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State symposium assam 2012
1. REPORT OF
STATE LEVEL WORKSHOP
ON
AGRICULTURE IN ASSAM SRI AND ISSUES FOR SUSTAINABILITY
ASSAM:
20th March 2012
Venue: Conference Hall of ‘NEDFi House’, G.S. Road, Dispur, Assam
Assam-781006
Organised by: Seven Sisters Development Assistance (SeSTA) in collaboration with RGVN and
collaboration
Actionaid
SDTT, Mumbai
2. Introduction
Assam is predominantly rural and the economy is primarily
agrarian in nature. Agriculture in Assam exhibits most of
the characteristics of underdeveloped/backward
agriculture, namely, a high dependence on agriculture for
livelihood, widespread practice of traditional farming
techniques and correspondingly low usage of modern farm
inputs, low levels and low growth in productivity and
incomes in the sector, widespread prevalence of
subsistence cultivation, poor / inadequate agricultural
infrastructure, and so on. Different government
organizations and NGOs have been engaged in various
projects in order to help the farmers to tackle the problems
and face the challenges. In order to discuss these problems
and challenges as well as to find out fruitful solutions a
state level workshop on ‘Agriculture in Assam: SRI and
Issues for Sustainability’ was organized by Seven Sisters
Development Assistance (SeSTA), a prominent NGO of
the region and Rastriya Gramin Vikash Nidhi (RGVN) on
20th of March in NEDFI House, Guwahti with the support
of PRADAN,Delhi, SDTT,Mumbai and Actionaid.
Representatives from various government departments,
NGOs and farmers participated in the workshop and gave
Power Point Presentations sharing their experiences.
1.0 Inaugural Session
1.1 Welcome and Inaugural Speech: Prof. Dulal
Chandra Goswami
Prof. Dulal Chandra Goswami, renowned environmentalist
and Chairperson of SeSTA inaugurated the workshop and
in his inaugural speech he stressed the need for the
cooperation between the people directly and indirectly
related to agriculture. He also said that scientific method
must be implied in agriculture as most of peoples’
livelihood of the rural area is dependent on it. He
expressed high hope that young and highly qualified
“Scholars of different fields
students have been engaged in agriculture and also need to bring their
working passionately for the overall development of this technology to the grass-root
sector. In his speech he gave a short description of the to help the poorest section
System of Rice Intensification (SRI), how it evolved. He
told that contribution of Dr. Norman Uphoff of Cornell
of the society”
International Institute for Food and Agriculture, Ithaca, -Prof. D.C. Goswami
USA is significant to popularise this technology among the
scientific community. Prof. Goswami told that being an
environmentalist, he also emphasised the issues of
3. environmental sustainability of our developmental
intervention. He appreciated the effort of the civil society
organisation in the field of popularising the SRI technology
at the grass-root level.
1.2 Brief Note about the Workshop: Dr. Amiya
Sharma
Dr Amiya Sharma, Executive Director of RGVN and Vice
Chairperson of SeSTA delivered a brief note about the
workshop. In his short speech he said that in order to make
the farmers aware of SRI method, this type of workshops
should be organized more frequently. Not only the farmers, “Such workshops help us to
but also the scientists and well-wishers must be invited to
such workshops. He told that such workshop help us to
understand different issues at
understand different issues at the implementation as well as implementation as well as policy
policy level and that could help the practitioner to find out level and that could help the
the gap for its improvement.
practitioner to find out the gap
2.0 Session-I: Present Situation of Agriculture in for its improvement”
Assam: Issues and Challenges before
small and marginal farmers -Dr .Amiya Sharma
Chaired by: Dr. Amiya Sharma
Panellists : Dr. Mrinal Barman, Assistant Director
of Agriculture, Govt. Of Assam
Tasaduk Ariful Hussain, NEST
Mr. Ratul Ch. Sharma, FCI, Assam
2.1 Dr Mrinal Barman, Assistant Director of
Agriculture, Govt. Of Assam
Dr. Mrinal Barman in his presentation pointed out that
75% of population of Assam is directly related to
agriculture and another 15% is indirectly related to
agriculture. He also focused on the fact that people in
Assam get engaged in agriculture only when there is no
other option for employment. He added that there is a
greater scope of employment in agriculture and youngsters
should realize it, because agriculture is the backbone of
Assam. He said that 60% of land of our state is unavailable
for agriculture and only 36% of land is available for it. But
the livelihood of 85% of people is dependent upon this “There is a greater scope of
36% of land, as such agriculture is very crucial as it employment in agriculture and
contributes ¼ of states’ GDP. He pointed out the youngsters should realize it
challenges faced by Assam agriculture are-(i)low per
capita, (ii)poor soil health, (iii)low
because agriculture is the
productivity,(iv)inadequate availability of quality inputs in backbone of Assam”
time, (v)low level of farm mechanisms ,(vi)vast mono crop
area, (vii) prevalence of rain fed farming and lack of -Dr.Mrinal Barman
4. irrigation facilities, (viii)lack of post harvest ,storage
,processing and marketing facilities, (ix) dependence on
outside sources for seeds, (x)warm and humid during
kharif season, (xi)inadequate credit for high cost input,
(xii)poor socio economic conditions etc.
He suggested some measures to face these challenges.
Primary focus to address the challenges are -
(i)improvement of rice based cropping system by
introducing SRI, (ii)stress on rice production by
introducing suitable varieties, (iii)diversified crop planning
wherever rice cannot be grown, (iv)increasing area
coverage of HYV paddy from 61% to 75% of total paddy
area , (v)expansions ion of area under Hybrid seeds to
augment and stabilize rice production, (vi)increasing seed
replacement rate(SRR), (vii)buffer stock of seeds for the
time of calamities, (viii)floriculture, (ix)value addition,
(x)support price mechanism, (xi)supply of market
information etc.
Dr Barman also spoke about the opportunities the state has
in case of agriculture.
2.2 Mr Tasaduk Ariful Hussain, North East Social
Trust (NEST)
Mr. Tasaduk Ariful Hussain gave a presentation on behalf
of Actionaid. He gave a power point presentation on ‘Rice
Risk of Assam’ and pointed out the market related risk of
rice production in the state. The population of Assam needs
11,500 Metric Tons of rice daily and 41 lakh MT of rice
yearly. In the same context the total rice production of
Assam is 40.7 lakh MT. So, there is only deficit of 0.7 lakh
MT. But, FCI in 2009-10 procured only 13 lakh MT rice
for various welfare schemes and unfortunately
procurement of rice from Assam during this period is only
“The increment of fuel price is
12,000MT. FCI procured rice from Punjab, Haryana and also creating problems for the
some other states and as a result farmers of Assam don’t farmers in case of irrigation. So
get the price what they should get. The farmers even don’t production cost also has
get Production Cost from markets. More than 70% of
people of Assam are agriculture dependent. The increment increased almost three times but
of fuel price is also creating problems for the farmers in the price of rice has not
case of irrigation. So production cost also has increased increased to that level. On the
almost three times but the price of rice has not increased to
contrary rice price has been
that level. On the contrary, rice price has been decreased.
Another striking fact is that farmers need 3000-5000 liter decreased”
of water for the production of 1 kg rice. In Haryana and
Punjab, farmers utilize the groundwater for this purpose. - Mr. Tasaduk Ariful Hussain
The people of those states don’t eat rice but they produce it
for Northern India. Furthermore, due to the transportation
5. of rice from distant states, fossil fuel is burnt in vain and
ultimate cost rises higher and higher. As a result FCI spend
more money for procurement than the actual Minimum
Support Price. Moreover our fertile soil and water sources
have been unutilized. Moisture content is also a fact in this
regard. It is said that rice can be procured if there is only
14% of moisture. But in Assam this content is never less
than 17% because of the environment temperature. In case
of Sali it is 17-19% and in case of Boro it is 20-22%. On
this argument FCI don’t procure rice from Assam. But
there is a paradox that rice procured from Haryana, Punjab
also catches the same moisture content within 24 hours.
FCI say that rice of Assam can’t be stored for a long time
for this reason .FCI can store rice for only 2 months. But
we store rice in our granaries in villages years after years.
According to Mr Hussain this is a ridiculous argument on
their part. As, he said, Assam government never asked for
proper norms in this regard. Oddisha government has
already done this; eventually procurement norms have
been changed. Again, there are inadequate numbers of
procurement centres in Assam. He said that in order to
procure, we have to follow mechanized drying system.
Nowadays we can dry 2 MT rice on a daily basis through
such systems. According to him there must be awareness to
meet the procurement norms.
2.3 Mr. Ratul Ch. Sarma, Food Corporation of India
Mr. Ratul Ch. Sarma from FCI also gave a presentation on
procurement norms of FCI and quality issues. Beginning
his presentation he said that procurement, movement,
storage and distribution are the four objectives of FCI. He
reiterated that storage capacity of FCI is only 2.7 MT. The
procurement problem , is also due to market structure. We
have to have regulated markets in Assam to tackle this
problem, in such regulated markets we will be able to
procure rice from farmers directly. FCI has requested the
Assam Govt. as well as Central Govt. to take action.
Citing some other reasons such as shortage of employees,
“There is urgent need for
FCI has not been able to purchase rice from farmer points. regulated market, modern
He added that, in order to tackle these problems we milling facilities and increasing
strongly need regulated markets. Moreover proposals to set
storage capacity of rice to tackle
up modern rice mills in the areas where rice production is
high e.g. Kharupetia have been given. Summarizing his the market related problems of
speech he said that there is an urgent need for (a) regulated rice”
market, (b) milling facility and (c) storage capacity.
-Mr. Ratul Ch. Sarma, FCI
6. 3.0 Session-II: Experience Sharing on Promotion of SRI
methods of crop cultivation in Assam
and other states
Chaired by: Mr. Biswanath Sinha, SDTT, Mumbai
Panellist : Mr. Satyanarayan Das, Farmer, Tamulpur
Mr. Ratan Das, RGVN, Guwahati
Mr. Tusar Das, SRI Secretariat of Livolink
Foundation, Bhubaneswar
Ms Dhruva Mukhupadhaya, PRADAN, Bihar
Dr Arunima Dev Choudhury, NFSM, Nagaon
Mr. Parag Boruah, SeSTA, Bongaigaon
3.1 Mr. Satyanarayan Das, Farmer, Tamulpur, Baska
“In the starting our farmers failed
to believe that how transplantation
Mr Satyanarayan Das , a farmer from Tamulpur ,Baska
of single sapling increases the
shared his experience of SRI method. He stated the fact
yield! But, after demonstration of
that farmers don’t show interest in SRI in general, but after
getting the benefit they adopt SRI. He emphasised how
SRI techniques at field level,
farmers of his region have been benefitted from SRI even farmers show interest on SRI and
in time of rain water shortage. He in this regard, stressed adoption of SRI techniques is
for the need of bio-fertilizer. He also said that farmers increasing in our area.”
clubs should be activated and officials of agriculture - Satyanarayan Das, Farmer
department must have friendly relations with the farmers
and through the KVKs there must be awareness
programmes on a larger scale.
3.2 Mr. Ratan Das, RGVN, Guwahati
Mr. Ratan Das from RGVN said that RGVN has
emphasized on awareness of SRI method. He stressed for
farmers training, field demonstration, input supply, and
also said that the master trainers must be selected from
among the farmers. If it is possible, farmers must be
trained up through satellite communications, and
emphasised on the training of Females involved in
agriculture.
3.3 Mr. Tusar Das, SRI Secretariat of Livolink
Foundation, Bhubaneswar
Mr Tusar Das gave his presentation on ‘Progress and
achievement under SDTT-SRI programme’. Giving a short
introduction of SDTT, Mr. Das said that SDTT-SRI project
presently covered 11 States of India and able to
demonstrated the SRI method of paddy cultivation with 1
lakhs small and marginal farmers. This SDTT supported “Demonstration at the state level
project is implemented through 127 NGO partners and able upto a reasonable scale to establish
to increase average rice yield to 4.68 t/ha, 38.8% more that SRI as a means to attain household
of conventional method(3.3 t/ha). Giving the example of food security is important”
NABARD’s initiatives to promote SRI methods, Mr. Das -Tusar Das
7. also explained the initiatives of different State government
to take this initiative forward. He cited the different
initiatives in the field of research and innovation taken by
SRI-secretariat of Livolonk Foundation.
3.4 Ms Dhruva Mukhupadhaya ,PRADAN, Bihar
Ms. Dhruva Mukhupadhya also shared experiences of SRI
method of paddy cultivation by explaining the context of
the poverty situation in Bihar and relevant of SRI. In her
presentation she told that SRI principle could be applicable
for others crop also giving the examples of SRI method of
mustard, sugarcane and wheat cultivation.
3.5 Dr Arunima Dev Choudhury , District Consultant
NFSM (rice),DAO office, Nagaon
Dr. Arunima Dev Choudhury shared her experience in this
“SRI is proved as a means for
regard and said that only direct field level involvement of meeting food security in small and
the agriculture officials can help the farmers to acquire SRI marginal farmers in Bihar and
method. In her presentation she gave a brief description of Jharkhand”
initiatives of NFSM in the regards of promoting SRI.
-Dhruva Mukhapadhya, PRADAN
Giving the example of ‘Community nursery’ and
harvesting paddy by the Agriculture Minister’ were good
initiative to popularise the methods of SRI at field level.
3.6 Mr Parag Baruah, SeSTA, Bongaigaon
Mr. Parag Boruah gave his presentation on ‘Experience of
promoting SRI in Lower Assam area’. In his presentation,
he stated the data that in BORO season there has been 50%
SRI traditionally which is not a new thing. According to
Mr Baruah production of BORO is higher than Sali only
because of the greater involvement of the farmers. He said
that in order to get the involvement of the farmers we
should make them aware of what exactly the agriculture
practice is. In this regard he said that well educated
people must go to paddy fields, and emphasised a strong
need of cooperation between NGO and government
agencies. NGO people are good at motivating but
government people have the resource pools. According to
Mr Baruah, involvement of all stakeholders is essential in “Direct field level engagement of
this regard. government officials is crucial to
popularise the SRI technology at
grass-root level”
-Ms. Arunima Dev Chaudhary
8. 4.0 Session-III : Addressing the issues in
Agriculture and Its Sustainability
Chaired by: Prof. D.C.Goswami
Panellist :Dr.A.K.Gogoi, Zonal Project Director,
ICAR, Shillong
Mr R N Talukdar, AGM, NABARD,
Guwahati
Dr Dhiren Kalita from KVK, Kamrup
4.1 Dr. A. K. Gogoi, Zonal project director of ICAR,
Shillong
Dr. A.K. Gogoi gave his speech on issues of agricultural
sustainability. In his speech, he appreciated the initiative
taken by SeSTA in organising the workshop on a very “Extension workers support should
relevant issue. He told that educating the farmers about the meet the need of the farmers
new agriculture techniques is very important and ICAR is requirement rather putting them in a
always in a very cooperative position to support such confusing condition”
initiatives. Giving the preference to the farmers’ needs, he
emphasised that extension workers support should meet the - Dr. A.K. Gogoi
need of the farmers requirement rather than putting them in
a confusing condition. By giving the example of work done
by KVK Mizoram on SRI, Dr. Gogoi told that today KVK,
Mizoram is known for the SRI. As an agronomist of more
than 30 years experience he suggested that extension
mechanism should meet the want of the farmers rather than
bombarding with various technologies which is not readily
understood by farmers.
4.2 Mr R N Talukdar, AGM, NABARD, Guwahati
Mr.R.N. Talukdar spoke about SRI initiatives of NABARD
to bring this technology to farmers’ level. He also gave
brief description of different NABARD initiatives for the
rural areas. He told that NABARD’s initiatives on SRI
could be able to increase the paddy yield by 50-60 percent
than their yield earlier. He said that banks have already
increased loans for farmers, but multiple cropping have not
been carried out so far. Two farmers from Darrang and
Nalbari districts also shared their experiences and pointed
out the different problems in agriculture they have faced.
4.3 Dr Dhiren Kalita from KVK, Kamrup
“Through SRI promotion
Dr. Dhiren Kalita gave his views on sustainability of the
agriculture in Assam. In his presentation he spoke about
programme of NABAR, farmers
the KVKs initiatives in this regards. Mr. Kalita said that could easily enhance their paddy
through SRI, farmers could be benefited more from yield by 50-60 percent,
cultivating small piece of land. - Mr.R.N.Talukdar, NABARD
9. 5.0 Open Session
Chaired by: Dr. Amiya Sharma
Dr. Amiya Sharma chaired the open session. In this session, participants raised different issues related
to agriculture and SRI methods of rice cultivation. Prof. Goswami pointed out two major challenges
faced by the agriculture of Assam- firstly, the perennial flood problem which affects thousand hectares
of land and the resultant sand sedimentation making the land unproductive for many years; secondly,
lack of assured irrigation facility at agriculture field. Prof. Goswami expressed that agriculture of
Assam is a gambling game of monsoon and irrigation facility of Assam, hence is one of the most
agriculturally underdeveloped in the country. Prof. Goswami suggested that one has to ensure quality
input supply and assured irrigation facility to improve the agriculture in Assam. Considering the
present agricultural practices in Assam, Mr. Sarat Ch. Das, CEO, Grameen Sahara told that at present
it is quite difficult for the small and marginal farmers to return back KCC loan to bank from their
agriculture produces. Mr. Das agreed with the opinion of Prof. Goswami and emphasised to provide
assured irrigation facilities to the farmers to adopt modern agriculture technologies.
Mr. Aswini Bhattacharjya of SeSTA told that agriculture in Assam is totally a political issue by
pointing out that FCI purchases 30 Lakh MT rice from outside Assam, costing 4 thousand cores,
which is much higher than the annual agriculture budget of Assam. Due to rice import, the rice price
of Assam goes down (less than Rs.600 per Ql) and farmers can not consider the agriculture as a
remunerative business. In this regards Mr. Bhattacharjya felt that the interventions of our people’s
representative like MP and MLA is very crucial. He also told that if farmers adopted SRI technology,
more production from less land can be achieved,which further help the farmers to diversify his
agriculture and earn more money from his own land.
Mr. Chadan Talukdar from GVM, Nalbari showed his interest to know more about the NFSM, Assam
approach to promote SRI in the State. One participant told that corporation between different
development stakeholders is very important to address the issues of farmers.
After a fruitful open discussion, Dr. Amiya Sharma formally ended up the session with a request to
submit the issues of participants in a written from to the organiser, to include those issues in the
proceedings of the workshop.
6.0 Release of SeSTA’s Handbook on Integrated pest and disease management in paddy
cultivation
A hand book prepared and published by Seven Sisters
Development Assistance (SeSTA) on “Integrated pest
and disease management in paddy cultivation” in
Assamese language was release by Dr. A.K. Gogoi of
ICAR, Shillong.
7.0 Conclusion and Vote of Thanks
The workshop was concluded successfully with the vote of thanks given by Mr Aswini
Bhattacharya from SeSTA.
