Homestead Production Systems in Coastal areas of North 24 Parganas – Current Status and Oportunities

Abstract

part of the daily household activities and way of life. They contribute significantly towards meeting the daily needs of food and nutrition, cash income, and employment for the whole family, mitigating price or output shocks due to unforeseen events and the overall fight against poverty. A survey was conducted in coastal blocks in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal to understand the current status and opportunities to improve the HPS towards better livelihoods of the farming communities. Resource use of HPS can be more productive and contributing to the goal of regional food security. There is a need to enhance the production capacity of HPS. To achieve this, farmers need assured supply of quality inputs and training on production management of all enterprises, fish, vegetables and livestock. Since HPS is an all-out family affair, training programs should focus on the whole family, including men, women and children (12-18 years of age). In addition to training, farmers need technical and financial support to enhance their investment capacities as well as technical support to make the resources use more productive. Enhancing production level would increase the quantity of marketable surplus and thereby more contribution to the regional production. Therefore, the role and contribution of HPS deserves more importance and attention at the national level. Quantification of tangible outputs and valuation of the intangible outputs from HPS is quite complex and difficult. There is a need to develop quantitative techniques and protocols for its valuation. However, production of commodities from HPS is small in quantity, non-capital intensive, and the scope for increasing the area under HPS is limited. Therefore, HPS are weakly linked with market demand. In general, the HPS in the study area could not be termed as market responsive i.e., the supply-demand situation has very limited scope to alter the production level of these commodities. However, vegetable production systems under HPS are more intensive, using more modern technology (seeds, chemicals) and more market demand responsive than the aquaculture production systems which were more of traditional.