Mr. Vijay Kolekar will present his APS as per the detail below:
Date: 5th March 2024
Time: 16.00 - 1800 hrs.
Venue: Conference Room No.1, CTARA Office
Title: Agriculture Extension Services in Maharashtra: Study of Challenges and Ways for Improvement.
Supervisor: Prof. Bakul Rao
Co-Supervisor: Prof. Parmeshwar D. Udmale
Abstract
The current research work on “Agriculture Extension Services in Maharashtra: Study of Challenges and Ways for Improvement” is being conducted with the objectives to review agriculture extension services of Government of Maharashtra keeping Agriculture Assistant at the centre and to explore ways to improve the current extension services. During current APS, focus of the study was to analyse the duties, responsibilities, constraints and extension services given by the Agriculture Assistants and to understand the extension needs of farmers and Farmer Produce Companies. Agriculture Extension System in Maharashtra is characterized by the very fact that there are dedicated extension service providers in the form of Agriculture Assistants at village level and also the state has adopted extension reforms with establishment of Agriculture Technology Management Agencies (ATMA) in every district. The cadre of 11599 Agriculture Assistants is deployed by the Department of agriculture to serve the 1.52 Crore landholders doing farming in 42267 villages across 34 districts in the state. The agriculture extension services of the Government of Maharashtra go hand in hand with implementation of agriculture development schemes. Agriculture Assistants have major role in the implementation of the schemes besides dissemination of technologies. Additional workload due to more than 25% vacancy and additional responsibilities of non-mandatory work has risen burden on the working extension cadre. The Agriculture Assistants are possessing partial information of the villages. This information is less than what is required for better extension and development planning of the villages. In spite of the digital and social media information explosion, there is necessity to have face to face interaction between extension service provider and the farmers for enabling the later to take informed decisions. Time spent with the farmers is reducing day by day. The interviews of Agriculture Assistants and their supervisory officers as well as Group Discussions with farmers revealed gaps in effective extension as well as good practices and technological adoption. The digital system of MAHADBT and PoCRA-DBT have enhanced farmers’ trust in governance system with Agriculture Assistant as the interface on the field. Maharashtra being house of more than 50% Farmer Producer Companies in the country, there is strong reason to expect innovative extension model hand in hand with Agriculture Assistants Department of Agriculture with its training wing VANAMATI and RAMETIs is implementing need based and updated training modules for newly recruited Krushisevaks- who are going to be Agriculture Assistants after three years of service. The extension cadre needs to focus on enhancing the capacities of the farmers to cope up with changing climate and volatile markets. The constraints faced by the Agriculture Assistants can be overcome by motivation, effective governance and change in policies.