For sustained 4% growth in agriculture there is need to improve productivity and cut down on costs by improving efficiency. There is, therefore, an urgent need to provide package of initiatives for transfer of technology, improving input use efficiency, promoting investments in agriculture both in private and in public sectors and creating a favourable and enabling economic environment. The emerging needs in agriculture sector now are adoption of location specific skill and knowledge based technologies, promote greater value addition to agriculture produce, forge new partnerships between public institutions, technology users and the corporate sector, harness IT more effectively to realise financial sustainability and compete in the international market. For transmitting the latest agriculture techniques to the Farmers' field, orienting them to establish better relationship with banks, adoption of latest post-harvest handling technology, value addition, etc. and enjoy the benefits of collective bargaining power both for procuring inputs and select their produce the Farmers' Club Programme is an appropriate and most suitable strategy initiated by NABARD in late 1982. |