In practice, mostly the farmers use traditional methods of farming with traditional equipment. However, due to lack of awareness and expertise, the farmers fail to use the modern devices for farming. Due to lack of awareness, about 12,600 enrolled farmers under Athagarh District of Bhubaneswar, Agricultural Office were deprived of Government benefits.
These farmers could not avail the benefits of Government new projects for farmers and new agricultural equipment for enhancing the yields, thanks to the failure of the agriculture officials in creating awareness and updating the farmers.
While the officials in the District Agricultural Office are not aware of the technical knowhow and operation of the advanced agricultural equipment, it is easy to know why the farmers failed to avail their benefits.
As per data available in the District Agricultural Office , last year only 16 tractors were allotted against its target of 54, 90 power tillers allotted against a target of172, eight reapers against 18, 12 axial flow thresher against 27, eight combined harvester against 24 and 62 rotavators against 165. Similarly, hand winnowers, power threshers, and pump sets etc were also allotted far below their targets.
Assistant Agricultural Engineer Aviram Giri said the farmers don't know how to operate the advanced machines and rely upon the Rajasthan and Punjab machine operators who come seasonally.
As a result, the farmers don't get whole year benefits out of these machines for which they become reluctant to purchase the same.
On the other hand, the local farmers demanded that the Government initiate training programme for them and make available all tools and equipment. They also demanded that political recommendation for availing benefits under the Government schemes be done away with.
