CONCEPT OF LIVESTOCK BASED GROUP FARMING OR COMMUNITY FARMING IN INDIA
Group farming also known as community farming is a new concept in India. However Group farming involves the voluntarily pooling of land, labour and capital and cultivating in groups. This can help small farmers overcome their production constraints. Group farming or community farming is one of the best representations of how farming brings people together and creates food security. As the term implies, it denotes a method of farming which:
- Brings together marginal or small farmers
- Helps augment livelihood and
- Creates locally grown produce for the community around
It is also pertinent to note that in most instances of such community farming, the farmers use sustainable methods of growing crops and are doing so on small pieces of land. It is about local food production rather than producing commercial crops.
Small farmers face economic, technical & social challenges. Even in good productivity years, they undergo marketing hassles & seldom able to earn good profits. There low scale of production puts them into disadvantage, & these small farmers cannot compete & meet the market requirements, on other hand the globalization is posing step competition. Now there are good opportunities through globalization but farmers needs to overcome the first challenge of efficiency. Efficiency in resource utilization, adoption of modern technology, production of quality produce, processing & marketing. Its not possible for small farmers to raise their efficiency individually in attaining higher return per acre of land, per drop of water or per rupee invested. Drawing wisdom from age old experience. Together we stand and divided we fall,” Dr. Kapse, came up with a strong promising option of Group Farming to address above challenges. Dr. Kapse not only promotes group farming for just survival but as a bridge to prosperities. Through better income generating options, efficient application of technical interventions & thereby increasing the cost, benefit scenario in favor of farmers. As groups small farmers can come together to adopt modern technology & produce higher quality agri- produce & thereby can capture the emerging domestic markets as well as enter into world market. These groups can undertake the processing, value additive marketing activities united. Some of the objectives of group farming as conceptualized by Dr. Kapse are as narrated below. – Farmers should come together to help themselves. – Identifying the common needs, opportunities and potential & then orientation of farmers to come together. – Bringing together small farmers in clusters & developing the groups. – Adoption of suitable common cropping pattern on large scale by these groups & federation of these groups in cluster of villages. – Adoption of modern technology by the group farmers use of a common technology for production of high quality produce. – Adoption of advance irrigation systems like drip & sprinkler in cluster, & increasing water use efficiency Conservation of land & water resource on community basis & thereafter judicious use of these resources in a sustainable manner. – Bringing all crops including cereals under Drip Irrigation, no drop of water will be given to the field without Drip or Mirco Irrigation. Now a day, we speak lot about group-led extension. The group farming approach is also helpful in fastest adoption & speed of technologies. It is also offering us a great advantage to offer the farmers to improved technologies. Such a long term continuous adoption & use of technologies really crucial for overall development of farmers. Dr. Kapse is motivating farmers to adopt group farming since last 6-8 years.
The majority of Indian farms are too small to be economically viable. Some 86 per cent of farmers cultivate under two hectares, in fragments. Most lack access to irrigation, bank credit, up-to-date technical information, new technologies, and bargaining power in markets. A large proportion are women. Group farming can provide an institutional solution.
By forming groups, farmers can enjoy economies of scale, have more investible funds and skills, reduce input costs, and take measures to address climate change. Women can transcend social norms that restrict their access to institutions and markets, and gain independent identities as farmers.
many countries including Korea and Russia have been practicing it since many years.
Indian agriculture & Animal Husbandry Practice faces a crisis of sustainability and economic viability despite its positive growth rate during the current pandemic. Most farms are small and fragmented: 86 per cent of farmers cultivate two hectares or less. Most have little access to formal credit, irrigation, new technology and remunerative prices. They face the vagaries of climate change. And a large percentage of them are women, as more men migrate to cities.
Growing evidence suggests that group farming can provide an answer. Small farmers can pool their land, labour and capital, as well as share costs and benefits, to cultivate crops jointly. Indeed, group and joint farming can prove to be transformative for small farmers. By voluntarily pooling land and other resources, they can enjoy economies of scale, increase their investible funds, reduce labour and input costs, invest in innovative technologies and ecological practices, and enhance their bargaining power in the markets. Women farmers may overcome restrictive social norms, and gain managerial skills and independent identities.
Group farming can be done on either owned or leased land, or a combination of both. In Kerala, group farming is based largely on land leasing. Here the state government began promoting all-women group farms in the early 2000s, under its poverty-eradication mission, Kudumbasharee. Today there are over 68,000 such farms.
In Telangana, a smaller experiment to form 500 group farms was tried by the United Nations Development Programme in 2021, collaboratively with the central government, and implemented by a quasi-non-government (NGO) organisation, The Andhra Pradesh Mahila Samatha Society (APMSS). Here too, all-women groups depended largely on leased land, since few women own land.
In Bihar and north Bengal, however, where you also find all-male and mixed-gender groups, men often pool their own land.
Farmers need technical support and production incentives from the government, and, at least initially, a local NGO to guide them and help them gain experience with this new form of functioning.
The institutional design should also be thought through carefully, such as keeping the groups small, allowing some social heterogeneity of caste and religion among members, and connecting the groups in a federated structure, like Kerala did in creating the CDS. The crops grown should also suit local ecology and demand, and include commercial crops. This will enhance productivity and profits.
Mainly FPOs jointly market output and sometimes bulk input purchase. They rarely undertake joint cultivation, with farmers pooling land and labour. And there are only about 6,000 FPOs, many of which exist only in name. Group farmers, as I had mentioned, actually cultivate together.
However, group farms and FPOs could serve complementary functions. Clusters of group farms could register as an FPO for purchasing inputs and selling surplus output. But FPOs alone cannot help small and marginal farmers solve their production problems, or produce enough surplus to benefit from forming an FPO.
Today’s group farming programmes have adapted the successful self-help group model, which has worked for savings and credit. This model is based on principles of voluntariness, small group size, participatory decision-making and egalitarian relationships.
I believe that if the government were to seriously support group farming, it could institutionally transform Indian agriculture and farmers’ livelihoods.
Farm sizes
As per the Ministry of Agriculture and farmers Welfare, farm land sizes are classified from marginal to large as follows:
- Large- 10 hectares and above
- Medium – 4 to 10 hectares
- Semi-medium – 2 to 4 hectares
- Small – 1 to 2 hectares and
- Marginal – below 1 hectare
Small and marginal farms are typically used to grow staples and crops for personal consumption. Recent trends also show that small & marginal farmers are becoming wage labourers to shore up their income levels. According to a report on Agricultural Households, farmers with very small fields (less than 0.01 hectare) earned 55% of their monthly income from wages.
It may be correct to state that small farms, in isolation, are not capable of supporting a family in terms of monetary income but they can support a family with food. But, what happens to a farmer who does not have enough resources to cultivate their own land? Perhaps this is where community farming can play a bigger role.
India and group farming
When small farmers grow crops on small parcels of land, they are faced with numerous challenges such as access to financial support, irrigation networks and even weaker economic viability in the markets. But when a community of farmers decides to come together to unite their lands into a bigger and more feasible size, they get to enjoy more benefits.
Take the example of the work done by the Centre for Youth and Social Development (CYSD) in Odisha’s Tumajore village. This small village struggled with food insecurity. A group of marginal and small farmers came together under the aegis of the CYSD to take up community farming of the pointed gourd, known locally as parwal. With just 3.5 acres of land, these farmers were able to support 19 households with additional income in just 6 months. This initiative has grown tremendously since its origins in 2001.
Women are being helped in this space of community farming as well. One example of this is in Himachal Pradesh where women farmers are getting support from Prakritik Kheti Khushhal Yojana. Another instance is the Kudumbashree Mission in Kerala that is helping all-women farms by creating and sustaining Joint Liability Groups. This project started in 2000 and has reached over 68,000 farms today.
Community farming and its importance
- It consists of a group of small and marginal farmers, and landless poor in a village who work together to utilize the cultivable waste lands or under-utilized lands to earn their livelihoods.
- The participating farmers can either take community or individual land on lease; or can pool land of individual farmers in a contiguous patch for such farming
- Community farming offers many benefits to farmers who want to practice sustainable agriculture and to communities who want fresh, healthy, locally-produced food.
- Community farms are locally owned and operated, and democratically controlled. Local farms keep money circulating in their communities rather than exporting it to absentee owners or shareholders, and the benefits are passed on to local restaurants, farmers markets, retailers, and consumers.
- Community farms build ‘social capital’ by involving a diverse group of individuals – farmers, community members, and organizations – with different skills and knowledge.
- This social capital, or wealth, helps create community amenities beyond food production, including environmental and agricultural education, recreational opportunities, and nature conservation area.
SUCCESS STORIES OF GROUP FARMING
The first successful attempt of group farming initiated by Dr. Kapse is of Jiradgaon Village in Ghansavangi block of Jalna District. Dr. Bhagwanrao Kapse took innovative approach in building group of farmers. It’s not just small groups & sporadic successes but that they grow together to hold hand at village and at cluster of village level, they support each other to promote advance farming activities and establish successful techno-economic farming system development through constant guidance from Dr. Kapse and technical experts , guests which Dr. Kapse has network in various field. At the same time Dr. Kapse play critical role to involve the farmers from all economic categories, social classes & integrate them together in such way that they support and strengthen each other. Dr. Kapse also very effectively involve local leaders, political leaders & officials working in the districts to engage with farmer and create platform where all the issues and challenges are discussed and possible solutions are suggested. This has led in gaining a momentum & recognition of group farming. The first attempt of group farming led by Dr. Kapse by forming Indico Falotpadak Sangh Jiradgaon. In the project he has undertaken successful plantation of Kesar Mango on area 1000 Acre with altra modern technique i.e. high density, modern insitu, method of plantation which has been developed by Dr. Kapse and popularised as a Jiradgaon Method of Insitu Mango Plantation. In the second phase the crops like Pomegranate, Sweet Orange, Aonla & Custard Apple were also included in the project.
COMMUNITY DAIRY FARMING SCHEME (AMENDED 2021) OF GOA
Government has noticed that the small units of around 10 cow dairy farms are not much profitable to take up as a business entrepreneur. The farmers with limited land holding also find it difficult to expand the existing units due to scarcity of land and other infrastructure requirements. After going through the feasibility of the schemes, a concept of community dairy farming has been under consideration for long time to facilitate group of people coming together with a common intention to take up dairy farming on a community basis with common infrastructure support.
Therefore it is proposed to encourage such Community Dairy farming with minimum 50 milch animals and with latest ultra modern dairy equipments such as milk parlour, milk cooler and feed mixing plant etc which can be availed by community group of minimum 5 members.
OBJECTIVES
- To encourage larger Dairy units by farmers/groups to have dairy farming activities at a common place i.e. Community Group with minimum five unrelated members.
- To reduce the cost of production by sharing the infrastructure facilities like cattle shed, milk parlour, bulk milk cooler and feed mixing plant.
- To encourage farmers/Community groups to take up dairy business as an industry.
- To make the state self sufficient in milk production.
- To generate self employment to the unemployed youth.
- To provide clean and hygienic milk to the consumers of State of Goa.
ELIGIBILITY
- Any group having minimum 05 members and registered with competent authority ( Registrar of Co-operative Society)
- May desirably possess irrigated land for Green Fodder Cultivation or use other alternatives like silage, hydroponic etc as a source of fodder, in addition to the area for infrastructure developments of minimum 10000 sq. Mts.
- The scheme is applicable for new unit and expansion of the existing Community Dairy
- Each member of the group shall be resident of Goa for at least preceding five years with experience in dairy management/ Practical training for 15 days in dairy management
DOCUMENTS TO BE PRODUCED: The full fledged project report of the proposed unit along with the following required documents.
- Documents indicating the ownership of land in Form No. I & XIV/ Sale deed or copy of notarized lease deed or legitimized NOC from Land owner for a period of 12 years
- NOC and construction license from prescribed authority.
- Certificate of registration of the group from competent authority (Registrar of Co-operative Society)
- Letter from the Financing Institution having ECS system, willing to finance the beneficiary.
- Residence Certificate of each member issued by competent authority (preceding 05 years ).
- Consent for seeding and authentication of Aadhar / UID number
- Certificate of practical training in dairy management (of all the members)
- Passport size photograph of each applicant
- Survey site plan/plan of the cattle shed, Store room and other infrastructure proposed at the said unit of community dairy
- Notarised authority from group members to the leader of the group.
- Annexure showing the details of the group members.
