Doubling Farmers’ Income is Possible Across Agriculture Sectors: ICAR

Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) started a state-specific plan for doubling farmers’ income in 2016 and entrusted the KVKs to take up the challenge of achieving doubling farmers’ income. To carry out this mission, KVKs adopted villages and worked with a technology-centric approach to guide farmers in adopting innovative technological options and good agricultural practices. 

The impact of the program transformed the livelihood of hundreds of farmers and farm families in the jurisdiction of each KVK.

As part of the Platinum Jubilee celebration of the country, ICAR documented the cases of 75000 successful farmers across the country keeping 2016-17 as the benchmark year and 2020-21 as the impact year to review the success of the mission. An increase in income was evident across all the sectors of agriculture including field crops, horticulture, livestock, fisheries, and farm/non-farm enterprises.

Here are the highlights of the program’s success:

The overall increase in income ranged from 125.44% in Ladakh to 271.69% in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Chattisgarh, and Puducherry recorded more than a 200 percent increase in income. Most of the other states recorded an overall increase in income in the range o 150 to 200 percent.

Horticulture had a dominant share in total income during 2016-17 as well as 2020-21 in 14 states like Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Jharkhand, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala. Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, and Goa are the top three states with a share of more than 60 percent in total income.

Field crops, although the share in total income is declining from 2016-17 to 2020-21, it remained the dominant source of income in 11 states, namely, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry and Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Haryana are the top three states in this category.

In terms of additional income generated during the intervention period, horticulture was the dominant component in 17 states, including the three north-eastern states Sikkim, Meghalaya, and Mizoram. The percentage share in additional income from horticulture was as high as 67.72% in Himachal Pradesh followed by 61.11% in Ladakh, 60.15% in Delhi, 59.15% in Kerala, 58.06% in Karnataka, 57.33% in Goa, and 55.89% in Gujarat.

Field crops constituted the dominant source of additional income in Punjab (30.13%), Uttar Pradesh (36.92%), Haryana (39.35%), Bihar (40.39%), Rajasthan (42.06%), Madhya Pradesh (48.46%) and Chhattisgarh (49.01%).

Livestock is the dominant source of additional income in the state of Assam (27.17%), Uttarakhand (29.97%), Arunachal Pradesh (36.55%), Nagaland (42.37%), Tripura (44.49%), and Manipur (49.01%).

All land classes benefitted from the KVK interventions. The landless category had the highest increase in income in the states of Ladakh (390.6%), Jharkhand (366.59%), Andhra Pradesh (342.97%), and Goa (303.02).

Marginal farmers saw an increase in income up to 298.10% in Haryana while Uttarakhand, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Assam also got increased income by more than 200 percent.

Small farmers in the states of Andaman and Nicobar Islands (273.86%).

Large farmers recorded the highest increase in income in Puducherry (405.26%) and West Bengal (3777.39%). Very high levels of increase in income were also recorded by the large farmers in Arunachal Pradesh (274.95%), Maharashtra (234.438%), Jammu, and Kashmir (218.75%), and Jharkhand (216%).

ICAR claims that the results reiterate the fact that doubling farmers’ income is possible across agriculture sectors, the nation, and the land classes. Science and technology-driven increase in income is a reality and could be pursued nationwide with the necessary back-up from administrative and policy support.