Hingalganj experience

Recently, I went to Hingalganj near Sundarban and Bangladesh. I met 53 farmers and noticed their failures in following five areas:

1. Inability to create customer;
2. Unorganized crop production;
3. Lack of diary writing ;
4. Lack of knowledge about risk analysis and financial management;
5. Lack of knowledge about project analysis and goal setting.

Their educational level ranged from class VII to B.A.

My visit was arranged by Shri Nilangshu Gain of Swanirbhar.
Ardhendu Bhattacharya was with me.

comment from orkut friend

Some of the problems faced by small farmer are;

Lack of knowledge: Lack of knowledge about modern farming techniques, Lack of knowledge about abt various govt measures, availability of farm loans and knowledge about use of pesticides are common among farmers. They are many farmers ( I guess more than 60-70%) who never approached agriculture department. Many of them are not even aware of existence of such institution.

Lack of better price: Most of the farmers do not get good prices for their produces. There is involvement of many intermediaries in between which result in less prices for the agri produces of a farmer. There are many farmers who are not even aware of APMC. People approach local dealer and sell their produce at the price quoted by the dealer. Since small farmers cannot afford to transport their products to mandis, they don't get a good deal.

Cost of farming : The cost of farming has increased substantially over the years. It is quite natural that the workers demand higher wages as they get similar salary outside. However we didn't see such a similar rise in the income of farmers. Earlier small farmers used to do most of their farm work with the help of family members. Since we don't have many joint families, the labor cost in farming has increased substantially.

Non availability of Labor: Non availability of Labor is one of the problem now and going forward it will be one of the biggest challenge for the farmer. People's attitude towards farming, the hard work involved in farming and other lucrative opportunities available are some of the reasons for that.

Dependence on single crop: Most of the farmers are small scale farmers and they rely on single farming and in case diseases or fall in prices incur huge losses.

I think multi tasking is one of the best way to become a successful farmer. Rather than depending on a single crop farmer should try multi produts. NGOs should come forward and help farmers in logistic issues and NGOs must try to educate famers..