Home Success ICAR releases compilation of success stories of 75,000 farmers, claiming increase in their income up to 200% in most states | India News

ICAR releases compilation of success stories of 75,000 farmers, claiming increase in their income up to 200% in most states | India News

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ICAR releases compilation of success stories of 75,000 farmers, claiming increase in their income up to 200% in most states | India News
NEW DELHI: Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) on Saturday released a report documenting success stories of 75,000 farmers from across the country, noting how technological and policy interventions could lead to overall 150-200% increase in their income in 2020-21 compared to 2016-17 in most of the states and how horticulture and livestock played a dominant role in achieving the target.
Released by agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar on the ICAR’s 94th foundation day, the report claimed that farmers in Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Puducherry recorded more than 200% increase in their overall income whereas most of the other states recorded increase in the range of 150-200%.
The report is a compilation of survey among progressive farmers, irrespective of their size of landholdings, in states where the ICAR and other government agencies intervened through state-specific plans for doubling farmers’ income and entrusted ‘Krishi Vigyan Kendras’ (KVK) to take up the challenge of achieving the target, keeping income in 2016-17 as the benchmark year and 2020-21 as the impact year.
It said the results reiterate the fact that doubling farmers’ income is possible across agricultural sectors, across the country and across the land classes, and science and technology driven increase in income is a reality and could be pursued nation-wide with necessary back-up from administrative and policy support.
The compilation could, however, just provide a broad message of ongoing efforts as India has nearly 14 crore landholding farmers with over 85% of them being marginal and small farmers whose landholding size is less than two hectares (five acres). Besides, the majority of the cultivable land falls in the rain-fed areas where the farmers have to face bigger challenges in pursuing farming and allied activities.
“The farmers’ trust in the ‘Krishi Vigyan Kendras’ is really a matter of pride…The compilation of success stories of 75,000 farmers will prove to be a milestone in the history of India,” said Tomar while referring to how these successful examples, reflecting the status of lakhs of others, can be replicated across the country to achieve the goal of doubling income of each and every farmer.
Under the ICAR’s state-specific plans for doubling farmers’ income, the 731 KVKs across the country have adopted villages and worked with a “technology-centric” approach to guide farmers in adopting innovative technological options and good agricultural practices.
The compilation shows the overall increase in income ranged from 125.44% in Ladakh to 271.69% in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and horticulture had the dominant share in total income of farmers in 14 states/UTs including Himachal Pradesh (67%), Ladakh (61%), Delhi (60%), Kerala (59%), Karnataka (58%), Goa (57%) and Gujarat (55%).
Though field crops’ share in total income is declining, it still remained as the dominant source of income in 11 states such as Punjab (30%), Haryana (39%), Rajasthan (42%), Uttar Pradesh (37%), Bihar (40%), Chhattisgarh (49%) and Madhya Pradesh (48%).
“Farm and non-farm enterprises constituted the major source of income for farmers in West Bengal, both in total income as well as additional income. In terms of additional income generated during the intervention period, horticulture was the dominant component in 17 states, including the three north-eastern states Sikkim, Meghalaya and Mizoram,” said the report.
ICAR claimed that all land classes benefited from the KVK interventions. Marginal farmers (with landholding of less than one hectare) realized an increase in income up to 298% in Haryana whereas such farmers got increased income of more than 200% in Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Assam.
On the other hand, small farmers (1-2 hectares) got maximum increase in their income in Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Puducherry and Himachal Pradesh. “Large farmers (landholdings of over 10 hectares) recorded the highest increase in income in Puducherry (405%) and West Bengal (377%). Very high levels of increase in income was also recorded by the large farmers in Arunachal Pradesh (275%), Maharashtra (234%), Jammu and Kashmir (218%) and Jharkhand (216%),” said the report.

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