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Training And Marketing on Wheels (TMW)

Empower the small and marginal farmers through training and marketing services.

Sandhya Kujur 1 Stories

Thursday November 24, 2016 , 4 min Read

Farmer facing a trouble with regards creating a value addition of their produce. So, lot of organization and policy makers giving an implication to create a value addition to shape farmer producer Company. While the central government, Agriculture is having a main concern of central government and state government draw attention to the several programmes which aims at development of the farmers.

At this time, the importance point is that in India 75 per cent of farmers are marginal and small. They are not able to getting the information of government programmes or they are not able to create their value chain process because it is very expensive. The idea behind this project title, generally farmers have to go for different institute for get training and for marketing after harvesting the crop they sell it quick to get money to traders individually. After observing the operations of farmers from farm gate to market or sowing to harvesting, how this project can make it beneficial to them. Marathwada, a region known for its woes of drought yet an agrarian economy kindled an inspiration to drive a solution for the farmers who are bereft of the information much needed for their agricultural upliftment. As widely captured in various studies, the knowledge gets stored in a repository and remains unavailable for the vital use of the many that are in need of it. This is mainly due to the solitude of the government institutions which make them out of reach for the most thereby hindering them from progressive mechanisms.

As an Agriculture graduate from Birsa Agriculture University Ranchi(Jharkhand), Sandhya Kujur observed the technical difficulties with regard to modern technology of the farmers and also market side requirement. The value addition should match market side as well as the farmer side. Understanding of all these activities farmers are not adequately getting information how to create a value addition, their thinking of value addition after harvesting. Based on this issue she started a Farmer Technological Services and as well as marketing services require to be provided back young people where the farmers deficient.

This led to the creation of TMW services by Sandhya Kujur who is a student of Social Entrepreneurship, TISS. Further, having done agricultural studies prior to this, she intended to provide training and awareness to farmers about the technologically upgraded measures of farming in order to have an improved produce. This TMW services launched on 8th Aug in the district of Osmanabad as a pilot project .For the same, she selected Wanegaon, Sindgaon and Ramwadi villages and pigeon pea crop to begin with. After the pre harvest sessions, TMW provided for the post-harvest value addition measures to get the agrarian community a better remuneration. This was done by procuring the produce from the co-operatives of farmers and getting it graded, processed, packaged, labeled & branded.

Objective of the project was to create skill and impart knowledge to farmers towards improved resistant varieties and new techniques and to make farmers aware about the proper crop protection , fertilization application irrigation in crops. Suiting with the cropping season and demand in the market TMW services selected pigeon pea crop. TMW provided the pre-harvest support/solutions. Activities under this project- before the training session are discussion for the training need in the village & advertisement for training, Observing the gap in agriculture practice in village farms.

Content for the training she disseminated by training session like Scientific farming of various kharif crops. Soil Health Management Seed, Seed Production and Seed Certification, Rainfed Farming, Water Resource Management, Plant Health Management Crop Production (Packages of Practices of Major Crops), Good Agricultural Practices – Farming System Approach, Sustainable Agriculture, Climate Change and Agriculture. Farm Mechanization, Post-Harvest Technologies, Credit, Insurance, Marketing and Extension. Methodology for the training- Experience sharing by participants, Group discussion, Videos clips (Marathi language), Lecture on various topic by agriculturists, success stories through videos.

This brand of the farmers and for the farmers was launched on 22nd November, 2016 by the name of ‘Tuljai Tur Dal’. This has already created a wave amongst the farmers who now are steadily shifting to scientific agriculture and are taking interest in value adding to their own product to earn more under their own banner.

Visualization of this TMW project will occurred through the Social impact development project having capacity building of farmers they will produce more yield and budget will reduce, farmers will linkage and courage to solve the problems by discussing it.

Sustainability of the product in market after having the branding of the product these will capture the image in the mind of customers and buyers. There is also the increase the demand because of its good quality and shelf life.