Socio-economic interventions and agri'business management

Abstract

past policies for small farm agriculture, was much related to expansion of land area, provision of irrigation, introduction of Green Revolutlon technologies. [Fertilizer and irrigation) intervention through subsidy policies and marketing interventlons. Though these practices had positive results in terms of increasing land settlements self-sufficiency in rice, etc., this type of agriculture, has not been sustainable due to,stresses on the environment, non-resilience to natural and global economic challenges, sustaining high poverty rates of the farming community and heavy burden on the fiscal resources of the state. Hence, there is a need to change the system to be more sustainable and resilient to unavoidable challenges as weil as to get the best use of the available resources and production. This includes increasing production with Iimited resources as well increasing the availability of existing production for consumption. Though there have many positive impacts from the technological perspective, the socio-economic interventions have been limited, especially to maximize available production. In that context, linking cash transfers for practicing of improved technologies [Conditional cash transfers), farming as a business with value addition, diversification of the cropping/livesrock mix and markets, and adoption of mechanization to increase labour productivity are suggested.'Food security in the past was based on self-sufficiency, which has been at a huge cost to the economy and has not helped to increase the living standards of the farming community. Hence, food security should be a package of meeting critical food needs through local production plus, buffer stocking, importing, increasing exports of value added products and processing of excess production, Though some positive policy changes.have been suggested for value addition and agri-business development, still there is a lack of a coherent programme to implement these changes, and areas that have been neglected include;R&D,efficiency/competitiveness, diversifying the cropping mix& markets and skills training.