Hope Center

National Conference On Development Of Agriculture In Bihar – 2011: A Farmer's Journey from Field to Industry

Indian Agriculture has been a primary source of food, fiber and fuel from the time immemorial. Now the agriculture is much more than that. It is, at present, a source of raw material for agro – based and other industries. Agriculture not only engages a lot rural work force in it, but also generates employment. It can be visualized as an effective tool for poverty alleviation, self reliance, food and nutritional security and a lot more through its multi dimensional roles from field to industry in Bihar.

Indian agriculture has made rapid stride since independence taking the country to the state of food sufficiency from food scarcity. There has been an appreciable increase in the food production and its availability, but the actual benefit to the farmers is unevenly distributed. To bring the focus back on agriculture and horticulture many programs have been started in the mission mode by the government creating appreciable impact, but there is still a big gap between the production potential and the extent of achievement. Farming alone is becoming unprofitable due to declining productivity and many of the farmers are leaving farming while looking for other livelihood alternatives. Investment made by the government for increasing the production, productivity and availability of cereals, pulses, oil seeds and other horticultural crops has been rewarding in terms of increased production and productivity and the horticulture has emerged as the best option of diversification for increasing farm income over and above generating employment. India has emerged second largest producer of fruits and vegetables and it continues to have major share in the international trade of spices, cashew nut and onion. However 25 – 40% fruits and vegetables are spoiled due to lack of proper storage and processing. These are predominant reasons of emerging issues in the journey of a farmer from field to industry. Agriculture is the sole of Bihar. This state, endowed with high potential of agriculture owing to diversified natural resources, has been in four front of agriculture development in the past, by contributing to national income. Again second green revolution expected from Eastern states such as eastern U.P, Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa. It is also true that the economic development of Bihar will be governed by agriculture and agro based industries to a great extent. In the era of globalization, agriculture has to be competitive by harnessing the potential and capitalizing on strength by converting weakness into opportunities. The present era is an era of Biotechnology and Hybrid varieties of crops.

To harness the available potential, technological intervention is essentially required to bridge the big gap in eastern region of the country in general and state of Bihar in particular. In this context it is pertinent to have complete analysis of the varieties and technologies developed and factors effecting their adoption so that a gap between the present level of production and productivity could be abridged. Therefore, a national conference on DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE IN BIHAR – 2011: A Farmer's Journey from Field to Industry is going to be organized by the Inductus Foundation, Patna on September 17th & 18th 2011, with the technical support of many Govt. and private reputed institutions.