Strategy to bring out marginal farmers from the clutches of poverty.
Use crowd sourcing and multiple channel communication tools including USSD tools for areas with limited bandwidth and basic phones) for linking community members, such as farmers, with each other; keeping them in touch with markets for sales and supplies, and establishing and maintaining contact with expert informants and advice. Information from the farming community can be merged with off-line information (geographic, meteorological, hydrological, economic) before being returned to farmers in a focussed and timely way. At the same time and in a reciprocal, iterative fashion, the advisers can seek upload of critical information.The real-time and detailed data from the ground-up is collected and collated for immediate use but also can be used for analysis of trends. Linking farmers together increases their power as a voice for faming, in purchasing supplies and getting better prices from markets
In many cases what is needed to reflect on and then find alternative sources of livelihoods to marginal farmers. However this is much more easy written than achieved. Lost of effort is needed, training, often boosting confidence and skills.... and good ideas.....
The biggest challenges I see are twofold: 1) First, and largest is that youth don't want to farm/learn to farm, because they see it as too much work for too little gain as they are exposed to western wealth via technology; they are apt to work harder fighting to emigrate to cities for an advanced life than to stay in their rural communities where they've witnessed deep poverty. 2a) Water access, especially in communities experiencing drought or desertification- wells are expensive and built without integrity so collapse after a short period of time, and are often not viable for crop irrigation since pulling water is very hard. 2b) Fencing access- wild/rural animals or pests destroy hard earned crops, and fencing is expensive. To solve both problems, local governments should make farming viable through the promotion of local crops instead through trade protections (i.e. African communities buy cheap Chinese rice when there are local nutritious grains available). To solve the 1st problem, there should be an educational component in communities that provides real information and allows people to tell their stories of failed emigration, often resulting in destitution or even death (http://news.trust.org/shorthand/no-country-for-young-men/).
Ashwini Tiwari , we can't forget about roads, and what access to roads with structural integrity mean for people. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/12/how-far-do-roads-contribute-to-development/ and
https://www.microfinancegateway.org/sites/default/files/mfg-en-paper-infrastructure-for-agriculture-rural-development-in-india-need-for-a-comprehensive-program-adequate-investment-sep-2010.pdf
The best way is to integrate farmers in the market, or markets and promote their products if they cannot do it themselves. This would also trigger their care for the quality of products, as long as there is a demand coming from end-of -the- rope actors like restaurants, big shops and commerce.
The worst thing to do is to care only for self-consumption strategies, as many NGOs do, unfortunately.
Mam develop the farmer producer organization or company among that marginal farmers.
In as much as economic transformation is generally associated with diversification, one viable option to improving the livelihood of marginal farmers is to diversify their livelihood. Livelihood diversification simply refers to “the process by which rural families construct a diverse portfolio of activities and social support capabilities in order to survive and to improve their standards of living.” It could be basically considered as a risk management strategy that enables marginal farmers to build resilience with, for example, sector (farm or non-farm); function (wage employment or self-employment); or location (on-farm or off-farm) strategies to widen their subsistence options, thereby helping them prepare for shocks and cope after shocks.
The under listed articles on livelihood diversification, though not exhaustive, might come in handy.
THANK YOU @LAWRENCE , yes diversification of their activities, instead of only resting on agriculture is best option.
It depends much on the background. Here in Fiji farmers who live in coastal areas can try to get additional income from tourism. In others regions, near to cities farmers might be able to find employment in industries, but competition is high.
another aspect is that farmers need to be involved in the search for practical solutions...
Yes @ Eberhard sir, farmers are most important and they need to be involved at every step.
Your question is basically not only your question, but it is the question of United Nations also. At the same time, your question is super pertinent and complex as well. As per my opinion, one important solution is the sustainable income enhancement of peasants by adopting scientific strategies. Mitigation of crop losses is one way to increase the livelihood status of farmers.
Yes Mr sikdar I am agree to you, increasing the income of the farmer is only viable option and we can achieve it by adoption of integrated farming specially for marginal farmers.
Hello Ashwini Tiwari, you might also want to have a look at the article "On-farm diversification strategies and improved welfare of the immiserated rural smallholder farmer: Fallacy or realism?†", which I recently published Open Access. The article is an attempt to shed some light on how far rural livelihood diversification strategies go in empowering impoverished rural smallholder farmers to improve their welfare. It explores, from the lens of a diversification scheme implemented in Ghana, the utility of farm-level (on-farm) livelihood diversification strategies to the welfare of rural smallholders to generate needful insights and perspectives as to whether:
Please find the article below.
Article On-farm diversification strategies and improved welfare of t...
@Lawrence, thank you for your suggestions, i will go through the article.
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