exhibitions and melawas.  This has helped in developing market network for the SHG products.  

Due to SHG activities, besides economic impact there was also social impact.  Some members have been appointed in different committees at village, tehsil and district level.  Similarly some SHG members are also being invited for lecture on technology or improve the skill of some enterprise.

Economic Impact

Employment Generation

Outcome                  

            Bankers usually request a number of documents for extending the credit facility to the SHG members, which was very cumbersome for the illiterate SHG members. On suggestion and intervention of KVK, the banks have stopped this practice and now the bankers are only demanding basic documents for credit availability.

            Various Institutions and departments have also extended benefits to the SHG members as they have shown 100 per cent repayment among themselves. All the development departments are using SHGs to select the beneficiaries as well as implement the activities in the villages.