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OUT REACH CENTRE: AN INNOVATIVE INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH FOR TECHNOLOGY APPLICATION IN AGRICULTURE & ALLIED FIELDS AT NORTH & MIDDLE ANDAMAN DISTRICT, INDIA

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Title OUT REACH CENTRE: AN INNOVATIVE INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH FOR TECHNOLOGY APPLICATION IN AGRICULTURE & ALLIED FIELDS AT NORTH & MIDDLE ANDAMAN DISTRICT, INDIA
Not Available
 
Creator S.K.Zamir Ahmed
S.Dam Roy
 
Subject PRA, technologies, varieties, strains
 
Description Not Available
In this complex diversified risk prone micro-farming ecosystem, lot of differences exists in the natural resource base, as well as the socio-economic background of people inhabited in far flung areas of the Islands. Therefore, the technologies/ varieties/ and strains developed in agriculture & allied fields at Port Blair, cannot be straight away transferred to the farmers elsewhere. It needs field evaluation and refinement in participatory mode to suit the preference of the farmers /stakeholders and also the local condition, in order to foster adoption for livelihood options. To accomplish the mission, and in absence of KVK in the North & Middle Andaman District, an innovative approach for reaching the unreached was conceptualized and an Out Reach Centre (ORC) under the Farmers Technology Transfer Fund (FTTF) of NABARD, was operationalised. The basic purpose was to serve Diglipur area, which is agriculturally very important region of this UT, through
technology application in agriculture & allied fields, which is 290 km. by road and 180 km by sea, away from the capital city Port Blairof ANI. To plan and monitor the activities of the ORC, a Project Monitoring Committee (PMC) was constituted on 30th April 2009.Based on the recommendation of the PMC a team from the Institute along with the Cordinator of the ORC visited Diglipur.They interacted with the PRIs and key informants for selection of site, and therafter a ground floor building with agricultural land surrounding was identified and selected at Kerelapuram Panchayat of Diglipur for establishing ORC. First PMC meeting was conducted on 17th June 2009 at Port Blair, to plan and execute various activities of the ORC. The prime objectives were set and ORC became functional from 15th July 2009. Since, then the sojourn of ORC begain, with the doable technological application for doubling the income of the farmers in a sustainable way. To foster introduction of technologies in agriculture and allied fields coupled with good agriculture practices, significant bottlenecks were identified. Accordingly the interventions to address such as technology assessment, validation, refinement and transfer in agriculture and allied fields, capacity building programmes, technological demonstrations, exposure visits, scientists-farmers-interaction, field visits and field days with the support of the Scientists and staff of the host Institute, KVK, Line Department, NGOs and PRI members became the bottom line of the ToT programmes. This has given fillip to the farmers and other stakeholders of the area. It is known that like other parts of the A& N Islands, North and Middle Andaman region of the UT also receives rainfall, which is distributed very unevenly, leading to poor crop management and loss of crop. No such system was available in the area to provide information on the rainfall received and also to forecast weather for the area. Even the newspapers were found to reached Diglipur, 12 to 24 hours after its publication at Port Blair, which is the capital city of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Hence a “Rain Gauge”, a low cost equipment to measure rainfall was placed with the technical support of Division of Natural Resource Management (NRM) of CIARI on 24th October, 2009. This could supplement information on the quantum of rainfall received to the officials of line departments as and when required, for enabling them to assess the crop damages in case of inclement weather in the area. Pekin duck was introduced in July 2010, for the first time in Diglipur, which has become favourite of the small farmers and has spread across different cluster of villages during 2013 to 2016 with 2-3 birds in the backyard of more than 81 farmers involving 466 ducks. To facilitate value addition in coconut a “Bio-mass fired copra dryer” was constructed, tested in the host Institute by the team of Scientist of NRM and was placed in one of the progressive farmer’s field at Diglipur on 12th August, 2010, with an aim to produce quality copra in both less time, labour and disseminate the information on the technology to the peer groups. For giving exposure to IT and user friendly techniques to famers in technology application, Kiosk with internet connection was set up at ORC on 25th October 2010, so that the farmers can use the Kiosk and also get access to the internet to acquire scientific know how and do how on new technologies and adopt them in their farm and fields. During survey it was found that cultivation of pulse crop is done in large scale at Diglipur and surrounding areas, which after harvest is sent to mainland for processing and then brought back again and sold in the market, at four to five times more than purchase price mainly due to lack of any processing unit. ORC intervened on setting a Mini dal mill on 17th April, 2011,as a community asset to the SHG, with the technical support of Division of NRM, which was operationalized on 10th November 2012. A need for a Metrological Information System was felt and a Automatic Weather Station (AWS) was set up in Diglipur, near to the ORC office-cum-training building at Kerelapuram with the support of NRM Division on 10th February 2011, which was the first intervention for Diglipur. After establishment of this setup, the weather could be forecasted and the information was disseminated to the farmers through advisory in print and Rural Knowledge Centre. The farmers could do effective management of the crops both during kharif & rabi season. A survey on rice varieties grown at Diglipur revealed that the farmers grow varieties, which were of mixed type leading to poor yield in the field. To address to the problem and with an objective to provide truthfully labelled seeds the concept of seed village in participatory mode was introduced in July, 2011. As per this, Seed village production of HYV of rice through “Seed Village Concept” was carried out for the first time at Diglipur, under the aegis of ORC, and with the technical support of Division of Field Crop Improvement and Protection in an area of 0.95 ha initially covering 3 cluster of villages, with nine promising varieties of rice. For the last five years in succession a total of 352.59 Quintals of TLS have been produced till date under the guidance of the plant breeders of the Institute. PRA followed with field survey was conducted in December 2015, after introduction of the promising nine (9) rice varieties in 2010, through technological application in participatory mode to 373 farmers covering 100.09 ha till 2016. It was found that a total of 4919 farmers have adopted the HYV’s varieties of rice in the total area of 2109.063 ha spread over 35 cluster of villages at North Andaman. Rice variety Gayatri shared 1259.31 ha of area followed by CARI Dhan 5 (284.82 ha), CSR 36(225.61 ha), CARI Dhan 4 (181.06 ha), CARI Dhan 3(79.41 ha), CSR 23 (55.11 ha), Ranjeet (20.68 ha), CARI Dhan 6 (2.26 ha) and CARI Dhan7 (0.56 ha.) respectively. This indicates good horizontal spread of the varieties, through seed replacement of farmer’s varieties with CIARI’s varieties to the tune of 15 percent. There is good potential for increasing the production and also the productivity with the crop varieties adopted by the farmers in the coming years. Based on the demand, the seeds of rice varieties have been provided to farmers, NGOs, KVK, Nimbudera & Department of Agriculture, A & N Administration for its multiplication and distribution to the farmers in all the Districts. To address to the need and huge demand mainly for fresh water Indian Major Carps (IMC) concept of “Satellite nurseries for IMC “ to support livelihood was established in collaboration with Fisheries Science Division of CIARI, Dept. of Fisheries, A&N Administration, KVK & ORC and nurseries were set up in June 2012, for providing quality fish seeds and livelihood support. Farmers from Diglipur & Nimbudera cluster of villagers have came forward to follow the concept and have earned good remuneration of Rs. 2 to 2.5 lakhs in span of 4 to 5 months.
Through technological demonstrations in agriculture and allied field jointly by the team of scientists of Division of Field Crop Improvement and Protection & Horticulture and Forestry in the farmers fields at Diglipur under the aegis of ORC of the Institute, sixteen varieties i.e. 4 in Rice ( CIARI Dhan 6, 7, 8 & 9), one in Poi (CIARI Poi 1), five in mung (CIARI Mung 1, 2 , 3, 4 &5), two in Urd (CIARI urd 1,2), in mushroom (CIARI Mush 2), two in Amaranthus (CIARI Lal Marsha & Haritha) and CIARI brinjal 2 could be validated and developed in participatory mode during 2013 to 2016. These varieties have been released by Institute Variety Release Committee for the benefit of farmers and other stakeholder’s. Over the years the spread of the variety will enhance the production and productivity due to its adoption in A & N Islands. For conducting effective technology dissemination numerous programmes viz., technological demonstrations in kharif & rabi (593 Nos), capacity building (141 Nos.), kisan gosti (07 Nos.), scientistsfarmers interaction (13 Nos.), exposure visit during kisan mela and farm innovators meet (04 Nos.), awareness campaigns (02 Nos.), 3826 field visits by experts and staff, 6533 clientele visited ORC for advisory, information sharing and feedback, 133 telephonic advisory, field days (07) and participation in block melas (02 Nos.) were done. For facilitating livelihood support, technological interventions viz., Model satellite nursery of fresh water fish, pig, goat farming, Pekin ducks under backyard, SRI of rice, Mini dal mill, HYV of rice, pulses (urd & mung), maize, tuber crops (sweet potato, elephant foot yam), groundnut, oilseeds (Sunflower), brinjal, cauliflower, cabbage, seed village concept of production of rice, pheromone traps for rhinoceros beetle control, rodent and pest management in paddy were introduced successfully. Sixteen farmers clubs were formed to federate them into producer group. Beside, 5400 farmers have been linked with ORC and the database prepared. Till date, 35 clusters of villages have been covered through technological appilication in agriculture & allied fields. Market survey on perishable goods (rice, pulses, vegetables, fish, chevon and pork), both purchase and sale rate along with export and import of the essential commodities has been recorded since inception and the informatmon is translated during capacity building and other interaction programmes. This has given insight on the potential and prospects of crops, market avenues and opportunities of livelihood for youth and other stakeholders. Twenty one farmers have been recognized by the peer groups and awarded with “Best Farmer Award” during Island kisan mela and farm innovators meet by CIARI for becoming the role models by adoption of technologies in agriculture and allied fields as a livelihood options. Beside the custodian and the innovative farmers have also been recognized during the period. The iceing on the cake was the falicitation to the Karen Community of the Webey village, of North & Middle Andaman with “Plant Genome Saviour Award” by PPV & FRA, GoI, New Delhi on 21st December, 2016, for conservation of the traditonal rice varieties for more than 125 years, which is first of its kind for the island farming community. ORC of CIARI supported by NABARD, has acted as a centre stage between the researcher, line departments and front line extension worker and has taken a lead role to cater to the needs of the farmers / stakeholders in the field of agriculture & allied. The group approach adopted in technology application through participatory mode has resulted in perceptible change in the crop/ cropping patteren, better renumeration per unit area, thus leading to socio-economic uplitment and empowerment, which is a positive transformation in the lives of the target clientle(s). To sumup, the Out Reach Centre (ORC), of Diglibur an innovative institutional approach for technology applicaion at North & Middle Andaman has played a pivotal role in “FIRST LINE TRANSFER of selected doable technologies for doubling the income of the farmers in sustainable manner.
NABARD Port Blair
 
Date 2018-11-15T04:53:41Z
2018-11-15T04:53:41Z
2017-03-23
 
Type Book
 
Identifier Out Reach Centre: An Innovative Institutional Approach for Technology Application in Agriculture & Allied Fields at North & Middle Andaman District, India (2017) S.K.Zamir Ahmed & S.Dam Roy, CIARI , NABARD, Port Blair, Pp:132
978-93-85418-16-7
http://krishi.icar.gov.in/Publication/handle/123456789/11356
 
Language English
 
Relation Not Available;
 
Publisher Director, ICAR-CIARI, Port Blair