Better Customer Relations through Farmer’s Clubs

Better Customer Relations through Farmer’s Clubs

- Nagesh kumar, (AGM(DD), NABARD , Kozhikode *

NABARD initiaed the Vikas Volunteer Vahini Programme, in 1982 as a social re-engineering strategy to foster better relationship between the most important micro level partners in development, namely, the Primary Lending Institution (PLI) at the grass root level and the farmer. The programme has since evolved itself keeping pace with developments in the field and has recently been rechristened as Farmers Club programme. NABARD provides financial assistance to the clubs for the initial three years.

The objective of the programme is to facilotate private capital formation in agricilture with the help of credit, with the adoption of most agro climatically appropriate and cost effective technology and agronomic practices. The programme also emphasizes on repayment ethics and importance of saving. The Mission of Farmer’s Club Programme is Development of Rural Area through Credit, Technology transfer, Awareness and Capacity building.

The agriculture scenario today is riddled with problems such as

Ø Low growth rate in production

Ø Low Productivity

Ø Low level of technology adoption and ineffective extension net work to effect lab to field technology transfer

Ø Predominance of monsoon dependent agriculture (rain fed farming).

Ø Un-remunerative Prices for agricultural produce etc.

Despite doubling of agricultural credit, the production of food grains is stagnant and the growth rate of the sector hovers around 2% which is almost half the growth rate of the Green Revolution era, which clearly brings to the that diffusion of technology and innovation to the farm level have been tardy in the post Green Revolution era.

Change agents like Farmers’ Club could make significant contribution to agricultural productivity and better price realization at farmers’ level. They could function as repositories of indigenous knowledge of agronomic practices of the locality. They could act as fora for interaction between experts and the farmers and adoption of newer and most appropriate technology for increase in productivity. They could identify newer avenues such as cultivation of medisinal Aromatic Plants (MAPs), Bio-diesel, Protected cultivation