“The aim is to shift from a production-driven extension to a market-driven extension. Farmers will come together and have value additions to their produce,” according to E. Vadivel, State consultant for the collective farming project.
He was speaking at a State-level seminar on ‘Collective Farming’ at the Agriculture College and Research Institute, Madurai.
In the market-driven extension, the price and the demand of a product would be determined by the market.
Dr. Vadivel went on to explain that farmers in different regions would come together to form Farmer Producer Groups (FPGs) and cultivate the same crop in all their land. This would reduce the input cost and increase the bargaining power.
Farmers can buy machinery at cheaper rates and use it by formulating a system. Sophisticated technology can be put to use by Farmer Producer Companies (FPC) as the monetary sanctions available to them would be higher.
Some small-scale farmers like K. K. Kalyani from a FPC displayed millet-based products like podis, dosa mix, instant rice mix, soups and “sathu maavu kanji” (porridge) at the event. He said that the company had benefited from the collective farming method as yield had risen.
C. Murthy, Additional Director (Seeds), said that the introduction of this new farming was to double the income of farmers before 2020.