Dr. Banarsi Lal and Dr.Shahid Ahamad
Lack of awareness on micro-entrepreneurship in agriculture renders many micro-entrepreneurs to shy away from agro-processing in rural areas. Almost every district has been experiencing this kind of problem. The results are catastrophic to the small farmers whose meager market surpluses do not attract the corporate, large scale organised industrialists. We observe that a large number of farmers do not able to find out buyers for their market surpluses at their farm level. All forms of infrastructure viz., physical infrastructure, economic infrastructure, electronic infrastructure and knowledge infrastructure is lagging in rural areas. As there is low technology base, the small and marginal farmers are engaged in low productive activities, turning out primary products without adding value in rural areas. Every year, the small farmers produce is sold at distress prices or at times when crop is not even harvested. Appropriate technologies can bring higher value to the produce like fruits, vegetables, milk etc. due to higher market value. It will generate employment among the workers in the value addition, maintenance of infrastructure and trading. Planned technologies can affect positively the quality of rural employment.
Agro-industries are accorded a prominent position in National Employment Policy. This sector contributes for about 40 per cent of factory-sector employment, 26 per cent of total output and 21 per cent in value addition in the organised sector. This sector has generated low level of capital per person. According to the Planning Commission this sector is one of the most promising sectors in employment generation. Some of the self-employment avenues are in the form of micro and small enterprises. Agri-clinic and Agri-business Centres fall in this category. Agri-clinics and Agri-business centres can help in bringing science and technology knowledge inputs to the average illiterates and low-skilled farmers and provide the benefits of scale and access to infrastructure and markets to the small and marginal farmers. Some of the activities that are taken by the Agri-clinic and Agri-business Centres are as following:
* Maintenance, repair and custom hiring of agricultural implements.
* Soil and water-cum-inputs testing labs.
* Pest surveillance, diagnostic and control services.
* Seed processing.
* Micro- propagation through plant tissue culture labs.
* Setting up of vermiculture, biofertilisers, biopesticides and biocontrol units.
* Setting up of beekeeping units.
* Provision of extension consultancy services.
* Facilitation of agricultural insurance services.
* Setting up of aquaculture units.
* Provision of livestock health services.
* Setting up of value addition units.
* Setting up of information technology kiosks in rural areas.
* Setting up of post harvesting centres for grading, storage and packaging.
* Food processing and testing units.
* Setting up of retail marketing outlets for agri-products.
In order to encourage the flow of science and technology benefits to small and marginal farmers, the Government has decided to encourage graduates in agriculture and allied sectors with institutional financial support to set these Agri-clinic and Agri-business Centres. Self-employment seeking youths can set up these centres either individually or on group basis.
The key success of micro-enterprise projects for rural poor lies with the productivity of an enterprise. The training experience of rural youths for self-employment indicates that there exists enormous scope for increasing the viability through technology upgradation in a number of product lines. With identification of appropriate rural technologies and their popularisation among user population, the number of viable self-employment opportunities for the enterprising youths can be very large. It has been observed that with innovative technology support, the rural poor can build very attractive self-employment opportunities. Some technologies pass the yardstick of technical viability and feasibility. This can be labour-intensive, local resource based and help in adding value to the waste material. The technology of sugarcane thrash processing into fuel briquettes in the sugarcane fields is a classical example of a promising labour intensive employment generating technology which could not pass the test of market due to the distorted macro-economic policies in the country. Appropriate technologies have enormous potential to increase the productivity of agri-based enterprises and thus help in generating employment opportunities. Although developing technologies is a challenge, their transfer is very important for this potential into a reality. Technologies transfer policies should be flexible and encourage provision for innovation and experimentation.
For policy intervention six categories are needed: (i) Identification and popularisation of low-cost technologies. (ii) Redesigning research and development agenda of state funded science and technologies institutions to address the technology for small farmers. (iii)Organising small farmers into viable units.(iv)Encouraging science and technologies institutions with the necessary funds.(v)Permitting science and technologies institutions to enter into memorandum of undertaking on risk and reward sharing with the technology user groups.(vi)Developing farm markets in the form of infrastructure, storage, handling and processing capacity and providing connectivity to small farmers.
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